Some Old Thoughts About Another New Year

January 1, 2015 @ admin → No Comments

Today’s effort will contain a minimum of sports coverage. Mainly because there was little of any significance happening Dec. 31, 2014. Well, as far as some of us were/are concerned.

A wonderful way to start 2015: 2014 Playboy Playmate of the Year Kennedy Summers.

Welcome to 2015. As we say farewell to 2014, here’s hoping you fare well in the new year.

The first day of the new year figures to provide more time gazing at televised sports than Dec. 31 did. Of course, that assumes waking up (and not going back to sleep) by 1:30 p.m. or so. By then, there will be college football to view.

Once upon a time when life was simple (meaning long-ago childhood), January 1 meant four major bowl games: Sugar, Cotton, Orange and Rose (in that order, if I remember correctly of those games of decades past). The Rose Bowl would feature the Pac-8 and Big Ten champions. The end of the game meant the end of winter vacation with school the next day. As years passed, the Orange Bowl became a night contest, so the daylong football viewing extended even further.

And, yes, some of us are old enough to remember when the games were shown in black-and-white.

Time marches on. Color television becomes the norm.

All this is but a mere trip down memory lane. As much as New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are about welcoming another year, there also is the element of reminiscing. As the years accumulate, there is a tendency among those whose recall is not total to lump them together with an occasional highlight tossed in.

I recall one New Year’s Eve — no clue what year (lucky to be able to figure out what decade) — as a favorite. Low-key. Spent at home. In my late teens, if memory serves correctly (which it occasionally does). Watch a little TV. Have some herring with my father to ring in the new year. My brother comes home after being out with friends.

Why herring? I think it was for good luck. It certainly wasn’t for good breath. To this day, I still enjoy herring. In wine sauce or cream. Either one works for me.

I had herring again this New Year’s Eve. As much an homage to my father as anything else. Given the choice between having the herring or my father or brother around, I would choose my blood relatives. But we have no choice in these matters. We have no ability to bring back the lost ones of our life. So we devote a few minutes to reflect on them and the times that have passed.

The new year allows us that brief glance back while thrusting us ahead into what had been the future and becomes the present.

Chances are I’ll have more herring today. Watch my share of football and some Chicago Bulls basketball. And have a little late-night herring.

And remind myself to focus on the people who are around while remembering the people who no longer are. Not that I really need much reminding. But sometimes the sense of loss — whether long ago or recent — can overwhelm.

OK, enough of the serious stuff. Here is to a new year filled with good health and happiness.

And some occasional pieces of herring.

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