What a great time of year. Summer’s heat is forgotten, the leaves have been raked, and it’s time to re-charge our batteries and wish the best for those around us. Sure, it’s hard to get around to all that feel-good stuff until you’ve shopped till your body and wallet are drained, and eaten and drunk yourself into a stupor, but I’ll still take December over any other month. With those fond sentiments in mind, here is my list of holiday wishes for a few deserving folks. Not many of these may come true, but hey, isn’t this the season for believing in miracles?
• For the wise men and women who run the mega-banks and big corporations Uptown, a group to whom this city has been very, very good, we wish the public spirit and decency to offer major financial support to our struggling school system.
• For Mayor Anthony Foxx, we wish the conductor’s hat previously worn by George Carlin and Ringo Starr on Shining Time Station, in honor of his support for the trolley line starter kit, to be built along Elizabeth Avenue, running from the Uptown transit station, all the way to Presbyterian Hospital — a whopping 1.5 miles away.
• For former United Way honcho Gloria Pace King, whose main interest during her old job seemed to be inflating her own ego, we wish a gig on Dancing With the Stars, in order to spread her fame far and wide. We also wish her the grace to give a substantial part of her recent $700K United Way settlement to the groups that try to help the large numbers of Charlotteans in need of food, clothing, shelter and funds. That’s the kind of thing you originally got involved with United Way for, right, Ms. King?
• For Thom Tillis, the new Speaker of the House in Raleigh, and a former Cornelius PTSA president, we wish a remedial course in the value of smaller class sizes — as well as the realization of just how destructive the mammoth cuts being forecast for education spending would be.
• For City Council, we wish a giant hook to yank some city players under their watch off the stage. Specifically, any city players who would have the nerve to inflate projected attendance numbers for a sports hall of fame, and eventually leave Charlotte with the biggest downtown white elephant since the woeful days of CityFair in the ’90s. But then, no one would do such a thing, would they?
• For CMS Superintendent Peter Gorman, we wish a working replica of the Magic School Bus, of children’s book fame, for use whenever he needs to take another tribe of people with him to pick up an award in New York City. Oh, and a new razor, to ease that distinctly Nixonian five o’clock shadow.
• For Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, we wish an old-fashioned beanie with a propeller on top, as a constant reminder of wind power. Here’s hoping Rogers looks under his tree and finds a box of courage to let him match his “green” talk with a more vigorous plan of “green action,” including moving quickly to set up wind farms off the Carolina coast.
• For the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the U.S. National Whitewater Center, we wish a dozen or more giganto-enormous skyward-pointing lasers, visible for miles. Perhaps they’d help Charlotte-area residents find them, and the attractions’ attendance figures wouldn’t be so dependent on out-of-towners.
• For the Charlotte Housing Authority, we wish the gift of a 50-acre tract of land in the middle of Ballantyne.
• For Crisis Assistance Ministry, Loaves & Fishes, the Urban Ministry Center, and all the other groups dedicated to helping those in dire need, we wish a sudden windfall from friendly billionaires, and an unexpected dramatic improvement in the economy.
• For Rep. Sue Myrick, whose paranoid worldview has shown signs of getting out of control, we wish the gift of … hell, we just wish she’d go away and quit imagining Hezbollah warriors slipping into the U.S. via Mexico.
This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2010.
