This could be a Merle Haggard kind of Christmas.
It was The Hag who sang the depressingly optimistic tune “If We Make it Through December.”
The song played on the radio the other day and although it was recorded in 1973, it didn’t take any leap at all to relate it to 2008.
Many families across our region are staring down the barrel of a long, cold winter. Like the man in the song, they have been laid off from their jobs down at the factory. Or the bank or the floral shop or the post office.
Local manufacturers have scheduled so many shut downs, cut production, eliminated shifts and made layoffs to the point that it’s no longer surprising to hear of yet another one.
But the news does add to that uneasy sense underlying our days. Worries are not just about vague economic concepts like the Dow Jones industrial average or the Libor. It’s about putting food on the table and covering the heat bill.
Gathering around the table this Thanksgiving, most of us gave genuine thanks for our blessings. Then had the urge to eat an extra helping of potatoes because it looks like we could be in for a few lean months.
Make no mistake, despite the gloom spilled across the business pages, we have plenty of reason to be thankful. Things here aren’t as bad as they are in, say, New York or California. Then again, who wants to live in New York or California, even on a good day?
There was that announcement of a new business at the incubator and there are leads on a few more. If we can just hang on for the next eight years until they become viable businesses.
Gas prices have dropped so much, I was able to splurge and buy a pop the last time I filled up. Falling fuel prices are likely to do more to pump up the economy than those stimulus checks did earlier this year.
I won’t overlook these nuggets of promising news. But I’ve also seen too many friends lose their jobs in recent months to dismiss their pain as bumps on the road of progress.
That pain becomes amplified this coming month.
Through December, the daylight hours fade and the cold sets in and settles in your bones.
It’s ironic that the season of goodwill, supposedly the most wonderful time of the year, causes such feelings of emptiness. Advertisements meant to generate consumer activity instead cause resentment about the wishes that won’t be fulfilled.
It could be a long month ahead, but I agree with Merle Haggard. If we make it through December, we’ll be fine.
