Happy New Year However You Mark It

JL Wilson went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve and enjoyed it. Good for him. You will never catch me there, mainly because I can’t seem to stay up until midnight these days.

If I think back to the last time I was awake to usher in the New Year, it must have been in the early 1990s in Seattle. Mrs Vache Folle and I went down to the Space Needle and waited for something to happen to the Needle. Then we went home on the bus. There were lots of people there, but nothing like Times Square, and getting home was easy. Seattle is warmer than New York, so the temperature was not a deterrent . Seattlleites are painfully polite, so there was no fear of hostile drunks or cutpurses. Someone yelled at us from a car as we stood at the bus stop, “Happy New Year, Bus Takers!” It was not unpleasant but it was truly pointless, and we never bothered to do it again.

The Best New Year ‘s Eve ever was when we ushered in 1991 on the deck of an ocean liner berthed in the harbor of Funchal. The town was festooned with lights, and the whole population must have set off fireworks at midnight. I have never since seen such a display. Many of the dignitaries from Madeira were on board for the party. That was a helluva night, let me tell you.

Aside from my somnolence, there are other reasons I no longer go out on New Year’s Eve. I reckon that January 1 is a pretty arbitrary date for starting a year. I would prefer that we used one of the solstices as folks used to do. Or any meaningful date, for that matter. January 1? Why not August 3, or Arbor Day? I just can’t get worked up about January 1.

I tend to be socially phobic, and the drunk driving Nazis are so active that I am deterred from having a single alcoholic beverage if I have to drive. How can I socialize with people I don’t know very well if I can’t use a social lubricant? Also, I worry that the majority of drivers I will encounter on the way home will be intoxicated and out to kill me.

But just because I prefer not to go out, it does not mean that I am not still happy that those who do enjoy it. I rejoice in their happiness. We’re not all the same. We are diverse, and I celebrate diversity.