By Jack Canfora
Happy 2022! Well, let’s not put too much pressure on ourselves: happy 2022. Better. Punctuation makes such a difference. I’m a little late this week for my Thursday post, but I figure, it’s five o’clock on Thursday somewhere, right?
Actually, I just googled this. Turns out that’s wrong. Still. Here are some of my hopes and predictions for 2022. Just think how fun it will be to come back to this post in December and see how accurate they were (presuming your definition of “fun” is remarkably elastic). Here we go:
Hope: That we can finally begin to beat back the scourge of CoVid to the point where our lives can come to resemble some semblance of what they looked like in 2019. Let’s face it: CoVid, in one form or other, is here for good. But thanks to science and, with a little luck, some calm reasoning reaching enough people, we won’t have to live in a world always one cough away from massive shut downs and isolation.
Prediction: my lifelong streak of never using the word “fungible” in conversation will continue
Hope: That the chilling gains made by the forces of autocracy around the world these last five or so years starts to reverse.
Prediction: I will lose my keys an average of 3.7 times a week
Hope: We can feel less stress and isolation than most of us have been dealing with for almost two years now (or 47 years, in my case).
Prediction: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by the seemingly ageless Tom Brady, will finally win their first World Series. A feat made all the more impressive by the fact the Buccaneers play football, and aren’t even a baseball team.
Hope: we can find it in ourselves to view those with different political views as just that, and not enemies.
Prediction: Those Lincoln television ads from a few years ago in which noted actor and hunk Matthew McConaughey spews pseudo-philosophical/poetical gibberish will be finally decoded by a research team at MIT to reveal the secret to eternal life as well as a surprisingly zesty Cole slaw recipe.
Hope: Things will get, in some ways, if only a little bit, better.
Prediction: They will, provided we pay enough attention.
I wish you all the 2022 you wish for yourselves.
Pretty pretty please follow me on Instagram and Twitter, where I reveal the winning Powerball numbers the night before @jackcanfora
Also, while you’re at it, please follow my online theater company New Normal Rep on Instagram and Twitter, where we give away valuable prizes (that is the prize of quality theater) @newnormalrep
That Bucs prediction had me confused, and then howling 😂 What a great post. What great hopes. I also hope the trend towards autocracy reverses.
I’d say “happy new year,” but the radio DJ had a lengthy call-in chat about that: the twelfth day of Christmas is apparently the last day of the new year to extend those wishes. So consider it said on Wednesday.
Haha. Thanks so much!
“Hope: Things will get, in some ways, if only a little bit, better.
Prediction: They will, provided we pay enough attention.”
Profound, Jack. You opened us up with your humor and then delivered the goods at the end. Beautiful post!
That’s very kind of you!
So, a kinder, gentler year with more roughage? A cross between Tiny Tim and Rammstein? Timstein works for me. I predict I won’t get one bit saner, but I enjoy your posts nonetheless, or maybe because of. Now about that zesty coleslaw..?
Thanks so much!
Another beautifully written,entertaining and thought-provoking post, Jack. While I strongly agree with all of your ‘hopes’ the stand-out for me is the one about accepting that those who disagree with us are just that, and not enemies. For me, the worst thing about Covid, worse than the death rates, worse than the lockdowns, has been the scapegoating and cancelling of scientists, writers, politicians and just plain ordinary folk who have the temerity to question the mainstream. And, to be honest, some on the sceptical side who toss unpleasant epithets at those who do accept the mainstream (‘sheep’, ‘bedwetters’ etc.) which is every bit as repulsive. Let’s start talking to one another in 2022!
Amen, and thank you for your kind words!
I really like the hope and prediction format of this post! Great stuff