If the 1920’s were the Roaring Twenties, what will this decade be called — The Whimpering Twenties? The Weeping Twenties? So far, so bad, but perhaps we will all rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of 2020. One can only hope.

Here in the US, COVID deaths have now reached (surpassed?) an unimaginable 200,000, making it anyone’s guess how we’ll wrap up the year. (“Worse”, I could posit.) My parents — and maybe also yours — used to say, “There are two sides to every story.” In the current political climate that sentiment seems downright nostalgic, as we currently have a country with two distinct stories, each side primarily getting information from news outlets that support and calcify its entrenched beliefs.

Whimpering feels like the appropriate response. Or, you can do what I do: cover your ears saying “La, la, la” whenever the Great Pumpkin holds a news conference. That voice alone is like nails on a chalkboard, nevermind the inanities being spouted.

But this is not meant to be a political blog, so on to a new — and more uplifting — topic. I recently read about a Brooklyn tailoring firm known for working with customers of all shapes, sizes and gender identity that also offers a free bespoke suit to wrongfully incarcerated citizens who have been exonerated through actions of the Innocence Project.

A new suit won’t make up for years of misery and injustice, of course. But it helps restore a person’s sense of dignity and normalcy. And isn’t that something worth celebrating amidst all this lousy news?

Image by Harmony Lawrence from Pixabay