Closing out 2020: Or, Helter-skelter Kerfuffles, And other Close Encounters

J. Michael Willard
4 min readDec 29, 2020

By Michael Willard

It came to my attention decades ago that a metaphor for life was a silver cylinder in a pinball machine. While on occasion, I lit up the board, most events — success or failure — came about by happenstance.

Because of this, I can’t claim second sight. For sure I always felt the 16th Century soothsayer Michel de Nostradamus was a fraud with a second-rate P.T. Barnum reputation and a shaggy beard.

Most of my life encounters were and still are random. There are no insignificant lives, though there are some mostly meaningless moments. This is good and keeps us sane.

This also makes for convenient excuses why I often was a bystander where news was being committed, whether as an adjunct to revolution, war, historic time slices, or theatrical bits of information confetti.

So, as the Time of Our Troubles, the Year of our Lord 2020, draws to a close, I am drawn to re-create snapshot life baubles that instigated, pre-mask, late-night war stories over suds and camaraderie.

Some, of course, could be embarrassing. Still, I have long ago exhausted any possible early career mortification, and my facial expression becomes more non-plussed — the color of oatmeal and not that of crimson.

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J. Michael Willard

I am a novelist but my day job is utilizing my years as a business consultant, journalist, and public service in the field of international development.