New Years on Times Square in 1981

January 1, 1981

We’re going to have a new president soon, one of the many changes we can expect in a new year and (depending on who you ask) a new decade.

A lot of people might not yet notice the massive change since many of us are still getting over our hangovers, and this sense of cheer we all subscribe to when one-year ends and the next begins.

A lot of people stroll the still-empty streets of Manhattan trying to sort out fact from fantasy or if lucky enough to have reserved a model room, wake up in time to check out, while pondering whether or not they got lucky the night before – and whether or not it was with someone other than their spouse.

Times Square is a mess, filled with the scraps of 1980, and the bodies of those not lucky enough to survive into the new year – mugged or misplaced, or some other self-inflicted misery too personal for the newspapers to keep a record of.

We all plunge into the new year with high hopes – some actually believing in the new New Deal the new president is proposing, if the world actually survives along enough to see it.

The Iranians are firmly convinced Mr. Reagan is the new George Custard fully intending on waging a war against them the way Custard did the American Indian (with some of us hoping the outcome isn’t as tragic as Custard’s was.)

Then, of course, there are the hostages to consider and whether or not they will arrive back safe before Reagan gets to blow up the world.

All this international intrigue gives me a headache when I have more personal issues to contend with – such as my peeving off my girlfriend last night by refusing to take her see Pauly’s band at the Navel Base, choosing to remain back at her parents home, swinging in the New Year watching the ball drop at Times Square on TV.

Her parents subscribed to some old Polish ritual involving herring and a coin, which seemed to drive her crazy – as if growing up, she’d seen too much of this, while I never saw it before and found it entertaining and sweet – even if my fingers smell of fish even this long afterwards.

She seemed a bit put out by having to share the change of years with her aunt and uncle, though liked seeing her grandmother – as if we all sensed that if we did not take in this moment with these people we might never get to share another with them later.

I always feel such lost moments, even if my girlfriend doesn’t.

She wanted to go out, and be part of that other world that has nothing to do with Polish tradition, sharing the new year with her new friends who just happen to be my oldest and dearest friends, and traditions I know too well, but in her turn, my girlfriend finds intriguing, and that we both might miss later when we realize the opportunity to see the changing of the decade with them might not come again – even when my friends are much younger than her family is.

Perhaps because I’m a decade older than she is, I appreciate older traditions more, and lust less for some new adventure the way she does.

I know she’s angry at me this morning for what she missed last night, her cool silence telling me that I will pay a price for this loss, even though in some ways, she doesn’t yet understand the precious moment she had, and how when time passes on, the band will be forgotten, but not the herring and the coin, or the smell of fish on her fingers, or that last memory of her grandmother who might or might not survive to see a new year or, at best, a new decade.

I listen to the news on TV and realize just how unimportant those events are, except perhaps for the fact that some family member somewhere is aching for the return of hostages the new president promises to get released, and how we pass into a new year with hope for a better future and memories of a pass we should not forget.

And so, I make my annual pilgrimage to New York City to survey the damage and to take stock of what still remains unchanged, and to evaluate – as if in a mirror – how much I’ve changed since the last decade changed.