An optimistic sign at our house

This has been an incredible test of a year for our friends in the bar and restaurant industry.

Many of our favorite places have been closed just in the last six months and more failures are almost certainly in the future. And that will put a lot more good people either into bankruptcy or unemployment.

I’m not sure what any of us can do except to give the survivors whatever business we can and hope enough people do the same to make a difference. If you have the opportunity, try to do something nice for those who didn’t survive.

There have surely been times like this in the past but I do not remember any. Perhaps that is because my memory is not my best feature. I forget what is.

With Thanksgiving behind us and the twin holidays of Christmas and New Year’s ahead, followed by spring, this should be an optimistic time. And perhaps we should just do what we can for those we can help. We can never do enough to solve all their problems, certainly, but it is important that we all try to do enough that we can feel we tried.

It breaks my heart to see so many good people in so much trouble. Perhaps in the months ahead we will all be into whatever comes next and those who have had a tough 2020 will be better off in 2021. I can’t think of anything else that would be within our collective power.

A lot is necessarily unclear but hopefully we can take some comfort if we can tell ourselves that we did what we could. For each of us that will be different and each can decide for himself or herself that we tried.

The good news is that 2020 will soon be over and 2021 is fast approaching. Surely it will be a better time but you know it will not be for everybody. And those are the folks that perhaps we can do something for, however large or small that is.

We have a new puppy at our house and that is the most hopeful sign I can claim that things are looking up. A few weeks back our two-year-old goldendoodle Baxter came in from playing catch with my wife. He laid down on the carpet at her feet, had a heart attack and died. We were devastated.

Little Max is a chocolate Labrador retriever. He is both a delight and a sharp-toothed chewer of everything, all at the same time. But Max learns faster than even I do and I have many years head start. Watching him learn and improve is the most fascinating thing I have seen in many a moon.

The arrival of Max in my abode is an optimistic development after the unexpected downer of young Baxter’s sudden demise. But I keep reminding myself that Baxter loved to chase balls and my wife took him out in the yard to throw balls for him three or four times a day.

His life was short but very happy. Each day he would come in from chasing balls and flop down on the carpet breathing heavily with a huge smile on his face.

We should all be lucky enough to go that way.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of six books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.