By Dennis Richardson, Magic Valley Publishing
This is a short work week for a lot of folks. It is for us, too.
We like to spend Thanksgiving with our families even though this year will be a little different.
One set of five will not be heading east to visit us because someone tested positive for COVID-19 in the school, and now one of the grands is quarantined for a little while. Maybe we will still be able to talk, face time or ZOOM. The latter is a new term for us this year and a process that our company has used many times for meetings and presentations.
It is still hard to believe that things are so different and that the virus keeps spreading like it does.
One family of the four plans to visit us for Thanksgiving dinner at our home. We also plan to have a sister-in-law and her son. His wife is in health care and will have to work. There may be one or two more but plenty of food for a dozen more.
We have much to be thankful for in 2020 despite the gloom and doom of shut downs, lock downs, isolations, quarantines, and masks.
Wearing masks has become automatic, just like fastening seat belts.
This year our company acquired two more newspapers, added a new magazine, combined two fine free publications into one and another free-distribution publication with one of the new paid publications.
We were able to make two leisure trips although another one was cancelled.
Lisa lost her dad in March and I lost my only remaining brother. While those two losses saddened our hearts, we also know that their suffering is over and hope that they are in a much better place. Her dad passed right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and since he was already in a nursing home he would have faced many months of loneliness as family was prevented from physical visits.
We are thankful both as a family and as a business that we are here to print these words. Many newspaper companies have shut their doors. While Magic Valley Publishing has lost a lot of revenue from cancelled events and closed or injured businesses, the company has survived,
We are really, really looking forward to the day that this virus is whipped and life can once again resemble normalcy.
As we all face a different kind of Thanksgiving, let’s keep our heads up and pray often for our own families, the families of others, our church leaders and our national leaders.
Freedom of the religion, like freedom of the press is one of our guarantees and it goes right along with freedom of speech.
We are blessed. Never forget that life is better with a (local) newspaper.
Dennis Richardson is the CEO of Magic Valley Publishing, Inc., which owns the Chester County Independent
