• About

Crossing Paths

~ Intersections can reroute our destinies forever

Crossing Paths

Category Archives: New Year’s Eve

Saddest Night of the Year

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by michael schinker in New Year's Eve

≈ 2 Comments

The evening wouldn’t be proper without hearing the tune Auld Lang Syne, to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight. Every year I have to look it up because I have forgotten the meaning. Originally a poem penned by Scottish bard and lyricist Robert Burns in 1788, the song’s title may be translated into our modern-day English as “long, long ago,” “days gone by” or “for the sake of old times.” The familiar first four lines pose a rhetorical question:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

Starting in 1929, renowned bandleader Guy Lombardo and his orchestra performed undoubtedly the most recognizable version of the song on New Year’s Eve for decades. Search for it on Spotify. It sounds like a funeral dirge. Maybe because we are in mourning for the end of the year? Putting it to bed for the last time so to speak. For whatever reason, hearing it and thinking about closing yet another annual chapter of my life always makes me more sad than festive.

Don’t get me wrong. In my younger days, I was guilty of my fair share of shameless debauchery in celebrating the evening away into mindless oblivion, with regrettable results. Of course my first resolution the following day was always, “I’ll never do that again.”

So hours before and after the ball drops in Times Square, there will be millions of folks reveling around the world. Lots of merriment and cheer. Truth is, that will probably go out the window or down the toilet tomorrow, when normalcy dawns with an aggressive hangover headache.

I’ve nothing against partying – within legal, healthy physical and emotional limits, of course. But I guess in finally aging into responsible maturity I have found other ways to express a sensinew-years-eve-clockble sense of rowdiness. I’ve no need to blow up leftover Fourth of July M-80s or to fire gunshots into the below-freezing midnight sky. Go ahead. Do it if you have to.

But the wife and I plan to spend the final hours of 2016 in relative comfort in the sanctuary of our home. First we’ll enjoy a home-cooked, medium-rare prime rib and all the fixins dinner. I may even crack open an ice cold can of Sam Adams Winter Lager (Santa left me a 12-pack). Afterwards I will probably spend some time in the easy chair reviewing the year in quiet meditation. Last January, the Lord presented me with a challenge to be more resourceful and deliberate with my time, to make what I do with my life count, and especially to have an encouraging, inspirational impact on other men for the kingdom of God. I will ask Him how I did.

Before the midnight hour though, I will probably doze off and miss the dessert round of a taped episode of the Food Network’s Chopped. When the fireworks go off around the neighborhood, the dog will bark, and the wife and I will wake up to a new year – to be thankful for each other, our health and well being, our family, for old acquaintances never to be forgotten, and joining in with the aged poet, “We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Crossing Paths on WordPress.com

Archives

  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (3)
  • December 2014 (6)
  • November 2014 (1)

Categories

  • 2017 (1)
  • 9/11 (1)
  • All Hallow's Eve (1)
  • Armageddon (1)
  • aspens (1)
  • Aylan (1)
  • Buddhist (2)
  • Celtic Christmas (1)
  • Charles Wesley (2)
  • Christmas (11)
  • Christmas Carol (3)
  • Christmas Day (4)
  • crucifixion (1)
  • December (5)
  • earthquake (1)
  • Easter (2)
  • Election 2016 (1)
  • Everest (1)
  • Flo and Kay Lyman (1)
  • Good Friday (1)
  • Happiness (3)
  • Holidays (2)
  • Holocaust (1)
  • Hurricane Harvey (1)
  • ISIS (1)
  • Israel (1)
  • Jesus Christ (15)
  • John F. Kennedy (1)
  • labels (1)
  • Life and death (9)
  • Mars (1)
  • Memorial Day (1)
  • Messiah (4)
  • miracles (1)
  • Nepal (1)
  • New Year's Eve (1)
  • Obsessions (3)
  • pandemic (1)
  • peonies (1)
  • perceptions (2)
  • poem (8)
  • politics (2)
  • Prophecy (4)
  • Refugees (1)
  • religion (6)
  • rescue (1)
  • resurrection (2)
  • Rocky Mountains (1)
  • savantism (1)
  • Smashing Pumpkins (1)
  • Solstice (1)
  • Spring (2)
  • stars (2)
  • Stonehenge (1)
  • suffering (1)
  • Summer (1)
  • Super Moon (1)
  • terrorism (2)
  • Titanic (1)
  • Tolstoy (1)
  • Ukraine (1)
  • Uncategorized (6)
  • vampires (1)
  • war (3)
  • winter (5)

Community

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 75 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Crossing Paths
    • Join 75 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Crossing Paths
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...