What are we supposed to do with our time? In the days of old, when we were all farmers, this question would never have been expressed. In the farming world, there is always something to do.  

I am tired of the non-stop coverage of the Los Angeles fires. People have died and people have lost serious money, no doubt. But by the attention it is getting, placing the conditions in Los Angeles above the conditions in North Carolina, as a society we are revealing a prejudice of the first order.

This week, I have seen commentary arguing that the fires in California are caused by environmental problems. I will heartily agree – wealthy people of means building houses where they should never be built. Same goes for flooding beach houses. Homes should never have been built there to start with.

We have gone off the rails. Much can be assigned to the White House of the last four years; other actions can be assigned to others who took cues from the White House and ran with them.  

As a society, and I mean a worldwide society, not just the United States, we have a problem all right. That problem may be that we have not yet learned how to handle the speed of modern society.

They came up the stairs and got on the plane. It became obvious, three Secret Service agents and Jimmy Carter. Good that he had three Secret Service agents. I still want to strangle him for giving away the Panama Canal.

The headline to this column is attributed to the late Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois around 1968. It would need to be updated today, unless you are a farmer.

There is only one Christmas that is important – the first one, in a cow shed. Now known the world over, but not always for the right reason. As you celebrate this season, remember the real reason.

Expect a lot of pushbacks as DOGE comes into play. Expect a lot of turmoil. Services will need to be cut; jobs will need to be eliminated. There will be howls all around.

We have become a land of excuses with an ever-smaller portion of the population carrying the load for all. This is going to stop one of three ways.

In my last column, I hopefully regaled you with my story about December 1974. Seven years later, 1981, found me working at the Westvaco Paper Mill at Wickliffe, Ky. Where is this? About two miles south of the merger of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, there is a fictional feud that takes place at about this spot. 

Pulp and paper mills, being continuous operations, sometimes have a shutdown at Christmas to give the operating staff a break. At that point, they tell us engineers, “You can work on the mill while we are gone.”  

In the late 1990s, I was invited to Warsaw, Poland to give a speech on my favorite topic, pulp and paper. Now, this was just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so matters in countries behind the former Iron Curtain were still a bit wild.  

This may seem like a strange recollection for the dark days of December. However, my favorite astrological day of the year is coming soon – Dec. 21, the shortest day of the year.  It is all brightness and renewal after this, just like the Jonquils that thrive in the elements and are not beat down by the winter. The 21st, followed by the 25th, gives this old soul hope.

Over the years, I have eschewed (love that word) offering best wishes at holidays. Maybe this year is different.