Here we are. The last day of the year. One of my favorite accounts on Bluesky, @heymrsbond, put this request out into the universe:
Brag about something you did in 2024. (Surviving counts!!)
Skipping over the personal stuff…I am still blogging. I guess that’s my way of surviving.
The numbers tell me that the most popular posts of 2024 were:
A Special Man, A Special Place about the founder of Pete’s Snowballs
Banner Takes Swing at Book Issue, Misses about the issue of book banning in the BOE race
The Day School Was Closed about the ongoing and crippling impact of deferred maintenance at Oakland Mills High School
The numbers don’t tell me which posts elicited the most interesting conversations in the comments section. I’m reasonably sure they are not the same posts. I should find a way to check that out. Sometimes the responses are more rewarding the the post itself. Obviously I love writing or I wouldn’t do this. But the comments section is where I get an opportunity to learn things I couldn’t have known otherwise. I like that.
Probably the greatest accomplishment of our community as a whole in 2024 is the emphatic rejection of M4L influence in the Board of Education race. I do think we can feel proud of that and, at the same time, acknowledge that our work there is NOT over. If we treat that issue like the deferred maintenance at OMHS, then the education of all of our students will be put at risk.
A community joy? The opening of indie bookstore Queen Takes Book in Columbia.
A community sorrow? The closing of The Third in May.
Community disappointments? I think the long slow fizzle of the Lakefront Library is such a missed opportunity but there’s no denying it didn’t set everyone aglow with spark of possibility the way it did for me.
We still desperately need more housing.
Resource-hoarding and racism still hide behind pleasant and respectable faces.
The Columbia Association has a new President and I have seen next to nothing about him online which past experience tells me is probably…a good thing? You never can tell when it comes to the CA Board, though.
What do you think? What are your opinions on community accomplishments, joys, sorrows, and disappointments for 2024?
Let me know.
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