My friend Ryne had a bad year even by 2020 standards. He’s feeling and doing much better now as you can tell from his latest post.

Hope Is A Winding Road, But It Comes Eventually by Ryne Hancock

Apart from my biking to deliver food, last spring wasn’t filled with festivals and social bike rides.

It didn’t include trivia nights at Tracey’s, open mics around the city, late nights at Igor’s, or being behind a mic at a radio station.

My socialization last spring was limited to the customers I had with my day job as well as the dumbass neighbors I had in my complex. The more time went on and the amount of tragedy piled up on my plate, the less hopeful I felt about the remainder of the year.

In a four-week span, from the time New Orleans went on lockdown to mid-April, I lost five relatives, all to this dreaded disease, including one of my favorite uncles, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball.

“He just went in the hospital and didn’t come out,” my aunt told me on the phone.

To make matters worse, instead of being able to fully communicate how I felt with my friends or find refuge in being at the WTUL studios, I had to deal with the people in my complex. The day my uncle was buried, I went off on one of my neighbors when we discussed the former occupant of the White House’s handling of the pandemic.

“What do you want him to do?” my neighbor asked me.

“Give a damn,” I replied.

“But we’re getting stimulus checks,” my neighbor retorted.

“I don’t want to hear any more about that. I’ve lost five relatives in a month’s time and the last thing I want to hear is something about a damn stimulus check.”

Safe to say I didn’t interact much afterwards with my neighbors. There was the occasional dart game here and there, but whatever joy I wanted to find in those games got snuffed away because people either got too rowdy or someone had a fight, which in turn made me feel even more isolated from my neighbors as the year progressed.

To make matters worse, one of my neighbors assumed that I was on meds for whatever reason, which made me retreat even more. A lot of times when I would return home from work, I’d just go inside and fall asleep, something that I would do when I lived in Memphis.

That was my life mostly for almost a year.

The day before Biden got inaugurated, some leftist dude said that nothing was going to change with him in office.

“Have you not seen the last four years?” I asked him.

For the first time in a year there’s actual hope. Instead of doom and gloom posts, you’re seeing people talk about plans for their summer and vaccine selfies.

You know, hopeful things.

Think about what would have happened if that orange dolt were still in office.

I guarantee you we wouldn’t be discussing hopeful things.