2011: Can It Really Be?

Yes, it is 2011. January 1 to be precise.

You probably never knew this, but on this day in 1622 the Pope decided to make January the first month of the year and, surprise, January 1 is now the first day of the year. Up till then March 25 had been the beginning of the year. Don't ask me why. Probably something to do with spring break.

Wouldn't it be great if you had the power to just change the calendar so everyone else went by your schedule? What day would you make the first day of the year?

Actually, it's probably good that I don't have that kind of power. I would probably make it midsummer and then, because of all the people annoyed with a midsummer First Day of the Year, would change it to midwinter, followed by a lottery in which the new first would be determined randomly every five years or so. Or should we roll a die to decide how often to change it? The whole thing seems like such a hassle and, ultimately, who really cares? When was the last time you wondered why January 1 was the first day of the year? I'm 58 and can't recall asking myself that question once.

January 1st is notable for a number of important events though. I've always known (since I learned about it in history class) that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, in 1863, but I did not know until today that Denmark banned the import of slaves to the Danish West Indies on this day in 1803, the first country to do so. The following year Haiti declared independence from France and became the first independent black republic in the Western Hemisphere. Evidently Napoleon had other things on his plate and chose not to make an issue of it. It took a while for Old Abe to make his move, but you can be sure that when he did there were a lot of folks who quietly said, "It's about time."

On the birthday front, you can add Ernest R Tidyman, Holling Gustav Vapor, Juliusz Luciuk, Bernard Drukker, Victor Reuther, Hubert van Doorne, composer Roland Diggle, and Arthur Hugh Clough, poet friend of Matthew Arnold to your list of first-day-of-the-year babies. You may also add author JD Salinger, E.M. Forster, Barry Goldwater, Betsy Ross and Paul Revere to this list if you need help finding names with greater recognition.

If it seems like I'm just rambling and just grasping at straws for something to write, you're probably correct.

The image at the top of this page was painted in the early seventies when I was an art student at Ohio University. It was titled The Circle of Life, and features an old man with his hand on a wicket. The arrow sliding through the wicket leads to an image of fallopian tubes above which sits the silhouette of a stork. The little series of expanding rectangles becomes the roof of a house and and series of shapes leading to the fingertip of an old man who looks backward over the course of his days. But the energy leads forward through the wicket and the circle of life begins all over again.

So it is with out own lives, I suppose. We live, we share, we pass on our hopes and dreams, life lessons and values to another generation that they might in turn bring something good to a future that one days leaves us behind. As we enter a new year we let go of the past and set our faces forward to the surprising and awesome that lies ahead. May your year be thus... rich with surprises, and events that bring you awe.

Happy New Year.

Year End Review and New Beginnings

Don't know what came over me yesterday. I'd intended to do a year end review, something upbeat as we headed into the new year. But that WSJ story about the end of the U.S. as we know it just washed over me and swept me up in its current.

Yes, undertows are powerful and can be dangerous. No, it didn't wash me out to sea. Aside: Did you know that Jack Nicholson, while a teen growing up in New Jersey, once saved five peoples' lives who had been carried out into the ocean by an undertow? There were eleven swept out into the deep. Young Jack grabbed a lifeboat and headed out to save them. He says he puked his guts out after, but the newspaper only showed the shining face of the hero, which caught someone's eye, carrying him off in another current to the turbulent seas of fame in Hollywood.

Anyways, that WSJ story, popularized via the Drudge Report, certainly diverted me from my intentions. I don't really buy into the idea of our country breaking up into fragments by 2010. There are some who might enjoy seeing such things, like the Soviet analyst who saw his own nation crumble into pieces. Yugoslavia was similarly broken into fragments in recent history, which I can't help but think would weaken it and create inefficiencies. The most difficult problem is for geography students who simply can't keep up with all these changes. Yugoslavia was first broken into six parts in 1990's, into 8 a couple years ago and now, as of 2008, Kosovo has become a ninth entity.

A friend in Pakistan fears that the U.S., in an effort to strengthen its global stranglehold on that region of the world in the name of stability, has the same designs on his own nation. Some over there have expressed concern that the Mumbai tragedy will be used as a pretext for increased intervention.

We're not making much progress here in our year end review, though the last two snippets at least relate to the theme. Maybe I'm in avoidance mode since the collapse of housing, and the tsunami of bankruptcies and other financial disasters, culminating in the Madoff scandal as exclamation point, hardly bears repeating.

So, while all this tragedy was happening, what were the top searches for 2008 according to Yahoo Buzz? Number One, Brittney Spears whose police visit, hospital stay and psych evaluation were exceedingly important to Americans this year. Oh, she also appeared in a sitcom.

Number Two, the WWE heated up the cybersearchers in June with some kind of stir created when the effervescent Vince McMahon was purportedly injured in an explosion on a stage... or was it a staged explosion? Sorry, I missed it.

Number Three, Barack Obama. OK, this is a worthy number three. The guy overcame the odds, has charisma, defeated Hillary, steam-rolled the GOP and its veteran candidate John McCain... and has a lot of people rooting for him as he heads toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. My prayer is that we'll see miracles, because with the economic mess we're in and the international turmoil in every direction, it might take miracles to get us back to a place of stability and confidence toward the future.

Two additional quick observations. To my knowledge Obama has never walked on water. And despite his success in the primaries and election, president-elect Obama did not attract more buzz than Brittney Spears.

Rounding out the top ten stories as measured by Yahoo Searches, we have Miley Cyrus (the Hannah Montana siren), RuneScape, Jessica Alba, Naruta, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, and American Idol.

No list of year end summaries is complete without those farewells to significant people who departed this year. I had a personal stake in at least two of the personalities on Yahoo's Top 10 list: Paul Newman and Boyd Coddington. Having the same name as a mega-star actor invariably puts him on your personal life radar from time to time. As a freshman at Ohio University in 1970 I had a room in Scot Quad, where I learned that Paul Newman had lived during part of his abbreviated attendance at O.U. I enjoyed many of his films over the years, especially his early classics The Hustler, Hud, and Cool Hand Luke. He lived a charmed life, married to his one true love throughout and generously giving tens of millions to charity.

My intersection with Boyd Coddington's life commenced in 2007 when AMSOIL began a sponsorship relationship with Boyd who, at the time, had a reality TV show building hot cars. Or cool cars, however you like to look at it. Coddington's influence on the Southern California hot rod scene was legendary. He lived his dream. At the end of 2007 I flew to Orlando where I interviewed Boyd and Jo, his good hearted wife, for a feature story in the AMSOIL Action News. It might have been the last published feature on Boyd as within weeks the effects of his diabetes put him in the hospital, from which he never recovered. Perhaps you'll enjoy reading my tribute to Boyd & Jo, Innovation and a Passion for Cars.

Other passings in 2008 included Heath Ledger, George Carlin, Tim Russert, William F. Buckley, Sydney Pollack, Charlton Heston and the European Bakery in Downtown Duluth.

On the positive side of the ledger, The Centerville All Stars produced and released a great new CD, Party with the Band. You can read my review and purchase your copy here.

In the meantime, have a great 2009, starting today. Hot Tip: Enjoy your friends, make some memories with your families, and avoid the land mines. Happy New Year!