There is a lot to be depressed about right now.

The debacle in Afghanistan continues to spill out across TV screens, online and in print.

Fires rage and drought has a stranglehold on much of the western United States.

COVID-19 cases continue to climb — and Umatilla County recorded its 100th death from the infection recently — even as a vaccine remains readily available.

Yes, no one must look very far to find something to be angry, depressed or sad about. Yet, the world isn’t all doom and gloom. I think from time to time we forget that fundamental axiom.

Our national economy seems to be doing well and ahead lies autumn, and the local area will have a whole lot to look forward to when September rolls around.

The Pendleton Round-Up will kick off its week-long run in September, and there is nothing that excites me more than the prospect of a full Round-Up Grounds in September.

The Round-Up is an iconic fixture for not only Umatilla County and the Northwest but for the entire nation. The event will offer up a variety of special events — including the world-renowned rodeo — that should spell a whole lot of fun.

There is nothing quite like the Round-Up, and every year I discover some element to the event that grabs my interest.

Fall also means the start of school and that, in turn, will translate into a full slate of high school sports across the region.

As an old sportswriter, not much is as dear to my heart than the memories I hold from the countless football games, volleyball matches and cross-country meets I attended when I worked in Malheur County for the Argus Observer.

Granted, that was a long time ago, the beginning of my newspaper career, but there is something special, something hard to define, about the start of high school competition in the fall.

I can remember countless nights standing under the bright stadium lights as prep football teams competed, or striding into gyms on a Saturday to watch volleyball teams go head to head. A lot as change since then. While all the teams remain, many of the leagues that I covered while at the Argus Observer are gone or have been modified.

What I think I remember the most about those Friday nights and Saturdays was the purity of the competition. I wasn’t covering players making millions of dollars, but watching young men and women compete and win.

We can all stop every day and see and remember all the things that are going wrong in our world. That’s why it is so important to stop and reflect on the good things that we must choose from.

Go to the Round-Up — albeit safely — and have a good time. And, if you want to, check out a prep soccer, football or volleyball game this autumn. At the very least those types of events will help you forget, if for only an hour or two, the negative elements to our world.