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I have received the best third year anniversary gift ever from the people around the country embracing the Black Lives Matter movement: Hope. This surprise gift welled up inside of me recently, completely unexpected, as I reflected on finishing my third year as owner of the Weekly News. What are the important nuggets that I have mined since July 2017 when I started here? What have I experienced and learned?

Turns out that the lesson is lifelong, not from La Conner at all. That happens sometimes.

My version of the last 50-plus years of life in these United States is that it has been a bumpy ride at best. If a highpoint was landing on the moon in 1969, that bright shining moment is sandwiched between a lot of – sorry folks – wars, riots, chaos and an economic prosperity for some that has not lifted all boats but has sunk many small craft.

For decades I have marked the loss of any sense of hope as 1968, the year of assassinations and riots. Killed were Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The Democratic convention in Chicago brought cops into the streets and Richard Nixon was elected president while George Wallace won five southern states.

All that happened just as the movie version of The Beatles “Yellow Submarine” appeared. “Yellow Submarine” was the last anthem of innocence. What a silly tune, and a cartoon movie, too: “We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine.” What did it mean? What did it matter? In a time of innocence and hope, meaning wasn’t always first, or needed.

That was all shattered by Nixon, a Vietnam War that would not end for another seven years, one recession after another, the occasional riot, Black lives not mattering.

Then, last weekend, I felt hopeful, collectively, for the country. Maybe “We can change the world / Rearrange the World,” as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang. At least, a lot of folks suddenly have risen up and are trying.

It is not the product. I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime. But it is the process. Lots of people are past being mad as hell, as the newscaster in the film “Network” screamed. I do believe, that over time, lots of people aren’t going to take this, the status quo, anymore.

That is a good thing. It brings hope to my heart.