Remembering Kobe Bryant and the Events That Followed

It was the Sunday between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl so I’m sure I was like many guys who said to their wives, “Let’s do something together today.”

Of course the reason was because there was no football and even in late January I’m not going to stay home to watch college basketball or even the NBA or NHL.

Jane and I took a ride to try a restaurant in Freehold we had never been to before for a late lunch/early dinner.  We walked into Moore’s Tavern, sat down at a table and noticed that most of the TV’s at the bar were showing pictures of Kobe Bryant and or debris from a helicopter that had crashed.

You know the rest of the story. The NBA great, his 13-year old daughter and 7 others were killed in a horrific crash.

I mention this not as much because today is the one-year anniversary of that tragedy but to me it was the start of a chain reaction that would lead to maybe the worst year in the modern history of our country and the entire world.

You had the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump which would end with his acquittal ten days later but it further divided the powers in Washington and of course our country.  Just a month after that it all came tumbling down when COVID-19 became a very real threat to the health of many and now we’ve lost over 430,000 lives and that number grows every hour.

Of course the political divide got even deeper and I will leave it at that.

A year ago we felt pretty good for the most part.  Things were moving along, at least for many and all signs pointed in the right direction.  Then a helicopter crash interrupted everything, broke our hearts and set off a series of events that were simply unimaginable.

2020 was a year like no other and it’s not like 2021 has gotten off to a rousing start.  For the sake of all of us let’s hope things turn around real soon.