By Lori Welch Brown

Welcome to April, friends. Remember—April showers bring May flowers, and we have made it through the winter, not to mention the time change, mostly unscathed. Although—don’t mark my words here as NoVA weather is so unpredictable and who knows what to expect what with climate change, Mother Nature’s wrath, and the 24/7 weather channel that has us all running to Walmart for TP and milk every chance they get. Snow could be in our future. H-E-double toothpicks. Secure the compound—a blizzard tsunami earthquake tornado could be headed our way.

Not to be all Debbie Downer—it’s just hard to know what—or whom—to believe any more. ‘Real’ news? Fake news? Facebook news? You can’t believe everything you read or really ANYTHING you read. Anyone with access to a phone is a bona fide expert. Education/certification/publication be damned. Followers + influence = Facts.

So…who’s the fool? All of us it seems. 

That’s just one middle-aged woman’s cynical view these days. My previously rose-colored glasses have been tainted by a bright orange smear that prevents me from seeing anything clearly. I don’t want to get political here because it would only cause more division—and it’s the division that’s hard to stomach. All the whining and complaining and pointing fingers and promoting fake news—without any fact checking and/or verification of sources.

I can’t figure out how to create an IG thread (or why I should for that matter), but apparently nursery schools are now teaching three-year olds how to create a meme with a photoshopped image and a boatload of inaccuracies. Toss in an out-of-context quote—and BOOM—they’ve got a viral hit before they’ve learned to tie their own shoes.

Can’t we go back to a simpler, easier time? Like when our grandparents didn’t have running water and only had to walk eight miles barefoot to go to school? How about when the only thing you had to worry about was what to kill for dinner and then you sat around the fire as a family, literally chewing the fat? Golly gee. That sounds nice. No one was calling each other a snowflake or a racist or wearing trucker hats with acronyms.

Or what about when we liked our neighbors because we actually socialized with them vs. staying in and streaming five seasons of The West Wing. We didn’t know their political views because—guess what? Prior to the invention of social media, not everyone exposed every single thing about themselves to the masses. No one cared if you were a Republican or a Democrat or a Catholic or a Warlock as long as you kept your grass mowed and your cars washed.

“Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?”

And remember that fun pandemic time when we all stayed in and played guitar and sang in harmony from our balconies and taught each other the proper way to wash our hands? And then we supported our local businesses by buying margaritas to go? Wasn’t that nice?

“Memories light the corners of my mind; misty water-colored memories of the way we were.” 

‘Now’ feels different. Divisive and mean-spirited. The double standards are mind boggling. The same people who argued against electric cars are now cheering on Elon Musk as he rips decades-long careers from our friends and family in the most inhumane of ways. The same people who spread ‘Sleepy Joe’ memes and chanted ‘Let’s go, Brandon,’ now decry anything that is less than respectful to the man who holds our highest office. The same people who were ready to hang Hunter Biden want us ‘fools’ to pretend that January 6th was nothing but a pep rally gone awry—like the kegger where you invited a few cool friends, and before you could say ‘keg stand’ another 832 kids showed up and no one is owning up to hurling in the urn on top of nana’s ashes.

“What’s too painful to remember, we simply chose to forget.” 

I don’t know about anyone else, but this fool wishes she could teleport herself back to 1982 when April not only meant that April showers brought May flowers (hooray!), but when the only fake news being delivered was when she came home from school and told her parents she was pregnant and then yelled, “April Fools!” Everyone let out a big, nervous laugh.  Then we pulled the foil back on our TV dinners, washed our hands (improperly as it turns out), and sat down to eat.

“So, it’s the laughter we will remember. Whenever we remember, the way we were.” 

About the Author: Lori is a local writer, painter and pet lover who loves to share her experiences and expertise with our readers. She has been penning a column for the OTC for over 20 years. Please follow Lori online on Medium for more missives like this.