” All is quiet on New Year’s Day
A world in white gets underway …”
I’m going to become a child.
That’s my New Year’s Resolution.
In fact, if I manage to make it through this decade, that’s my New Decade’s Resolution.
To be a child.
Childlike.
Clear my mind of all things adult.
Adults haven’t been doing so well lately.
Children didn’t get us into this mess.
Mommies and daddies did.
So I’m going back, to start all over again.
Going make me new by following the quotes I’ve heard from some children.
New Year/Decade Resolution 1A:
“We Share And No Biting”
The anthem from my daughter Ashley’s first day care center.
When they told me that’s what they try and teach all the children, I said, “You know, you might want to teach that to some adults, too.”
We are all on the same rock floating through space so it only makes sense to share it with each other, and to quit killing each other over it.
We Share … and No Biting … PEACE written in crayons.
New Year/Decade Resolution 1B:
“I thought of what to do then I did what I thinked.”
This came out of the booth behind me in a McDonald’s somewhere. A young child had just said this to the adult he was sitting eating fries with.
The adult went on to correct the kid on the “right” way to talk.
I wrote the quote down on a napkin. I thought the kid pretty well nailed it.
There’s a lot to be said for putting thought before thinked.
Thinked before thought, never seems to work out well.
Hey kid with the fries, taking time to thinked it out is a good thing. We all need to do what we thinked.
You got some wisdom there with those fries.
I thinked.
New Year/Decade Resolution 1C:
“Happy New Ears”
I was standing in line at a convenience store yesterday buying booze and potatoes and waiting for the lady and her kid in front of me to buy their stuff and get out of my way.
Try balancing ten pounds of potatoes and a quart of Tequila and see how much patience you have.
When the lady gets the change back from the dude behind the counter she says to him, “Thank you, and Happy New Years.”
He grunts back something that may have sounded like that if you could actually talk in slow motion.
So I’m standing there with spuds in a bag, and a worm in a bottle and as the lady and kid start to leave the store, the little kid turns to me, 80-proof worm high, and says exactly this to me: “Happy New Ears Mister.”
And as I moved the bottle of firewater so as to not actually smack the kid in the face with it, I looked down at him and said exactly this back, “And Happy New Ears to you as well … kid.”
Happy New Ears.
Begin this decade with New Ears. Maybe the best wish of all.
New Ears to listen to new ideas, new points of view.
Out with the old ears … in with the new ears.
Trust me, the children have got it right.
Happy New Ears
“I will begin again
I…I will begin again.”
New Year’s Day
U2
Don Barone is an award-winning outdoors writer and a member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Guild of the U.K. You can reach db at www.donbaroneoutdoors.com.