Happy New Year !!!
2016, man it don't seem like it should be that. I figured that 2009 would be my last one but here I am, guess I ain't done yet. I thought some while putting meds on my scalp to treat the Non Hodgkin's about the past.
When I was young we'd all watch the "ball drop", counting down along with the TV to the final second, then scream Happy New Year. We'd call and wish other family members the same, even if it meant waking them up, lol. There was no cell phones or answering machines back then, so it would ring until either we stopped or someone answer. The next day mom would fix stuff we'd, or at least I would not eat again until the next year rolled around. Black eyed Peas, Greens, and other stuff that were suppose to do certain things for you throughout the year. I remember greens being money, I guess because we had so little of it. Walk uphill so that one would make advances upon the first walk. Blue eyed people were considered bad luck, and most of us had blue eyes. Keith, and probably some other of mom's siblings had brown eyes, some had green. Hey those were consider good luck if they came to visit during New Year's Day. We would wait until Keith, Dorthy, and their kids would come visit, and they always did so we'd all have good luck. Man were we ever blessed, not because of eye color, or what we ate, but because we had each other.
Skip ahead and when I was a teenager, dad had landed a good paying job, so we thought we would up the tradition by adding a new one to the line up. We had watched people on TV drinking and Champagne seemed to be the "in" thing they drank. Mom bought some Champagne and fancy glasses in preparation of the celebration. I was a young teenager back then and thought this would add something new. We all gathered around and watched the ball drop, counting the last seconds countdown along with them. We all had our glasses, a bit awkward to hold but we'd do as we saw on TV. The glasses were poured and when the ball dropped we all screamed Happy New Year. We raised our glasses, even clinking them together, and preceded to drink. You could see us looking at each other as we held the glasses over our mouth. Some swallowed it while other spit it out into the glass or the sink. Nobody liked the taste, guess we just wasn't cut out for it. So we grabbed our soft drinks, milk, or Eggnog, and refilled our washed out glasses, lol. Thus began and ended this new tradition, lol.
Some decades have passed since then, some people have passed since then. even as an adult I always called mom and dad when that ball dropped. Dad would wake up to watch it, mom watched it all. Misty and Annie live away now and Megan is at her boyfriends (and yes, she has to come home by 12:10). The older ones who once kept us all together have since gone and the younger ones became the older ones over time. We haven't kept the traditions like our predecessors did, and that is a shame. So tonight it will be just me and Denise, watching the ball drop and doing one tradition that mom and dad did, the New Years first kiss, as we have done for 27 years now. Then we will hit the bed, not wanting to disturb our girls.I'll probably at least send a text, which seems a bit impersonal. I see what those who came before me saw, that these times may never come again so be thankful for who and what you have. For a moment I wondered if they considered as they aged if it may be their last one. Then I remember how they lived, oh how they did live, making the most of every minute, every person, everything in their life each day. That makes me say, I want to live like that.
God Bless and Happy New Year
Anthony
