{"id":1612,"date":"2017-01-02T12:22:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T17:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/?p=1612"},"modified":"2017-01-02T12:22:01","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T17:22:01","slug":"happy-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/happy-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent last night watching as 2016 sucked in its last breath. A death rattle many around the world were glad to hear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So much pain and horror\u2026so many celebrities that us regular folk held in high esteem left us (Bowie, Rickman, Wilder, Lenny, Carrie\u2026loads more. The full list is HERE<\/a>).<\/p>\n

My father left us. Left me.<\/p>\n

For fifty years or so, I would always turn to my dad when life became overwhelming. As a child, it was advice when dealing with bullies or–in quiet whispers on the eve of my first day in 1st<\/sup> grade–sharing a fear that I might not be able to ever read. Later, I sought his wisdom on girls or career decisions or corporate politics. I remember his calming voice and reasonable, measured, language whenever the next crisis happened.<\/p>\n

Vietnam. Reagan shot. Challenger<\/em> and later Columbia<\/em>. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

9\/11.<\/p>\n

He had thoughts on the Russian Civil war of the 90\u2019s and Putin\u2019s invasion of the Ukraine. He thought that 80\u2019s fashions were stupid (no comment from former mullet-boy here). He thought George W. Bush was an idiot, but loved O\u2019Reilly on Fox.<\/p>\n

He was afraid Trump could win the whole thing. And he was right.<\/p>\n

But dad missed that.<\/p>\n

It was right after the election that I received a call from my daughter. She was in tears over the outcome. Boys in her school were\u2026inappropriate\u2026about the Trump victory (a fact I explained in no uncertain terms to said boys and to their parents, but that\u2019s another story).<\/p>\n

I spoke to my girl. We talked through the crisis. I calmed her down. We spoke about what she could do to make a difference. I used reasonable, measured language.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when it hit me. For all that was 2016, all the negative election crap, the rise of \u201cAlt-Right\u201d and \u201cPost-Truth,\u201d something amazing happened.<\/p>\n

I became my father.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The darkness that was 2016 had a glimmer—the slightest jewel\u2014of hope.<\/p>\n

And, as I\u2019ve been told, rebellions are built on hope.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent last night watching as 2016 sucked in its last breath. A death rattle many around the world were glad to hear. So much pain and horror\u2026so many celebrities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1615,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions\/1615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}