2021 promised new beginnings. The reality was more of a long slide toward something closer to normal.

I knew some readers would be unhappy about my decision to run a guest column by former El Paso first lady Adair Margo in support of the city’s plans for a Downtown arena.

It’s a desert land – one of sand, “evening primrose, barrel cactus, incense bush, smoke tree and creosote bush” but mostly sand – inhabited by a people perpetually underestimated by outsiders.

In the short videos taken by social workers on their phones at a children’s home in Thailand, the boy spoke in a low, gravelly voice. You had to lean in to hear him when he spoke, which wasn’t often. He was gentle, shy and liked to color, especially dinosaurs.

All of us of a certain age know where we were 20 years ago on Sept. 11.

In the room Tuesday in Downtown were the managing partners of several firms that help high-profile companies decide where to open or move facilities, as well as economic development officials who work to attract companies to Texas.

There’s a heavy book sitting on my desk filled with the words of 251 El Pasoans. I enjoy cracking it open occasionally, not just for the cast of characters and history it holds but for the sheer pleasure of reading.

When I first toured Spaceport America at the end of 2011 – an assignment I was more than happy to take as an El Paso Inc. reporter – Virgin Galactic, I wrote, “could send tourists into space as soon as 2013, if everything goes as planned.”

Students begin classes at El Paso’s new dental school – the only one in West Texas and first to open in the state in more than 50 years – next week.