Mid-March brought new rules and a new way of life. Work suddenly transitioned to home and masks, hand-washing, and social distancing became the new norm.

In our neighborhood, the pandemic brought something else. Pickleball. Our nearby tennis courts were transformed into pickleball courts by senior citizens heretofore not seen in these parts. Where were they from? And what is pickleball?

Each morning a small brigade of seniors descended on the courts. They set up a special pickleball net and lawn chairs and games would soon break out. Thwap. The sound of the whiffle ball hitting the paddle would echo through the neighborhood. It felt like Florida had come north.

Was this a trend? Were thousands of Floridians moving back north? Where would they vote this fall if the pandemic continued? Getting Trump out of office was certainly the number one goal for 2020 and this pickleball surprise was yet another curveball in a political season like no other.

I debated conducting a poll of the pickleballers in my neighborhood. Who were they voting for and where were they voting? We could absorb Trump voters in Massachusetts given the expected huge margin for Democrats here. But with the momentum building for mail-in balloting, they just as easily could vote in Florida.

A 2018 Politico article had me spiraling. Speaking of the central Florida retirement community called The Villages, the reporter called it “…the pickleball capital of America, appropriate considering that the badminton-meets-tennis-ish paddle game has become America’s fastest-growing sport.” And I read further that these pickleball playing Villagers were twice as likely to be registered Republicans. And now they were in Milton. What else did 2020 have in store for us?

But as we entered month eight of this lockdown (that is not, in any way, a lockdown when people can still go to Target), things were looking up. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won in a “landslide” to quote Donald Trump from 2016. Milton passed the Community Preservation Act with 62% of voters approving the question, presumably some pickleball players among them seeking dedicated courts in town.

Vaccine developments from Pfizer, Moderna and Astra Zeneca seemed to promise a better second half of 2021. And on the day before Thanksgiving, we received a delivery of a beautiful new refrigerator after a wait of four months due to backlogged factories from China to the United States. We also took our first Covid test and received negative results on Thanksgiving eve as well.

Adults will soon be in charge in DC. Georgia and Arizona are blue. There are so many important issues to address and one suspects that Mitch McConnell will be as obstructionist as always. But organizing and pressure will continue. We need support for our restaurants and small businesses that won’t be able to survive a long winter while Covid-19 deaths continue to rage. We need income supports for Americans who have lost jobs during the pandemic. We need a health care system that doesn’t induce worry of how to pay for my care among too many Americans. We need to stop evictions and foreclosures and make home truly safe for millions on the edge. We need a CDC that doesn’t mislead the public based on intimidation from the President. We need science to dictate the rollout of the vaccines. As many experts have said, vaccines don’t get us out of this, vaccinations will.

That’s why trust in government and our political leadership is all important. Competence matters. If next Thanksgiving is going to be a time for large gatherings again, we need everyone to get vaccinated. Vaccines can’t become the next mask debate where it is possible to reasonably predict how someone voted by whether or not they are wearing a mask. Trump gave us that and we can’t afford to have half of the country refuse to get vaccinated. Our lives depend on it.