Another year is approaching the end and many of us should be thankful we are seeing its conclusion. For some of you, you are breathing a sigh of relief that this year is finally over and for some, you are reflecting that it was a really good year.

For the average Joe and Jane, it has been a year where expenses skyrocketed such as house payments, driving, insurance and getting sick while your cash flow dried up like a Georgia creek.

The parade of review stories will assail you this week and so I will jump on the bandwagon and do my own review of the year.

The ‘07 year brought us the normal disasters such as the severe southeast drought, the bridge collapse, flooding and wildfires out west. It makes me think which would I rather, flooding of water with hurricanes or fire from wild fires and drought. I think I would rather die of sunburn from a life in the Caribbean.

Of course with every year we say goodbye to some folks, either friends or families or Celebs that have been a part of our lives. The death that bombarded us the most this year was Anna Nicole. In life and in death, her soap opera played out like a bad reality TV show. Instead of discouraging this wild and out of control behavior, our new breed of Celeb women ignored the tragic death and carried on with frenzy. The train wreck of the year award goes to Brittney Spears. Can the next year bring us anymore shock and awe or visible body parts?

It is an interesting collection of individuals who died this year, Luciano Pavarotti and Beverly Sills passed on and are probably performing a really awesome duet in heaven. The good thing about heaven, it keeps on going even after the fat lady sings.

Who wants to go to Hawaii anymore since Don Ho has died? Ok, been to Hawaii, didn’t see Ho which is like going to Vegas without seeing Wayne Newton, but I think I could suffer the exclusion again in paradise. As for duets, Dan Folgelberg and Ho could sing one but no one would hear them over the opera singers.

Does anyone care that Ike Turner died? The only thing I can remember about him was that he beat Tina.

My favorite movie reviewer, the sweet and funny Joel Siegel died and I was really sad because he made me smile. Great oldies like Merv Griffin and Jane Wyman left us but Deborah Kerr was the one I admired the most. Now she was one cool red head!

Evel Knievel and Porter Wagoner sort of dressed alike, but only Porter sang with mountains while Evel just wanted to jump over them. And then, the man who brought the world Donny and the other million Osmonds, the matriarch, George Osmond died. The DNA that created my teen idol will never make another one, oh the tragedy..

Another death that rocked my world was the death of the New Orleans Saints season for 2007. I guess there is always 2008! Get well Deuce, Reggie and Pierre!

2007 has been great for local standout, Brett Favre and I am beginning to crave cheese.

The death of the housing market made many Americans homeless and the death of Michael Vick’s career put the Atlanta Falcons on a downward spiral of doom and gloom. But as a Saint’s fan, that didn’t make me too sad.

Does anyone want to take up money to buy Jessica Simpson season tickets to the Dallas Cowboy games? Or tickets to any team that needs to lose so the wild chance the Saints could make it to a play off game?

One thing I would like to see kick the bucket is the high gas prices that seem to stay high.

Men with guns made for big stories this year and the most famous was OJ and his invasion force to rescue a football.

Two young men with guns and a desire to make the world sit up and take notice did just that, and made us feel more insecure in a crazy world where it isn’t safe to go to school or the mall. Now when shopping, my wandering mind begins to calculate what clothing rack to hide behind for the just in case scenario.

Locally, we had a year of signs, signs, everywhere signs with an election of our own epic proportions. The politics of Pearl River County are just a warm up for the presidential campaigns heating up. In the national race, it seems gender, race, and religion are the main issues of choice instead of real issues like gas, healthcare, jobs, war, and infrastructure. Wouldn’t it be funny if all the candidates were black Mormon women? Maybe then we could get back to the real campaign.

The Picayune Item has seen its revolving door of community editors this year, from Gina Burgess, to me for a short time and now the new kid on the block, Ginger. From my own prejudice opinion, the newspaper should look forward to a good 2008.

Thankfully Ginger is not participating in the Writer’s Strike gripping Hollywood and holding our television shows hostage. Yikes, the country might read more. Scary. How can we read more when the last Harry Potter book has been written? Who else can we read about?

In 2007, the scariest thing I have read are the words, “Made in China.”

Have a Happier and Better New Year!