​Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a weirdo. My friends and family know this, and if you read this column with any degree of regularity, you recognize the ongoing weirdness factor.
 
That being said, I have New Year’s wish. It’s weird.
 
I want to see Dwayne “THE ROCK” Johnson up close. Why? Here comes the weird part: because I want see how big his neck really is.
 
If you don’t know The Rock or don’t follow him at all, his neck is about as big as a rhino’s. It’s preposterously thick, tight, gargantuan. I looks like he does bench presses with his neck, though I have no idea how he’d accomplish that.
 
Normal people have normal necks. The Rock is not normal. As a former pro wrestler, he probably did neck bridges when he jumped out of bed in the morning, where he’d lay on his back, bend his neck backwards and lift his torso to the gods so that all his weight positioned on neck to increase his bulging neck size and intimidate his opponent.

“My neck is so damn big, it will crush you,” I imagine him taunting his opponents. They would tremble when he spoke.
 
The neck’s an interesting thing. We typically don’t look or think about it at all. When, for example, is the last time you looked at your neck or someone else’s, and then remarked about it. “Hmmmm, Justine’s neck sure is smooth and unmarked by moles or skin tags, isn’t it?”
 
No, we don’t do that. We look at eyes, hair, other physical body parts. The neck escapes our attention.
 
The Rock brings it back to the forefront of our imagination. The neck shapes our impression of The Rock.
 
He’s got those titanic biceps, absolutely. Can’t ignore them. They split his shirts. He wears those shirts for effect, or maybe there are absolutely no shirts his size made anywhere in the world. That’s entirely possible.
 
The intensity of his neck is his centerpiece. He speaks. I see his neck. He dispatches a bad guy. His neck stands out to me.
 
Think if you stood next to him. First, he would dwarf 99 percent of humans. You’d probably drop a puddle in your undies from his sheer presence.
 
Second, you have to believe that his physicality would beam off him like Star Trek technology. His shimmering muscles would make you want to jump away for fear of him flexing and bonking you in the side of the head with the expanding mass.

Third, we get back to that neck. Maybe he would let you touch it. See if you can dent it with your index finger. Perhaps it is soft? Who knows?
 
Most likely, if you requested to touch his neck, he’d think you’re weird. He’d be right about that.
 
He seems like a reasonable guy with a refined sense of humor. Maybe if you explained yourself thoroughly, he’d get it. “Hey man, no problem, people ask to touch my neck all the time. Go for it.”
 
Make it quick. Don’t overdo it.  Thank him profusely for the opportunity. Then you can say to all your friends, “I touched The Rock’s neck.” They’ll know you’re weird. That’s okay.

​The Christmas card parade continues shrinking. It’s been on a downward trend for years. This year, for whatever reason, the decrease in cards from friends and relatives seems accelerating.
 
It made sense last year (or maybe not). With Covid raging, people might not have been in the frame of mind to extend Christmas cheer. Our input in the mailbox was down to about 12, if I remember the count from 2020 correctly. Compared to the previous year, that was about a 50 percent reduction.  Compared to 20 years ago, who the heck knows?
 
What I do know is that at our peak, we received 88 Christmas cards. Why do I remember that number? I have no idea. For some reason I parked it in the back of my brain and it stayed there until retrieval. Now it’s being retrieved.
 
Eighty-eight was a lot of cards. That’s probably why the number adhered to my brain molecules. There was a certain pride in that. People cared to stay in touch. They made the effort. It meant something.
 
As electronic communications intervened, we’ve lost that. The long, slow decline of letters and things like Christmas cards has bled our connections to others. Rather than taking the time and writing a longer note with some intent and purpose, we shoot short bursts to each other.

Instagram; texting; email; Facebook; Twitter; Tik Tok. You could create your own list of instantaneous and disposable communications. They evaporate into the air after using.

The paper note, on the other hand, is designed for permanency. You keep it. Pull it out and go over it again. Sure, today you probably still get rid of it, tossing it in the recycling bin after a point. But, the joy of the card with a message intact is that it sits out for a while to re-examine over the Christmas holiday season.
 
One of my joys in early adulthood was returning to our parents’ house in Topeka, Kansas, and pulling out all the cards from families that our mom and dad stayed in touch with, and reading up on what they were doing. Sure, many were boring, and there were couples who I didn’t know at all.
 
Many of the cards though caught me up on the lives of people I hadn’t heard from in awhile (at least for the past year anyway). We grew up with the kids of friends of my parents. It was nice to know what they were doing, where they lived, if they’d gotten married. Not a lot of information was necessary, but the card and note maintained a solid connection.
 
That’s what we miss these days as the decline of mailed cards grows. Less and less do we think through our lives and deliver a thought-out piece of writing for someone else to digest, savor and save. Instead, most people have either given that up completely, or our electronic devices suffice instead. Per se, that doesn’t mean those other choices are bad. My point is only that we lose something but not taking extra time to say hi and share some life events with our close friends.
 
I love letters. Always have. A few friends still send longer, often humorous notes to us this time of year. I smile and nod my head, remembering remarkable times I’ve shared with that individual. If for not other reason, that makes the card worthy of our effort.

​This column could have been written just about any time in the history of the United States when you consider violent events. We’re a messy, violent country. We started out that way. And, we continue to be that way today.
 
I ponder why this is the case. Going back to the 1700s, why did some other new world countries settle without as much killing, like Canada, Uruguay or Ecuador (not that those or other countries didn’t have violence, death and mayhem, just that it was to a lesser extent than the U.S.)?
 
We lived and died by the gun settling the frontier, expanding westward. That still plays out today.
 
Whether it’s gang shootings in Chicago or school shootings in Michigan, far too often someone chooses a violent means to an end (whatever that end may be, but usually it means the “end” of someone). You don’t hear this, “Hey, let’s talk this out. It’s okay to argue. We can disagree. Let me hear what you have to say.”
 
It is probably too much to ask to solve certain problems in that way, when temperatures have already risen catastrophically. But, in many circumstances, creating a dialogue, negotiating, developing a give and take brings solutions benefitting both parties.

We seem too impatient for that in the 21st century. Maybe this is a crotchety old man talking, “Back in my day.” But, back in my day, differences didn’t seem quite as anger- and violence-inducing as they are today. We may have more people walking the streets who have severe emotional and mental instability. In sheer numbers, that’s probably the case because our population is now 333 million. We’re more crowded. As my older brother is fond of saying, “Too many rats in the maze.”

He’s correct about that. Over-crowding causes stress and tension; we’re packed tighter in many urban areas across the country. Our acts of violence go deeper, and I hark to a close friend for an explanation that makes sense and could serve as a model for healing moving forward.
 
He travels extensively to South Korea. They have an extremely low incidence of violence. Why? According to him, it is a small, homogenous country. They share many values. They see things the same way.

The U.S.? We’re the exact opposite. We have probably hundreds of other country’s cultures mixed in our bloodstream. We have people living here who are raised with different faiths (how many branches of Christianity, for example, exist in the U.S.?). People come to our borders seeking asylum from environmental and natural disasters, despots running their country, empty food shelves and drug gangs that kill indiscriminately. They WANT to be in the U.S. for safety and to make something of themselves, but they also come from a background that’s not always shared by those who have lived in the U.S. for generations.
 
We live scattered across a huge land mass -- enclaves where diverse and conflicting perspectives can flourish. Is it any wonder we butt heads? No, it’s not surprising.

It is surprising that in this messy, violent country, we are UNITED in many ways in our pursuit of an opportunity to raise families to live, work and play in a safe and open community. We share that.
 
When we focus on our differences, we lose. When we point fingers, we lose. As my friend noted, given how many different cultures are at work in the U.S., it’s surprising there isn’t more violence. That certainly doesn’t make it acceptable. It puts things in perspective though.
 
I hurt emotionally when I see random unnecessary violence. I would love to see it permanently stop. Knowing that unlikelihood, my hope is we continue to dial violent actions back and learn greater tolerance, patience and respect for others and how another individual may come at an issue or incident differently.
 
The U.S. is messy and violent. We can make it less so. Everyone has to take a step towards conciliation and understanding of others.