One year ago this week I purchased a zippy new HP computer with a giant harddrive and a flat screen monitor. It still blinks at me flirtatiously not far from the decrepit Dell PC into which I am currently typing this blog. The Dell is tapped out, bloated, dust encrusted, but it soldiers on. In the last twelve months, I was unable to shift myself three feet to the left and begin using the new machine. That pretty much sums up the Year 2008 for me. (Continued below)
Up from the cellar, out of our coma
This year will be different. I can already feel the electrolytes of change running in my veins. The cocoon is bound to crack. A new day is dawning.
I spent most of 2008 promoting a new book. Suddenly it’s no longer new and there has been nothing in the pipeline. Now there are two books in the works for 2009 and two more banging on the publisher’s door. That kind of action, for an author, is like a trumpet blasting reveille.
The rest of my enthusiasm, of course, is due to Barack Obama. The poor guy hasn’t even taken office and he has half the wold in a frenzy of anticipation. Obama, of course, isn’t going to save us. We elected him as a way to save ourselves. Obama is simply the wake up call from a long and loathsome nightmare of our own invention.
Obama takes office this month at what we hope is the low water mark of American politics since Nixon was elected president. By the end of the Nixon era, America was indolent and our self-esteem was in the basement. Turns out we really had elected a crook, twice. Hunter Thompson got it right when he said that by making Nixon president, we proved that America really was a nation of 250 million used car salesman who only care about themselves. It took an entire generation to crawl out of that cellar hole, and then in 2000 we started the downward slide all over again. This time it was Jesse Jackson who warned us to "Stay outta the Bushes!" America didn’t listen, and by 2008, after shouting into the wind for almost a decade, many of us were close to catatonic from the loss of the American soul.
But no more excuses. Starting this month, we have to quit whining and get working. As promised, this web site is in the midst of a make-over. Old sections have been cut away like so much unwanted flab. New more muscular sections are under development. By focusing on local history, SeacoastNH.com has finally found its niche as we enter our 13th year online.
The books, like I said, are coming along nicely. Despite the economy, my wife says we are going to re-do the kitchen this year. I’d like to say I’m going to stop working through the night and start exercising like an athlete, but there are heights to which even Obama cannot inspire.
If you want to see how 2009 is shaping up here, stop by my office some time after the inauguration. Give me, say, a week to come down from my cloud. Then check to see if I’m tapping away on this exhausted 20th century Dell. If instead, the new computer has finally taken its place, then Obama was right. Change is possible, and "hope" is more than a four-letter word.
© 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.
Seacoast History Blog #25
