Do you make a list of resolutions for the new year? What if you made resolutions for the next five years? Sound daunting? Take a moment to think about the year 2029. How old will you be? If you have kids, how old will they be? What do you hope life will be like for yourself and your family in five years?

People occasionally will ask about my upbringing, family life and Appalachia roots. So, here is my song that I wrote and recorded titled Coal Miner’s Son. Maybe you can relate to some parts of the following lyrics.

With the dawning of a new year comes a deluge of resolutions, reminders, and exhortations. They all follow similar how-to themes— how to increase your efficiency, how to make every moment count, how to invest your time wisely and productively.

As you think about the new year of 2024, what’s your mindset? Many people are worried. Global warming, the presidential election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. I just finished reading Liz Cheney’s recent best seller, Oath and Honor about the January 6, 2021 assault on our nation’s capital and that book provided a lot to worry about.

No doubt life is always changing. If you don’t like the weather it will change, eventually. It’s been hot most all over but cooler weather will come. In most of the country, cooler weather will be welcomed sooner rather than later.

You shall therefore keep every commandment which I am commanding you today, so that you may be strong and go in and possess the land into which you are about to cross to possess it. Deuteronomy 11:8 In his book In One Day, Tom Parker noted that every day in America, more than 100,000 of us move to a different home.

Jim Priest is CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma and can be reached at jpriest@okgoodwill.org. Not everyone celebrates New Years on January 1.

Grandma lay in the hospital bed, a shadow of the vital, energetic woman she had been just a year ago. Her strong hands that were endlessly involved in her family’s life, providing, comforting, and disciplining, now lay listlessly on the bed cover, thin and fragile. Eyes that always had been sparkling with life and occasionally sparking with irritation when one of her grandchildren had been “acting the fool” now were clouded with pain and fatigue. Her famous silver cloud of hair that she always wore in a short halo around her head? Long gone in the garbage heap of life, along with her energy and zest for life.

Recently, two of my cousins came to see us and we really enjoyed the visit. Eddie Abernathy and sister Bonnie are both graduates of HHS and although they have been gone for many years, they still have many friends and relatives in Holdenville. They are the children of the late Gene and Zula Abernathy. —PP—

Christmas is always changing. The biblical story never changes but your story is always changing. How we celebrate and view the story of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus may change throughout life. We view the story one way as children but then the story matures as we age.