I’ll be honest with you, 2020 was not the year to start writing a newspaper column with a focus of trying to promote positivity. Good lord, we started the year with catastrophic flooding. We quickly moved on from that to 40,000,000 unemployed and over 100,000 deaths due to the pandemic. Let’s not forget about the murder hornets, then another flood, and no one will soon forget the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Right now, it looks like “Tiger King,” on Netflix may be the most normal thing to come out of 2020.

Unfortunately, 2020 still has quite a few tricks up her sleeve. Businesses, not-for-profits and other groups are waiting with bated breath to see if we’ll be able to hold the world-famous Pendleton Round-Up & Happy Canyon Night Show. So many organizations depend on the second full week in September, it will be devastating if it does not happen.

We don’t know what next school year will look like yet. Fans may not be in stadiums watching college football in Corvallis and Eugene (although the Ducks losing that home crowd advantage does put a little smile on my face). Then there’s this one, boys and girls: we still have election season coming. If former Vice President Biden starts to show his face again on the campaign trail and President Trump continues to Tweet, we’re in for a very sporty September and October. The cable news stations will be almost unwatchable, as will my Facebook feed.

And then there are the Zombie Fires; look it up, it’s terrifying.

Is there room for hope and positivity in 2020? That’s a solid maybe. So far, COVID cases aren’t going through the roof in Umatilla County with Oregon’s move to Phase 1. By my careful calculations it looks like the new case counts have continued to fall here in our neck of the woods. Most Oregon counties moved to Phase 2 of Oregon’s COVID-19 restrictions.

My kids just celebrated their last day of school. As such, I’m going to take a liberty here and issue my own Tip of the Hat to Pendleton teachers and staff for making lemonade out of some rotten lemons the last few months. Although three different emails from the algebra teacher some days seemed excessive, I appreciate the commitment to my kids.

Cabbage Hill is getting new lights and signs to make it a little safer to drive over the mountain. Pendleton is starting to see a little work on the roads. It appears vodka comes in no less than 15 flavors, now (I’m not willing to admit to you how I know that).

Moving on, the NBA just voted to start playing something similar to a basketball season again. The NCAA said athletes could be back to voluntary workouts at their schools. And in what is the coolest thing I’ve seen recently, SpaceX and NASA launched Americans into space from American soil on an American-built rocket for the first time since 2011.

The babies of spring are showing up in good numbers on the range and in the woods. The mushroom hunting has been phenomenal for those of us who hit the shady patches in the last month. Of the 31 days in May, I counted only two days in which people failed to pick up the messes their dogs made on my lawn at work; this is likely a record.

While it appears we’re sending graduates off into the world at precisely the wrong time, I have faith in the future. They will make discoveries, invent needed equipment, and create unbelievable art.

While we haven’t been able to see our kids on the ballfields and on the courts, the lockdowns have certainly brought families closer together. Hopefully, we will see this trend of families walking together, riding bikes together, and eating dinner together continue long after we have all forgotten about the virus.

With all this in mind, I think it’s time for us all to make another New Year’s resolution. Let’s resolve the rest of 2020 is going to be great. Let’s learn from our cycles of making the same mistakes over and over again. Let’s be smarter and more tolerant in how we engage with each other. Let’s thank God for what we have previously taken for granted. Maybe if we turn toward optimism, and each of us strives to be a better person, the rest of 2020 will make us feel more complete and be more satisfying.

As I see it, we have the opportunity to move away from the doom and gloom of late winter and spring while we make our way to a sensational summer and bountiful fall.