“When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen
“When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one
“When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five
“But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year.”
As each new year begins, I get a little sentimental. I think of the old man passing the new kid on the chronological block and get nostalgic. The older I get, the more nostalgic I seem to become.
I’m not one to live in the past, but I remember hearing “Old Blue Eyes” (Frank Sinatra for those not in the know) sing the Ervin Drake song that won him the 1966 Grammy Award for the best vocal performance. I didn’t understand what the hoopla was about, but in 1966, I was 15. I was too young to understand the passage of time. I didn’t realize the richness of life, yet. I was invincible and didn’t know a good year from a bad year. It was perpetual spring. Autumn would never come, much less winter.
Autumn, however, is just around the corner. My life’s march toward it cannot be stopped -- I hope. Even though I plan to live a longer life, who knows what the new season will bring? Every day I do what my mother told me I would do: check the obituary page. Nothing, I’ve come to learn, is guaranteed. I’ve also learned I’m not invincible and that an endless spring does not exist.
That knowledge has made me appreciate the people I meet each day. It allows me to remain calm, even when someone, and this happens often in this business, attempts to rub me the wrong way. I’ve learned that while we amplify the disagreements we see each day -- Republican versus Democrat, black versus white, north side of town versus south side of town, Yankee versus Southerner -- most of us are just hardy folks trying to make it through the seasons of our lives.
Some of us were given a raw deal from birth. Some were born with the proverbial silver spoon in our mouths, but still we all have to get along because that’s what we are commanded to do.
As 2010 fades into a cacophony of years that blur over time into decades and seasons, we should appreciate it while we still can. Take its lessons to heart. Try not to repeat the great errors we made and look around for opportunities to help folks rather than hinder them. If we have a hatchet, bury it, and not in someone’s back. If we have a grudge, let it go. Don’t let anyone live rent free in your head.
This year will present great opportunities and challenges. Lord know are challenges -- from saving the halls of fame to our decrepit educational system, but if I can ask one thing: Can we be more civil in 2011 as we come to grips with the issues that face us? Can we not unlatch the old baggage we’ve been carrying around for decades? Can we assume the best before we guarantee the worst? Can we work for the good of everyone in our community so that we all can look back and say 2011, “It was a very good year.”
ABOUT THE WRITER
Charles E. Richardson is The Macon Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached via e-mail at crichardson@macon.com.