Nostalgic

I miss Point-Counterpoint.  Journalists Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick used to debate an issue for a few minutes at the close of 60 Minutes.  It was the 1970s and people were adjusting to civil rights and women's rights.  Every week millions of viewers looked forward to their lively back and forth on the major issues. Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtain would go on to parody the TV segment on Saturday Night Live.  Akroyd's best and most famous line, "Jane, you ignorant slut," still kills.


Of course I rooted for Alexander.  Kilpatrick's positions were easy to argue against because he was always wrong.  Context.  He had supported states allowing segregation before he opposed it.  He even debated his position with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  


Maybe it's the simplicity of the format that I miss.  It didn't go on and on and on.  It had a beginning and an end.  Nothing today exists like it.  Just the opposite. 


I am nostalgic today because tonight is the State of the Union speech. I will watch the speech and the rebuttal by Iowa Senator Joni Ernst. The never-ending commentary?  I will take a pass, at the same time desperately missing a shorter and sweeter point-counterpoint on the night's festivities. 






    

Welcome, 2015

I like our odds in 2015.

2015 is the year our son-in-law will graduate nursing school.  That will be nothing less than transformative for him, my daughter and their two children.


2015 is the year our son will find his personal and professional momentum.  He ended the previous year in a new job that is worthy of his skills and principles and ambition.


2015 is the year my youngest granddaughter will likely find out she is going to be a big sister.  I understand this is risky to predict, but I feel it's going to happen.


2015 is the year my husband will enjoy more out of life thanks to hip replacement surgery in late September.  The full benefits of it will be realized in the new year.


2015 is the year I, too, enjoy more out of life.  Just because.