It’s the beginning of another year, traditionally celebrated with a New England boiled dinner of short ribs and cabbage. The two of us made it through four parties last night and were actually awake after midnight. This has rarely happened in the last twenty-two years since I started keeping a daily diary.

To bring in 2020, we celebrated a late night at Bern’s Steakhouse in Tampa as we explored the Gulf Coast looking for a retirement home. In most cases through the years, it’s been an early dinner and bedtime by ten. However, my wife spent 2017 in a hospital bed next to her mother and I brought-in Chinese for both of them. Back in 2009, during a low point in my career, I actually had to work at Joseph A. Banks on New Year’s Eve and Day in Austin, Texas, the only job I’ve had outside of media in the last five decades. Needless to say, it was not an exciting way to bring in the new. The very first New Year’s Eve that I spent with my second wife was in an Indianapolis emergency room after she sliced her fingers preparing a crab dinner. What a way to bring in Y2K!

Last night, it was appetizers at two different neighborhood homes including ours, followed by dessert at the next stop, and a finale of champagne to watch the ball drop. Ohio State missed a field goal at midnight in a losing effort to Georgia. Remarkably, it was the very first New Year event that we ever attended as a couple. We nearly attended one back when we lived in Decatur, Illinois but canceled at the last minute after days of stripping wallpaper.  In all, our celebrations have now been in five different states – Indiana, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, and Florida. It’s actually hard to believe that we’ve never been in an exotic location on this big night or ever planned a vacation around it. 

I do vaguely remember a few wild New Year celebrations back in the day when I was more apt to stay up late. This includes a sauna night back in my hometown of Elkhart with former high school buddies when we cut a hole in the ice, smoked cigars, and did shots of whiskey to stay warm. At Albion College, I went to Milwaukee with Fraternity brothers and our dates to the Lake Geneva Playboy Club for snow skiing and to watch Lew Alcinder and the Bucks play ball, my first NBA game. It was another group of friends that convinced me to go to the Liberty Bowl in 1988 for an Indiana victory over South Carolina. We partied on Beale Street to bring in the New Year. There was also a midnight on Bourbon Street with my former brother-in-law after attending the 1993 Independence Bowl. Hopefully, there will be many more to come, but getting to bed at a decent hour is still preferrable.