As I was driving through the North Country yesterday, pinging from Plattsburgh to Tupper Lake to Westport, it occurred to me that I’m in the tidings business.<\/p>\n
According to one on-line dictionary, I found, the word “tidings” comes from the Old English tidung, related to Middle Low German tidinge, and the Old Norse tidhendi or tithindi, which means “news of events.”<\/p>\n
The truth is that the tidings I bring aren’t always good.\u00a0 People grumble about this fact.\u00a0 Why is it, after all, that journalists like me tend to gravitate toward “ill tidings”?<\/p>\n
The glib answer is because from the age of the Old Norse onward, people have needed to know the bad stuff first and fastest.<\/p>\n
If the Vikings are raiding the coast, that’s probably the stuff you want to hear about right now, before we get to the happy news.<\/p>\n
But I’d be the first to admit that we reporters sometimes let really important, good and even beautiful tidings fall through the cracks.<\/p>\n
Do we acknowledge often enough the blessings of living in this place, where the grandeur of the natural world literally begins at our doorsteps?<\/p>\n
Do we talk enough about the vitality of our villages, the fiercely creative artists, the leaders, the thinkers, who are actually making lives better?<\/p>\n
Do we make it clear that even in the region’s most ferocious debates, the partisans are clearly acting out of a passionate conviction that our part of the world is worth fighting for and defending and improving?<\/p>\n
Probably not.\u00a0 So on this Christmas Day, even before the ritual of New Years, I will make a resolution to work harder at remembering to be a bearer of good tidings.<\/p>\n
They are, after all, a big part of the story of our lives.\u00a0 Now…bring me some figgy pudding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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