The calendar turns once again

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Dec. 31, 2020

 

“______ New Year!” Well, we can hope it will be happy, but the only way for certain is to go ahead and live through it, happy or not so much. Surely, 2021 will be better than 2020; it can hardly be much worse than an unprecedented pandemic year.

Wilson residents will have to get used to a future without the landmark BB&T towers. The tower (just one at the time) was new when I came to Wilson 41 years ago. I got to marvel at the construction of the second tower about five years later and still later attended a meeting in the bank’s wood paneled board room on the sixth floor of the tower. The big windows provided impressive views of the city where BB&T began 130 years ago.

Although the towers ceased to be the bank’s headquarters, thanks to a 1994 bank merger that moved the executive suites to Winston-Salem, the landmark stood proudly as the tallest building along Wilson’s busiest street. Another bank merger completed in 2020 replaced the historic BB&T name.

Then a week before Christmas, the tallest buildings in town crumbled after controlled explosions turned the site into a salvage pile. Thanks you, city of Wilson, the demolition company and others who captured the impressive event on video. I shared videos with my children who grew up six blocks from the towers and with friends who had lived in Wilson.

People are eager to see what the Nash Street site will become when its revitalization plans are completed. A little farther east on Nash Street, a new Wilson Arts Center is taking shape in a former retail site. The Arts Council had earlier moved to the100-year-old BB&T headquarters, a beautiful but cramped space with more charm than practicality.

Nearby, the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park came into its own in 2020, although the popular Whirligig Festival had to be cut back sharply because of the pandemic. 2021 could see the addition of more businesses near the park and a more vibrant downtown with residential living and expanding small businesses.

Every year, people around the world assess the world and their lives; many make new year’s resolutions, promising to do more, do better, accomplish more, help more, etc.

Resolutions are probably a good thing, but the Jan. 1 of each year is not a special date, from a scientific, religious or historic perspective. It does not mark an equinox or a solstice, which have astronomical meaning, or a historic event. It’s just a convenient date for dividing one year from another.

Dare I say it? Happy New Year. Let’s make 2021 better than 2020.