Complaints for the coming year

Pundits who study such subjects can predict what will happen nationally or internationally in the coming year, but I’ll stick to the small stuff. I don’t want to think about the political situation or our international affairs, but I can’t avoid the smaller irritants that are bound to ruffle my feathers in the coming year. And if I sound a little testy, easily annoyed, grouchy — well, there’s a rule that when people reach a certain age, they have a right to enjoy a little irritability. You can look it up. I reached that certain age a long time ago.

You can bet that on at least a couple of occasions in the coming year, someone not happy with what I’ve written will accuse me of being “politically correct.” This usually means that I have stated a position that is ethically, morally, and democratically unassailable and thus can only be attacked by the use of something on the level of “your mother wears combat boots.” I don’t do battle with children, so I ignore these ridiculous assertions.

Two or three times in the coming year, I will read or be told that the word “that” is usually unnecessary and should be eliminated from most writing. Writers who follow that advice will misdirect my brain at least half a dozen times when I read a sentence where the useful and familiar “that” has been dropped in the name of modern clarity and simplicity. I beg to differ with that.

There will be many times throughout the coming year when someone will allege, in written news reports, novels, or national television news, that “shots rang out.” I have heard bullets snap, crackle, and pop. I have heard them whine, snarl, and moan. I’ve never heard one ring out. And while I’m complaining about verbal inaccuracies, of which I no doubt employ many myself, let me suggest to any enemies out there that if you want to raise my blood pressure, use “irregardless” or “a myriad of” in a sentence. Yes, I know many learned persons, even the great John Steinbeck, used the latter in his writing. “Myriad” means “a lot of.” John was wrong. I’m right.

There will be in the coming year at least a couple of complaints that prayer has been taken out of school. It would be interesting to know how many of the complainers devote much time to prayer in their daily lives, but that’s none of my business. I do make it my business, from time to time, to point out that prayer has never been taken out of school. The government, as represented by school authorities, is to stay clear of official praying, but students are free to pray. I imagine teachers pray quite a bit too, silently and fervently, but not to a captive audience of students who may or may not share their religious beliefs. Yet no amount of explaining seems to mollify the wailers about the loss of prayer. They probably mock my explanation as just more political correctness.

Either soon after the end of the usual tree-pruning season or near the beginning of the next one. I will be attacked by friends, neighbors, and gardening columnists for cutting my crepe myrtles back too severely. Some people cut theirs back to short, ugly stubs. I do that about every other year, even though I agree that the trees do not deserve such butchering. But let me offer three points in my defense: First, they’re my trees, growing on my land, so I will do with them as I please. Second, left unshorn, they produce about two blossoms per tree, while the drastic cutting causes them to bloom in abundance. Finally, a friend set those trees out for me in their babyhood. I was unavailable at the time. Instead of setting them in the location I’d specified, he decided he knew better. Now, in their adulthood, they grow directly into AT&T’s overhead telephone line if not pruned excessively.

OK, that’s my personal look forward into the coming year. Having reviewed these important matters makes me feel so much better.

This story was originally published December 31, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Complaints for the coming year."