A Cup o' Kindness Yet

About 10 minutes into 2010, I asked my daughters to put on their coats and shoes and come outside with me into the back yard. The night was clear and too cold. The bright-coin full Moon was nearly straight overhead -- in brightness as close as it ever comes to being the Sun -- laying a moonglow on the carpet of snow below, interrupted only by gray patterns of tree-branch shadows. Ann noticed the tiny diamond sparkles in the snow before the rest of us did, but once pointed out, they were impossible to miss.

Won't be long, sometime in the '10s yawning ahead, before the girls are hanging out with their friends, not their parents, for the change of years. I hope so anyway, because it's something youth should do. Recently I saw Facebook pictures of my nephew Robert, 21, with his friends for December 31/January 1 festivities. I didn't know anyone in the pictures except him, but it all looked familiar. If my old high school friends and I had had Facebook on January 1, 1980, we'd probably have made similar postings.

I don't have any images from the first day of the 1980s. People weren't snap-happy in those days. I do have some from Day One of the 1990s, though:

By this time, old college friends. Left to right: Mike, Dan, Steve, me, Victor, Rich and Lisa, in front of the Golden Palace Restaurant in Boston's Chinatown (amazingly, it still seems to be there); photo taken by another in our party, Karin. A nicely composed impromptu group portrait of happy friends.

We had dim sum at the Golden Palace for lunch that day. More of a breakfast, since we'd stayed up till 4 or 5 that morning. Hard to believe I used to have energy for that kind of thing. I suppose I could still stay up that late if absolutely necessary, but I'm not sure I'd be quite so glad about things the next day.