This is normally a time of year where a lot is happening. The clocks move forward an hour and we get more daylight later in the day. Like it did last week, the weather starts to warm up and if often gives us a tease of what lies ahead.
And, in West Hudson, it’s the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. As was the case in 2020, there won’t be one in 2021.
But it seems like the COVID-19 curve we’ve heard so much about is finally flattening. Cases are down. Thankfully, so, too, are the fatalities. Millions of Americans have been vaccinated. Kids are slowly returning to school. And, there’s hope that by July 4, just a few shorts months away, we might even begin to be able to have small-scale gatherings.
So while there is great disappointment that for the second-consecutive year there cannot be a St. Patrick’s Day parade, more and more it looks like once March 2022 rolls around, it won’t even need to be up for discussion that there will be a parade. There will be a sense of what life was once like. There will be a sense that we’ve come a long way. There will be a sense that what we miss — all those small things we’ve taken so much for granted — could once again return to our lives.
Did you ever think for a moment just how much we’ve missed the parade? Did you ever think for a moment just how much social interaction seemed so simple two years ago?
So as we approach St. Patrick’s Day, without a parade, still we see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. We see how much we’ve taken for granted.
And while we long for all the things that have been taken away from us, we should all take some solace — because if we all do our part in the coming months, all those things may soon, again, become a reality.
Can’t ask for much more than that.
Learn more about the writer ...
Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.