Hey folks – Well, we’re here in the ‘intertimes,’ the strange week between Christmas and New Year’s, a liminal space where the dress code swings wildly from party dress to pajamas, and the usual cadence of the day is punctuated by naps, snacking, and a level of couch-bound laziness that would otherwise be indecorous.
I often end up working through the intertimes – which is fine, this is not a lament – because most of my colleagues are taking well-earned and much-needed holiday time off. I enjoy the quietude, to be honest, and I find the ‘intertimes’ to be a perfect space to tie up loose ends, clear the detritus of the year from my desk, and begin sketching out what the new year will look like. With few distractions, I find I can often get quite a lot done – and, yes, I can get it done in my pajamas, most days.
This year was a little different, thanks to a rogue respiratory virus that, if I’m being honest, thoroughly kicked my ass. (Whether it was as bad as the stomach flu that Celia Rivenbark detailed in her very funny Substack, I can’t say. But it was not a good time.)
I’ve usually just powered through most winter colds, sometimes with the help of DayQuil or TheraFlu, but this one was different. During one midnight coughing fit, which felt like being thrashed by a mechanical piston, I saw splotches of light and almost blacked out. I think I actually said, out loud, “ok, ok.” I get it. This one’s bad.
The worst of it settled in as we were visiting my folks, which was sub-optimal for all involved, although they took good care of me. My parents live in a small historic town up north, and behind their backyard fence is a Colonial-era graveyard, which has given us an endless stream of jokes about (mostly) quiet neighbors.
But this past week, after coughing a pink spray into the sink, I looked out at the graves, lightly frosted with snow, a few adorned with flowers. Plenty of headstones testifying to the wrath of respiratory illnesses. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hardheaded (a.k.a. stupid) and avail myself of some modern medicine, I thought.
So, soon as I got home, I schlepped to the local urgent care. I’d already been tested for Covid and pertussis (I had a Tdap shot a few years ago), and the doctor told me this wasn’t RSV, either. Just a particularly pernicious virus that was dragging people around for three to four weeks at a time, often ending in pneumonia or, in my case, a bad case of bronchitis. They loaded me up with meds – antibiotics, prednisone, even an experimental new steroid inhaler – and told me to lie down and stay down. I got the impression the doctor had seen a few things in her day, and the way she told me this, it did not seem like a suggestion.
It’s been almost another full week, and I’m starting to turn the corner, hopefully. If you were listening to Weekend Edition on Saturday, you heard me struggling, but I should be good to go for Morning Edition this week (I hope I am, since I’m filling in for Ken Campbell and there’s really no one else around to do it!).
I share all this not because I think my suffering – or stubbornness – was unique (one glance around the urgent care waiting room would have dispelled that delusion), but because it seems like a painfully apt metaphor for this year. We’re all used to rough times, and pushing through them; everyone else is hacking it, even those who have it far worse. Because of that, sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’ve crossed a line between resilience and recklessness. (If you listen, people will tell you. If not, well, you end up on the way to pneumonia.)
Of course, I’m not just talking about respiratory infections here. It could be work, or family, or the doomscroll of the news feed, or something else. Maybe it’s all that. There’s only so much you can take and, in the end, most of the penalties for taking a knee are self-imposed. It doesn’t mean you’ve quit, it just means you’ve wised up enough to know you’re no good to anyone if you’ve run yourself into the ground. That was my lesson this holiday season, learned – admittedly – the hard way.
All that to say, we’ll be back next week with a full Sunday Edition. I’ll leave most of the ‘best of’ and ‘worst of’ recapping to others – you were there, you remember – but I will try to pull some threads from 2025 that I think will still be relevant next year. And, while I try to avoid predictions, I think there are some stories that my colleagues and I will want to focus on.
We’re still dealing with the fallout of austerity moves at the federal, state, and local levels, and while some budget cuts have not been as catastrophic as feared, others have had real-world consequences, often for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, it remains unclear how, or even if, The Endowment will step into that breach. Outside of New Hanover County, that’s a non-issue, and we’ll be looking at how Brunswick, Columbus, and Pender counties are adapting.
There’s also the troubling issue of youth violence, which I spent a lot of time on at the beginning of this year, talking to community health workers and advocates, nonprofit leaders, law enforcement officials, and kids themselves. Looking at the incident earlier this week at the Independence Mall, where a group of young men set off a roiling panic by allegedly walking around with guns, I think it’s safe to say we haven’t cracked the code.
One note in particular struck me: one of the young men involved in the incident, Tristian Scott Allen, had just been released from prison. I mean literally that day. He’d served about a year and a half after taking a plea deal related to a downtown Wilmington shooting in late 2023. Initially facing attempted murder and a host of other charges, Allen had pleaded down to the ‘alphabet charge’ (assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill).
I don’t have any special knowledge about Allen, but I can imagine there are some significant challenges on your first day out of prison: Who can you trust? Where can you stay? What do you do? It’s not impossible to imagine how you might end up in bad company, doing something stupid and dangerous, and ultimately fleeing the police. Allen wasn’t the driver, and hasn’t been charged with any firearm offenses – in fact, he was the only one given bond after the incident (a relatively small $1,200). But, obviously, if you wanted to turn your life around after prison, this is not a great start.
The four men involved were Black, and the comment sections were a dumpster fire of racist dogwhistles and patronizing snipes. But, in spite of that, I saw a few genuine attempts at reckoning with the problem. Is it the parents? The schools? The culture? The system? All of the above? There are real racial disparities; how do we talk about that in a way that's honest and productive without descending into stereotypes and bigotry? I’m not the first to say it, of course, but Facebook is a terrible place to try to have that kind of nuanced conversation. I hope we can continue to provide a better forum at WHQR, but that depends on people’s willingness to have tough conversations.
And, of course, we’ve got elections! There are several primaries lining up for March, and we’re in talks with WECT and Port City Daily about hosting events, at least for the Democratic county commissioner and Republican school board candidates in New Hanover County. And, speaking of elections, we’re still waiting to see what the new all-Democratic City of Wilmington council will do on a host of issues from homelessness to public transportation. They’ve got no opposition and, for the time being, a strong mandate from the voters – so what will they do with it?
Plus, there’s Novant’s ongoing issues at NHRMC, as we continue to watch for improvements in watchdog and federal safety ratings, while still hearing a steady stream of horror stories from patients and staff. And there’s the never-ending PFAS saga, starring Chemours as the villain, but also a huge ensemble cast of other polluters (landfill leachate, fire-suppression foam, paper products, nonstick everything, you get the idea).
In other words, I’m glad I got a few days of downtime, because whatever 2026 will be, it will not be boring. I remain grateful to have you with us on this journey. I appreciate the messages, feedback, even the constructive criticism – and I hope you’ll keep it coming.
As always, thanks for reading, and Happy New Year! | 
