And Just Like That it Became 2025

Bang! Boom! Flash! Really? In the middle of the night? “Oh, its only New Year’s midnight, go back too sleep” And just like that it became 2025.

Buried in a plastic storage bin in our daughter’s house is a 1968 reel to reel audio tape I recorded in my parent’s Brooklyn home. It was New Year’s Eve. Mom, dad, brother, sister (with her year and half old daughter) and I were watching Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians play Auld Lang Syne on live TV from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. It was another typical New Year’s Eve at home. “House parties”, banging on pots and pans at midnight, making eggnog, wearing silly hats and of course, watching the ball drop in Times Square was a yearly ritual. Actually, for many that has not changed much.

Guy Lombardo, Dick Clark, Brian Seaquest, and countless other performers I have no clue of, filled and continues to fill the airways on this one night a year event. Airways, however, are now complemented with cell towers, WiFi, and direct satellite transmissions. Emails, video messages, text’s, Tik Tok, X, explode with greetings from all over the world at the stroke of midnight. Influencers, pundits, historians, commentators, sober or not, each give their considered opinion on the past year and the coming year. I write sober or not as professional drinkers may shun the night but I think it is still the number one day for alcohol sales and use. Some things never change.

The New Year of 1969 was a turning point for me. I graduated from college that June, started sailing in the merchant marine and became serious with Maureen. Turning 21 three months after new year’s was the start of a new life. Maybe that is why I turned that recorder on that night. It was a night and a time, that I could never repeat but only remember.

Maureen and I flew back to Antigua and Kalunamoo on this New Year’s Eve, had dinner on the waterfront and retired well before midnight. And just like that, it became a new year as I drifted back to sleep hearing Auld Lang Syne off in the distance while fireworks exploded over the palm trees of the Caribbean. Just another night in paradise. Nothing wrong with that.

Well, does that sound like the same old same old? We have been in the Lesser Antilles for 12 years now, island hoping with jaunts back to the “old country”. The people we meet who travel the same way are literal float in and out acquaintances. It is true that we have the capability of sailing to distance shores as that seems to be the main motivating force in most of the cruisers we meet. “Going across the pond”, “Will walk the trail of Ulysses”, “Made canal reservation, down-wind to Tahiti”, “Loved our time in Singapore”, “Cape Town is a must”.

Yes, we heard them all. As Jimmy Buffet sang, many have heard mother ocean call. Maybe if we were 15 years younger, when our bones didn’t creak as much, when being carefree didn’t have as many restrictions as it does now, we too could move on to distance shores. I’ll admit to being a little jealous at times, but we always send them off with good wishes and hopes that we will see them again.

There is good reason to believe that the world is at a turning point that will test our understanding, or even our acceptance, of it. Someone just caught a fish and sold it in Japan for 1.3 million dollars. A guy in New York hasn’t cut his hair in 50 years (its not me). Drones may fill the sky and blot out the stars while information continues to spread like wildfire. Soldiers will continue to be sent off to war, as if that solves anything. I read that a Rabbi has used AI to write a sermon.    

So what will this new year bring us?  We hope for warm breezes and sunshine; clear waters and fine wine; sweet rhums and better puns; good news and infrequent blues. We’ll sail when the time seems right and even travel by air when the time is tight. We are still open for new adventures, large or small, and hope our body parts accept them all.

Island hopping will continue, maybe at a slower pace. As we watch the weather, and asses the seas, trim the sails and stop the leaks, repair what fails and watch for whales, and just like that, another year will pass, AAGWWP (Always Afloat, God Willing, Weather Permitting).