{"id":22052,"date":"2025-02-19T01:46:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T08:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22052"},"modified":"2025-02-18T19:48:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T02:48:50","slug":"the-abcs-of-current-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/19\/the-abcs-of-current-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABCs of Current Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS<\/em><\/p>\n

I am thankful that I am not in a position to be a political columnist, as I am not required to spend any more time than I would as a dedicated citizen in dealing with the massive negativity currently evident in our country beset by divisiveness. However, I have an idea to let some of my readers express their thoughts in a less confrontational way.<\/p>\n

Occasionally my schoolmates would create lists of new vocabulary words in ABC order, a good way to remember spellings and definitions and also to create tiny stories of angst or imagined drama. I recall a non-academic game where we could create opinions by finding a word for each letter.\u00a0The following effort is typical of the ones we enjoyed: it uses regular, not new words, from a teenage girl summing up her thoughts of dating boys:\u00a0A. Any… B. boy\u2026 C. can\u2026 D. do\u2026 E. everything\u2026 F. frisky\u2026 G. Girls\u2026 H. have\u2026 I. intimacy\u2026 J. just\u2026 K. kissing\u2026 L. longing (for)… M. more\u2026 N. No\u2026 O. one\u2026 P. person \u2026 Q. quite\u2026 R. reaches\u2026 S. satisfactory\u2026 T. teenagehood\u2026 U. Unless\u2026 V. very\u2026 W. wildly\u2026 X. \u201cXpertly\u201d, \u2026 Y. vitally\u2026 Z. zesty!<\/p>\n

This sample reflects the challenges in such an activity (like coming up with an X word\u2014be daring),\u00a0but I will ask you, my readers, to try the same exercise, the ABC game, by composing a list of words (not necessarily in sentences) reflecting views\u2014positive, negative or in-between\u2014about our current government. This may or may not reflect your own personal, party, or political leanings, but, I imagine, might stimulate some thoughtful consideration of the existing rhetoric. I can envision a group gathering for this, perhaps getting some dialogue started over the tense exchanges some might have experienced.\u00a0If not, then at least one can spend a few moments thinking about these words in a productive sense.<\/p>\n

Here are three examples of what might be an initial ABC list:\u00a01: A. antagonistic, B. bellicose, C. cranky, 2:\u00a0A. abject, B. beaten, C. concerned, or 3: A. active, B. believing, C. committed.<\/p>\n

Even as I chose these examples, I was required to think why I selected each and why I felt there was a category for it. I don\u2019t think I wasted time.<\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s what I propose. I am giving you my email. I have a new one, and this one will be removed by April 1, so that I can clean out some contacts, cobwebs, and scams, and be able to accept new communicators. If this proves to be a good way to connect with my readers, I would be happy to open this door, at least for this activity.\u00a0My curiosity may strain my serenity, but I would love to see the words you choose (hopefully minus any hate mail).<\/p>\n

As you may know, I am not living in Ketchum anymore, but love my Idaho and miss being able to keep my connections with you.\u00a0This may be a good start. Thanks for considering this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS I am thankful that I am not in a position to be a political columnist, as I am not required to spend any more time than I would as a dedicated citizen in dealing with the massive negativity currently evident in our country beset by divisiveness. However, I have an idea to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-on-lifes-terms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22053,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052\/revisions\/22053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}