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Another new year rolls around, a new chance to make a mistake when you
write a check...
People traditionally reflect on the year just concluded while newspapers and magazines compile best and worst lists (ten best movies, ten most corrupt politicians, etc.) and we make New Year's resolutions (or solemnly resolve not to make any resolutions).
New Year's Day 2007 here in Rhode Island is cold and damp and dark and
rainy -- but, on the bright side, there is no need to shovel rain.
I did not take part in the Pier Plunge this year -- no New Year's Day swim for me -- I've got a sore throat and the accompanying aches and pains and jumping into Narragansett Bay did not seem especially enticing. In fact, just about the time that the crowd would have been running into the water I was back in bed for a nap. After doing a New Year's Day swim three years in a row and then missing the last one because we were in upstate New York for a New Year's Eve wedding, I had really been looking forward to this year's swim. Ah well, there's always next year.
I am really feeling pretty cruddy so I think I'm not going to babble on
and on with philosophical thoughts about entering a fresh new year, etc.,
and yada yada yada.
Instead I'm just going to stick in a couple of old photographs... those
of you who have been around here for a long time may recognize them; I
had posted them late in 2000 and they caught my attention when I was looking
at old entries.
The first one was one I was prompted to post because of a discussion in Stephanie's journal about a Bruce Springsteen concert she attended New Year's Eve 1980. This picture shows Nancy and me in our first Christmas in our own house -- Christmas 1980. |
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I was 37 at the time, about four months short of my 38th birthday. If you
saw the picture of Adam in yesterday's entry, please note that he celebrated
his 38th birthday in late September.
Yes, I did have long hair in those days. In fact, if you look at the black
and white photograph, you will notice that my hair was quite long in that
shot as well -- which was taken years earlier than the Christmas picture,
probably around February of 1971. Adam and I had made a snow bear.
Adam took the Christmas picture. He was twelve at the time (note: his bachelor's
degree is in photography) but I don't think he took the snow bear picture
because he would have been just about Sammy's age at that time. (He might
have taken it; I can't remember.) |
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Oh -- the weird workings of chance -- I had selected those two photographs
this afternoon -- and went down into the baseement to see if I could handle
riding the exercise bike for a little while (so I wouldn't start the year
without a workout) and Nancy was digging around in some boxes of old paperwork
looking for something when she called out "Hey, look at this old Christmas
picture" and held out a copy of that 1980 Christmas photograph.
Blasts from the past -- some entries for this date retrieved from the dusty
archives...
This is my
Holidailies entry for January 1st |
A brief introduction....
A brief introduction to anyone who wanders in here for the first time from
the Holidailies site -- I'm a middle-aged
(*cough* okay, 63, but I don't look a day over 62
) guy who lives in Rhode Island with my wife Nancy (a middle-school math
teacher), daughter Gillian ("Jill" -- 24 yr old college student),
son Jeremy (21 yr old college student), and Tiger (senior citizen cat).
Eldest child Adam lives in New York City with his wife Leah and our grandson
Sam. I'm a former programmer/systems analyst who got into doing software
training and currently works from home doing quality assurance and editing
on course material for both classroom courses and Web-based training courses.
I've been writing this online journal since 1996. (If you read some of the archived entries, until a couple of years ago I used fake names for the kids -- "Sean" = Jeremy and "Jennifer" = Gillian) |
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