800 days ago this morning….

Merry Christmas!!

Scrooge: “Ghost of the Future, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?”

October 16, 2017 —  2 yrs, 2 mo, 1 wk, 2 days or 800 days ago I was hired to be the Executive Director.  I can identify with Scrooge’s sense of dread of the spectre of the future.  I too hope to live to be another man from what I was yesterday.  I too, like Scrooge, have undergone a transformation.  

Scrooge still looks the same Christmas morning and that is why his behavior is so alarming.  He doesn’t appear ill or injured.  Matter of fact, he seems in the best of health.  The transformation is his pledge to honor Christmas in his heart all year long.  He speaks about honoring Christmas past, present, and future at the same time:  “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.’’

800 days of my striving to keep Dakota Center’s past, present, and future ever present in my heart.  On this Christmas morning, for the third time, I open the present of the Dakota Center.  I too, like Scrooge, “…don’t know what to do! I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

And God bless us, every one.