This is my last column of the year. A quirk of the calendar puts the Sun’s annual year in review issue pretty much smack dab on Christmas, and then 2015 will be here, along with that distinct new year smell I always enjoy inhaling, even if it does make me dizzy.
As I look back at (almost) 365 days of craziness, I find that I can’t even remember what was happening back in that dry January of 12 months ago.
I do know, however, that in addition to bidding goodbye to 2014, I’ll be saying farewell to Will Smith, one of the most frequent regulars in my column of the last couple of years. The outspoken and notorious member of the Santa Maria-Bonita School District Board of Trustees didn’t manage to hold onto his seat in the most recent election. In fact, it may have been his reputation for causing disruptions and stirring up standstill-inducing dissent that put him at the bottom of the winner’s pile come Nov. 4.
I didn’t chirp about him quite so much throughout this past year, but he certainly took more than his share of ink in 2013 and earlier as he survived a 2012 recall attempt and racked up references to complaints, litigation, and more on the district level, eventually going so far as to paint himself and the rest of the board—or at least its legal representation—as enemies.
President Abraham Lincoln and Jesus agreed that a house divided against itself cannot stand, but the board of trustees seems to have come through a rough couple of years with its proverbial foundation and roof still intact.
This is not meant to be a “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” sort of message to Smith. On the contrary, I mean it as a heartfelt but somber note of closure. In this time of reflection on peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, I truly hope that both sides—Smith and the district—find some measure of respite from their cyclic battles. May Smith’s spirit of not settling for status quo and standing up for personal beliefs remain, even if the mechanism by which those qualities were frequently exercised doesn’t.
I must admit, however, that I am also bracing for what could be to come. I would think that the board might function better without Smith among its ranks, but he is also free to continue to comment and criticize as a member of the community. I honestly have no idea how their relationship will continue to develop in 2015.
But that’s the big question, isn’t it? Not about Smith and the board, but about life in general.
As I look back at my 2014 scrapbook of clipped-out columns, all lovingly pasted into an album with flame-sided monster trucks revving across the cover, I see patterns emerging, stories that have taken weeks, months, and even years to unfold—stories that are still unfolding.
I’m reminded of how frequently I’ve written about violence: sexual assault, rape, murder. Of the Isla Vista shootings and stabbings that wounded the county earlier this year, of the uphill battle rape victims have faced in their respective quests for justice, of the man who was killed and found in the back of a moving truck and for whom justice continues to wait as jurors are just now being selected for the massive undertaking the trial will be, considering the numerous defendants.
I’m reminded of the people who struggle to make their voices heard above the chaos: the aforementioned rape survivors desperately seeking someone to believe them instead of questioning, shaming, and blaming them; the protestors making their presence known at Vandenberg Air Force Base to stand against weaponry, the likes of which this world has never seen until recently; the population of a scattering of islands half a world away that wants the whole planet to know that they exist as something more than a target for American military tests, that nuclear proliferation has made this Earth a more scary place, not a safer one.
I’m reminded of how incredibly thirsty we are: for water, literally, as California dries out; for truth in an increasingly muddled and muddied arena of gossip, innuendo, and rumor presented as fact; for relief from the crushing weight of trying to make our way in a world that can’t even agree on whether there’s a problem as large as global warming or ocean acidification or the systematic and systemic trampling of human rights, dignity, and lives for nothing more than greed.
I’m reminded that each year, as the clock counts down and we get closer to the fresh and trembling dawn of a new cycle, I’m reminded of these things, or things like them, and I wonder if anything is ever going to change.
It could.
Right?
May your every wish come true, may the calendar keep bringing happy holidays to you, and may the merry bells keep ringing. Send comments or tips to the canary by emailing canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 18-25, 2014.
