After 44 years in the news business I have a habit. I keep a running list of blockbuster stories in my mind all year and I predict which will wind up being the most sensational.

For instance, back in 2001, I would have bet the case of Washington intern Chandra Levy and Rep. Gary Condit would be the biggest story of the year. I mean, what could top a missing girl and the congressman who finally confessed to an affair with her? Although he wasn’t involved in her disappearance, he lost his seat in Congress to a primary challenger after the scandal.

But then came September 11th. By December it was, “Chandra who?”

If you had asked me in January what the blockbuster story of 2020 would be, I would have predicted the impeachment of Donald Trump, followed closely by the death of Kobe Bryant. I mean, what’s bigger than an American president being impeached and a beloved sports star and his sweet young daughter killed in a freak helicopter crash?

Then came Covid-19. A global pandemic, followed by unemployment, lockdowns, the shuttering of schools, the closing of businesses and travel bans.

Suddenly, impeachment became history and the Kobe Bryant tragedy faded from memory.

My wishes for 2021?

I hope a year from now the big story is the conquest of Covid through vaccines and natural immunity and - at last - a return to normal. Real normal. Not some “new normal” where we regard every stranger as a potential Petrie dish, where we go about in public with our features obscured and where we fear crowds and even our own family members.

I hope by the end of 2021 face masks, social distancing and quarantines fade from memory. I hope we are going once again to concerts, ballgames, tailgates, class reunions, graduations, weddings, to work and yes, even to funerals without fretting about a virus.

I hope that when the emergency orders are lifted we cherish our freedoms more than ever and vow not to give them up again.

Happy New Year!