Prepare to strike! The sentence has been heard for more than four decades and mostly around the turn of the year. Needless to say, it comes from a classic by Gerhard Polt, to be precise: “The Fireworks”. In record time, the small family carries out the typical end-of-year pyrotechnics, planned according to the general staff and just in time for the tinkling of the bells when the cannon strikes. This year the scene should be canceled. There are no fireworks again – like so many other things.
It didn’t look so bad at first. The cannon strike in the form of a vaccine against Corona was available, 2021 seemed to be the year in which everything would have to be made up for that had been canceled due to the pandemic in 2020. Incidentally, the Ebersberger Faschingsgesellschaft took up this very nicely: In the post-corona period, not only the maypole is set up, but also the April and June trees, and the folk festival is “continuously present” throughout August instead of. Now you would be doing the Ebersberg fool injustice if you were to take them too seriously – but also you would not do this at all. The expectations of a time after Corona were and are great, the frustration at every subsequent day that is as dreary as the one before it is at least as bad.
Will it ever get better, ever again like it used to be? The honest answer has to be – unfortunately – no, at least not in the foreseeable future. According to experts, it will take at least until 2024 before Corona is reasonably under control. Terrible! Or? Depends on. Of course: the whole thing is uncomfortable, even dangerous for some. Very even and so even that this sentence doesn’t start with a “but”. This contains an “on the other hand”: You can imagine worse. This is expressly written into the register of those who hope to cook their own, all too inedible, soup with phantasms of end times and tyranny. In fact, 2021 was a good year for most of them. If your toenails are curling up now, imagine that it would not be 2021/22 but 1917/18 or you would not be in the Ebersberg district but in Yemen, Afghanistan or, or, or. Of course, the reference to: “Could get worse” is always cheap. But – here the word is used carefully – it turned out better. Despite the pandemic, life has not turned into the dytopia that some are so fond of conjuring up. Yes: the thing – life, culture and all the rest – is currently and probably for a good part of the future on the back burner. Meanwhile: it works. Because there are enough people who do not allow themselves to be discouraged, who do what is possible to keep a good community going.
By the way, Polt’s sketch ends with the words, which are always correct at this turn of the year: “So, des hamma. For this year’s hammas partnership. Then we have mas again.” There is really nothing to add to that except maybe: good news.