The tree rises about 2 feet out of the ground, does a double-corkscrew and continues to grow horizontally to the leaf-covered earth.

It’s not a very big tree, but a tough one. Something happened to that tree long ago to make it turn like that. Maybe a tree fell on it, stunting its vertical growth. Maybe the strong Mississippi winds that whip threw this 1/4 square mile of country goodness of which I luckily am the purveyor rolled that tree twice over itself. The winds are fierce out here sometimes, and many a tree bigger than this one has come crashing to the earth.

But not this little one. This one is a fighter. It was turned asunder, yet continued to grow. But it doesn’t really matter how this tree standing on top of a hill overlooking a stream got this way, rather what happened after it got this way. That tree is as alive today as it was before whatever happened. It adapted to nature’s circumstances and refused to go down. The Rocky Balboa of the woods, perhaps?

It doesn’t take a genius to proclaim 2008 as not the best year this country has seen. We’ve all been affected in some way, somehow. Many have lost jobs. Gas prices appear to have settled now, but who knows when that will change. The economy is corkscrewing, as well, with no fix in sight.

I don’t believe it is as bad as the talking heads on the 24-hour news channels lead us to believe. Is it as bad as when my grandfather, then barely 20 years old, moved his family into a tent on the banks of the Hudson River near Albany, N.Y., in the worst of times during the 1930s? I cannot see a picture of a bread line in those terrible times without thinking of him.

On New Year’s Eve afternoon, the Kroger was packed. Carts and people and activity were everywhere. Shoppers lined up for crab legs and T-bone steaks. Beer seemed to be a huge seller. Fancy meats and cheeses cluttered these carts. Worst economy since the Great Depression?

Lines were long alright, but not for bread.

As 2009 begins, we start with a struggle. Our lives have been corkscrewed like that tree, but we are still standing. We may be a bit wobbly right now, but we’ll fight to fix what ails us, all the while being told the apocalypse is imminent.

I look at that tree, that one special tree in the middle of these nine acres, and see myself staring back. That tree is people I know and people I care about. Surely it’s people you know — the people who say, “we’ll take a punch in the mouth, but we’ll never go down.”

Happy New Year.

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Sean P. Murphy is Web editor. He can be reached at smurphy@vicksburgpost.com.