2021 has been a tough year for America and the world. A pandemic. A siege of the Capitol in Washington. A vaccine that is being ignored by many as Covid-19 mutates and continues. A man (and others) who wanted to overturn election results at the eleventh hour, despite state after state having re-certified results. And now, Betty White has died at age 99, just three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.

Like oodles of young girls of the 1970s, I grew up watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show, with Betty as a single lady in the newsroom who wasn’t afraid to show her confidence and her sexuality. Betty was included in a list in my first book, The Female Assumption, as a celebrity who went on record to say she enjoyed her life without motherhood. Others on that list included Katharine Hepburn, Bo Derek, and Lily Tomlin. No one should be judged selfish or defective if they don’t want what others want. At least that’s how Betty felt. And I’m with Betty.

Betty was famously private about her politics. But as the 2012 election loomed, she went on record as saying she was “very, very much in favor” of Pres. Obama in that election. She also claimed to be bipartisan, which is a good thing. It is exactly because of the polarization of each side of the aisle that America has gotten away from some “greater good” goals and mindset. I’ll leave that right there. Let me just say, once again, I am with Betty. I’m for bipartisanship and not supporting a party for the party’s sake. Critical thinking skills are required in all matters, and no party has it all going on.

Wherever you sit, one thing is clear – America is in trouble. What happened on January 6 is the preview, as political historians are saying. Career historians who highlight equity and silenced voices are the ones I read most. Thus, when it comes to being in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, it is history that informs my worldview and actions.

One hundred years ago, America and the world had just inched past the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 – called the Spanish Flu because Spain reported on it amid WW1, while other countries – the ones fighting – remained mum. Even as it killed three children in one family within days of each other in my rural hometown in northern Illinois, the press was silenced. It swept through military camps stateside and sickened my grandfather to the point that he was never sent overseas to the war. He caught it at Camp Mills, NY – something I found out only once I wrote my fourth book earlier this year (The Secret Life of Postcards).

68 years ago, the world was about to embark on the fight against polio. The first vaccine was administered in February 1954. My mom, who caught polio as a baby, likely from her asymptomatic father, was pregnant with her third child at that time the vaccine came out. She must have been relieved. With polio, whole towns rallied behind the goal to vaccinate. Rotary Club International made it their mission to eradicate it worldwide (we’re not there yet).

2021 brought the first anniversary of the release of my second book, an Images of America book on my hometown of Manteno, IL. My mom was at its book launch. A few weeks later, they locked the doors of the nursing home. We spoke by phone. And we looked in through the window. She died four days after her positive Covid test. Sometimes, it still doesn’t seem real.

2021 also brought the second anniversary of the biography of David Johnston which I wrote., titled, A Hero on Mount St. Helens. David grew up on Oak Lawn, IL, a suburb of Chicago, and found his way to volcanoes. He was working for the USGS as a volcanologist when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 (at 8:32 am PDT on the 18th of May). I am eternally grateful to University of Illinois Press for publishing this book, and for NOT holding its release for the 40th anniversary, which would have been in May 2020. That book’s “reach” has been limited due to the pandemic. But you know what? The story of how he lived is out - never to be overwritten or silenced.

Thank you for reading this post. Thank you for allowing me to enter your mindscape today. Leave a comment if you’re willing. Sometimes, it feels as though I’m typing just for me. That my words echo into a void. But that’s writers for ya! (smile).

Happy new year. Be well, be safe, be kind, be a critical thinker.

Melanie Holmes