Resolutions are the order of the day but who resolved that resolutions go with a new year? It wasn�t me. I long ago resolved that I would make resolutions when they needed to be made and not on some arbitrary deadline. Besides, I can think of few undertakings that are more likely to be successful in the cold, gray light of January than in the stirrings of spring, the beginning of the fiscal year in July, or the promise of a new school year in September.

I�m not very fond of all the year-end retrospectives either. I�m as willing as the next person to re-visit the past when it has some clear relevance to the presence. But there is something ghoulish about sitting in the kitchen and listening as your eleven-year-old daughter reads the list of well-known people who died in the last year and sighs with relief that none of them died on her birthday.

I didn�t stay up until midnight to see the new year in. I don�t go to New Year�s Eve parties. I learned long ago that I hate the tradition of staying up late, drinking too much, and working too hard to have a very good time. I didn�t even stay up until 11:00 to see the ball drop in Times Square. I�m such a fogey.

I have no New Year�s Day tradition. In the past, I�ve occasionally watched the Rose Bowl but this year it has no relevance at all to my life despite living in a Big Ten state. The Rose Bowl is no longer a Big Ten event. It�s been stolen�no, more realistically, given away�to the greater glory of southern football. I�d say that at least they�d never ship the frozen tundra south but now that the more successful hockey teams are southern, I think I�ll keep my mouth shut.

Can you say �bah, humbug!� to a New Year? Oh, well.....

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