A pre-emptive
Happy New Year to my readers! All my life I’ve been a cynical person, and for
the first twenty years that I wrote the Oppenheimer Report it was mostly about character
assassination and tongue-in-cheek commentary on current events. Of late, the
reports have taken on a more serious tone. My wife and editor Shauna is
concerned that I will lose my “12 loyal readers”, but it’s not as if I’m going
to experience Kevin Spacey fall off the face of the earth kind of anonymity,
because I’ve always BEEN anonymous! The fact is, I’m a very different person
than the guy who started writing this report as a New Year’s resolution in 1992.
At the time, my directive was to write a page about the week, a postcard from
the edge, and to do it for just one year. One year has turned into 29. I think I
might quit when I get to 30. For me, it’s always been about the discipline of writing
a page per week; something to give my ever-deteriorating brain a little much
needed exercise. It also forces me to sit down and take a moment to assess the
week in review. Typically, at the of the year I would try to sum up the events
of the year, but I think it would be impossible to do that for 2020. I wrote to
someone the other day that 2020 has become a numerical swear word. Go 2020
yourself.
I’ve had a melody
rattling around in my head for the past couple of weeks, and out of that melody
I wrote a song to commemorate Christmas 2020. I wrote the lyrics last week and
finished the song on Christmas Day. I was excited to complete a song, any song,
because I’ve been in a long creative dry spell lately. The song is entitled “The
Good Fight (Christmas 2020)” and I posted my very stripped-down performance of
the song on Facebook on Boxing Day. Indeed, this was a strange one for most of
us. A lot of people have written pandemic songs lately, and very few of them
seem hopeful. The message of my song is that 2020 really sucked, for most of the
world, but that I have not thrown in the towel. I wanted to record something for
my 12 loyal listeners to acknowledge that there is always hope where there is
love. The inspiration for “The Good Fight (Christmas 2020)” was John Lennon’s well-known
Christmas song “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”. Although it will not likely be heard
by many, I’m glad I put it out there. I needed to end 2020 on a hopeful note. All
of my songs are journal entries and I needed to write at least one song to
record the remarkable year which has just passed. We can’t change what has
happened, and we certainly have little control over the hearts and minds of
those who don’t believe what we believe. All I can do is adjust how I behave.
This is a pivotal point for mankind. History will likely sanitize the insanity,
but I doubt anyone will be able to rationalize it.
I didn’t intend
to write another report in 2020, but I just had to say this: annus horribilis, don’t
let the screen door hit you on the way out. Kudos to Hunters Bay Radio for giving so many
of us locals a voice, and for doing so many good and charitable things in our
community. This season Jeff Carter and The Bay Food Crew delivered (I believe)
over 1000 full dinners to local food banks, putting a huge dent in the local problem
of food insecurity at a time when it is needed most. There are good people
everywhere, and I intend to focus on those people in the new year. I hope you can
do the same. Shauna and I are proud and
thankful to be affiliated with this great radio station. May 2021 bring us all
hope and prosperity. Keep fighting the good fight, and if you don’t believe in
the good fight, then “2020” YOU!
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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