Recent Years Ending In Seven

Back to posting again in the days after January 1, to honor the beginning of National Soup Month. And there are other special days to look forward to as well in that otherwise cold, forbidding month -- Millard Fillmore's 208th birthday, Ann's fifth birthday and National Gorilla Suit Day. We will also ponder the life and deeds of Martin Luther King Jr., and wonder why he couldn't have been born around August 1, when the nation needs another summer holiday, one between July 4 and Labor Day.

At this end of a 7-numbered year, I recall how warm it was on December 31, 1977, in San Antonio, a high-school era New Year's Eve. I spent part of the afternoon with five or six friends of mine in a place we called Cathedral Park, dipping our feet in a small stream. That night, it was still warm enough to gallivant around nearby neighborhoods, including the papering of a couple of houses of friends of ours who hadn't joined us that night, and passing midnight at the house we often gathered at, about a mile from where I lived. Sometime after 3 or 4 am on the first morning of 1978, a cold front blew in and more winterish weather returned -- 30s and 40s.

I don't remember much about the passage into 1988, except that I had gone to Nashville for the occasion, and that I had buying a new computer on my mind for the new year. Glad I didn't get around to it. If I still had it, the thing would be a formerly expensive paperweight, unlike the electric typewriter -- an XD 8000 Smith Corona -- I bought in 1987, which I can use, and occasionally do use.

As for 1997-98, we were in Chicago in the company of a six-week-old child at that time. The days, including the signpost between the years, are a blur at this distance, though I do remember that it was on Christmas Day 1997 that Lilly learned how to smile.