NEW YEAR’S DAY
New Year’s Eve is the celebration of the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new year. A year is the length of time it takes for the earth to circle the sun which it seems to me has no significance at all, who cares how long it takes? What does seem important is the tilt of the earth as we circle the sun. As we circle the sun, at the poles we tilt away from the sun in the winter and tilt toward the sun in the summer. So what is more important than the time it takes to circle the sun is the change of the seasons caused by this tilt. Whatever the arbitrary way we measure time, it is the way we keep track of things. I was born in 1937. Today I noted that I was now in my 89th year and a year form now I will be in my 90th year, which seems ancient indeed.
One Winter when I was in my late teens my brother Ted and I braved the cold to stand in Times Square and celebrate the change of the year with a large crowd of other noisy people. This year in Switzerland after midnight a crowded bar at a ski resort in Switzerland burst into flames and dozens of people were killed. Last night in Marshall I was awoken at midnight by firecrackers across the river, shifted in my recliner and went back to sleep. I am losing my enthusiasm about the passage of time.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 