"Have A Happy Year!"

"Happy New Year!”

What might be the definitive definition of this proclamation? A day that marks the passage of one year and the beginning of the next with a simple directive from one person to another that the coming year brings good fortune and prosperity, health and happiness, peace and good will?

Although the greeting may be more heartfelt toward close friends, relatives and co-workers, extending good will to frequented businesses and an occasional store clerk are all a part of the tradition.

Personally, extending a bit of gratitude to the gentleman whose dedication delivers the newspaper every morning is a tradition in itself, albeit the token appreciation may have to wait until mid January. (Holiday expenses, property taxes and home insurance renewal fees are steadfast greeters at year end.)

Of course, there are those who give bah-humbug tidings of a 'sappy' or 'crappy' New Year and would just as soon the folklore had never been begotten. So, when did the idea of celebrating the coming of the new year begin?

Around 2000 BC, when the calendar consisted of ten months from March to December, ancient Babylon began celebrating the New Year on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. And lasted eleven days!

Egyptians, Phoenicians and Persians began the New Year with the fall equinox; Greeks on the winter solstice.

Around 153 BC, Roman emperor Numa Pompilius added January and February as the eleventh and twelfth months of the year while maintaining March 1 as the beginning of the new year. It wasn’t until 135 BC that January 1 was declared the beginning of the new year to coincide with the seasons of the solar cycle.

In 46 BC, Julius Caesar established the Julian Calendar and proclaimed the first day of January as New Year’s Day. Caesar felt that Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates and had two faces, one looking forward and one back, was an appropriate symbol of new beginnings.

Caesar celebrated the first January 1 New Year in 45 BC by ordering the massacre of revolutionary Jewish forces in the Galilee. In later years, Roman pagans observed the New Year by engaging in drunken orgies – a ritual they believed constituted a personal re-enactment of the chaotic universe until the gods brought order to the cosmos. In modern times the ‘happy’ part of the New Year continues to bring in the seasonal ‘cheer’ of inebriation.

During the Middle Ages, after the Roman Empire was dissolved, Christians proclaimed the New Year began on December 25 to celebrate the birth of Christ. Other religions reverted back to March 1, or March 25 during the Feast of the Annunciation or Easter.

It wasn’t until 1522 that Venice was the first to establish what would become the universal standard of January 1 as the beginning of the new year. The rest of Italy adopted the new tradition at various times since then, but it wasn’t until 1752 that the British Empire became the last country to follow suit. Spanish, Portugal and French territories had made the change nearly two hundred years earlier.

In Christianity, New Year’s Day, the eighth day of Christmas, is represented by the Eight Beatitudes (Eight Maids a-Milking) with the blessing of the poor in spirit, the meek, they who mourn, they that hunger and thirst after justice, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers and they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake.

The eighth day is also referenced by the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord, when the child born in Bethlehem was given his name, Jesus, our Savior.

Of course, religion has very little to do with modern day New Year celebrations. Instead, our expectations are radio, television and newspaper commentaries reviewing milestones of the year gone by of natural disasters, social and political events and memorials to notable people who had passed away.

We are also given a congregation of opinions addressing the challenges facing society during the coming year. Absolutions and hopeful solutions are bountiful. Of immediate importance are public service narratives that announce new laws that will become effective during the coming year.

Of personal commitment, people tend to make New Year’s resolutions to quit smoking, lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier foods, redress a variety of excesses, thus improving the quality of life – out with the old, in with the new as they say.

But, is that all there is? Just a few hours or, at most, a few days of reflecting on the past and speculating on the future? Alas, once the day is over, the newness of the year fades away all too soon.

Therefore, may I extend to you my wishes that you Have A Happy Year!

Going, Going, Gong

Looks like my column The Rae Way in the Hernando Times has been given the boot. The two blogs on Christmas, recently posted here on My Space, were not printed.

Those S.O.B.s! How many, and how often, do you see/read something positive in news commentaries? Especially holiday-specific topics.

It appears that when Editor Chris Wessell is on vacation my columns are totally discounted.
Well, the time I spend obtaining data from Google, the Wall Street Journal , The New York Times, The St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune, not to mention various magazines, are time consuming and wasteful if not printed. I'll continue to write and post entries on the four blogspot.com blogs I have neglected to maintain because they were submitted for print. Never mind the fact that no one reads them, it's still an exercise at developing my writing [skills?].

Discontinuing the column is disheartening but that's the way it goes when you have no formal education in journalism.

I am not worthy of the honor to express my opinions.

Sincerely, my Best Wishes to Hernando Today and its Op-Ed pages. The diversity is like no other local newspapers I have read during my lifetime.

I just hope that whoever replaces my space in the newspaper gets paid for it.
It appears it may be Reverend James L. Snyder, a pastor of the Family of God Fellowship in Ocala, Florida. That's all we need in the South - another conservative awash with religious messages. But that's what ya get in a Bible-thumping state.

The reverend and his church should reap a fortune from his column through the church website. I suppose the reverend's revenue for the church will be a major benefit.

Thankfully, the paper still prints Ted Rall's 'Liberal Point of View' column.

I'm a happy and typically positive person. I'm not easily disheartened. Having a personal, intimate, faithful relationship with plenty of love making is about all I need to be fully happy. At this point, it will have to wait until I'm settled in Nashville, Tennessee.

Please, join me in a hopeful and sincere HAPPY NEW YEAR for All!!