Once long ago, when our daughters were young, we kept them up until midnight on Dec. 31 so they could welcome in the new year with us.
This was a momentous occasion for them. We drank pop and ate chips and watched the countdown on TV, finally saying goodbye to the old and hello to the new with the music of Guy Lombardo.
We opened the door, let the new year in, hubby “first footed”, then it was time for bed. In the direct way that children have, they asked us, “Is that all?”
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Alas, it was.
No drum rolls, no fading of the moon or movement of the stars, nothing earth shattering. It was just the old year passing away imperceptibly to be replaced, in a moment of time, by the new.
If you didn’t know what was happening, if you didn’t keep watch, you wouldn’t know that one year was ending and another beginning.
Having seen it through my children’s eyes that one year, new year’s eve has never been the same for me.
They were right. There should be more.
It seems wrong that with the blink of an eye we are transported from 1996 to 1997, taking with us the same cares and worries, the same baggage that we carried for the previous 12 months.
One feels that with a new year things should be different, yet with the dawn of 1997 we face the same divisions we faced at the end of 1996. The country is in no better or worse shape, we still have the same worries about taxes and jobs, the economy, health care, the future. Western farmers remain divided against one another over how their grain should be marketed and the coming changes to the Canadian Wheat Board Act and the barley plebiscite in February hold out little promise for alleviating the strains between farmers on opposite sides of the issue.
A new year is naturally a time for reflection. If, as 1997 dawns, that reflection tends toward doom and gloom perhaps that is a sign of the times, or perhaps it is the near -40¡ temperatures that have put a damper on the spirits.
I long ago gave up making new year’s resolutions.
Still, this might be the year in which I follow some advice given to me years ago to grow asparagus and raise bees, the former to learn patience, the latter to learn the value of industry and good workmanship.
With the challenges facing us in this year of our Lord 1997, it may be that there will be a lot of asparagus grown and bees raised, figuratively if not literally.
