Gene’s Blog: 2018 swings and misses

“A wedge of cheese drops in Plymouth. A lighted cherry does same in Sister Bay. At bars, supper clubs and fancy meetin' places throughout this slice of Klondike we call Wisconsin, an old year is kissed off and a new one greeted with some amount of booze in the veins and varying degrees of hope in our hearts.”

That's the purple prose atop this very blog a year ago when I gamely made predictions as to what to expect in 2018. Turns out the first paragraph was the most accurate of the piece.

I wished for a lot: an end to mass shootings which continued this year at a deadly and alarming clip. A hope that reality TV would fade is being met with new seasons of tired old “favorites” and a new thing called “The Masked Singer” on Fox that I only know of because the network runs promos for it as part of every commercial block of each NFL game it airs. 

I enjoy sports but proved I know nothing about it in last year's piece, warning Brewers fans to “diminish your expectations for 2018”, predicting a slight performance drop by a team that many thought over-achieved in 2017. GM David Stearns, I proclaimed, would “stay on-plan” by allowing young talent to fill the Crew's needs. He promptly acquired veterans Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain the following month, not to mention other key pieces over the course of the campaign that ended with Milwaukee falling a win shy of the National League pennant last fall. 

As for the Packers, I called for a return to home-field dominance–as if THAT was the team's most aching 2018 need. Sure, they'd log five wins at home this past season but then lose all but one on the road in finishing out of playoff contention for a second straight season. The 2017 flop got written off because of Aaron Rodgers' shoulder injury but there are no excuses for an '18 slate that saw the in-season firing of Mike McCarthy. One epiphany from the past year is the fact that Green Bay hasn't been the same since starting 2015 with six straight wins before a Monday night loss at Denver that marked the beginning of the end. Rodgers hasn't been nearly as dominant ever since, nor has the rest of the Pack which played roughly .500 ball since. Why? Finding an answer could be a key part of a 2019 fix.

2018 proved that the chasms that divide us grew no smaller, that news comes at us like water from a fire hose what with viral outrages, hot takes, homemade videos and social media snark filling the void between the latest headlines (kids, be sure to ask mom or dad what a “headline” was).  One thing for sure last year is that the job of gathering news became a lot more dangerous, if not deadly.  It hasn't become any easier, either, amid a push by some in power to make sure reporters and voters have a harder time finding out what government is doing. The try by some Wisconsin lawmakers to re-do the state's open records law during the July 4th, 2015 holiday is a glaring example of what continues elsewhere around the country on an all too frequent basis. Sunshine remains the best disinfectant and accountability is needed now more than ever. We should all have our collective heads on a swivel to look for signs of darkness in courthouses and city halls locally. making sure the people's work is done in plain sight. 

Let's have a 2019 where facts are found freely and agreed upon mutually so that the new year's problems can be solved, not shouted about. May the next 12 months bring us closer to a place where we can chat without clamor, where the government's bidding is done in broad daylight and reported by professionals who don't have to worry about access or personal safety. Here's to a better 2019 Packers season (could things get any worse?) and a repeat playoff run by the Brewers. And how 'bout those Bucks?!? Love the team and the new arena, but not the $12 Fiserv Forum beers. 

That's a blog for another time, in a new year. Until then, beware of falling cheese wedges and lit cherries. Party hard but safe as 2019 arrives. See you on the other side.