| The following column appeared in The River Reporter on December 23, 1998. |
By Bert S. Feldman
The Recusant Reporter
Thursday, December 23, 1998
[Bert Feldman is recovering from heart surgery, among other things. Here is a column he wrote two years ago about calendars and the new year. Until Bert is back at his typewriter The River Reporter will run a "So you say" column. You can voice your opinion (quite literally) by calling 914/252-6538 and telling us what you think. Please keep your comments relatively short. The River Reporter reserves the right to edit comments.]
"Ring out the old, ring in the new; ring, happy bells, across the snow; the year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true."
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Say goodbye to Old Man 1998 and say hello to our new baby, 1999. Like all years, 1998 had good and a bit of bad. Babies were born and some dear friends passed on. We had bitter, and we had a spoonful of sugar to make it go down.
The whole kit and kaboodle is known as life. There is only one more year until the coming of the third millennium, whose untold wonders we only can guess at.
The only question is — why pick January to start a New Year?
The Roman year began in March, the time of the spring plowing. The Jews start their New Year in September, the time of the harvest.
The only thing worse than our calendar is the one used by the Chinese, whose New Year celebration usually falls in February, the absolute nadir of the year. The Romans at least had the good sense to make February the month for orgies to pass the dreary days away.
The ancient Egyptian priests fiddled around the calendar to make it coincide with the flooding of the Nile, and by the time of Julius Caesar, January was falling in autumn. Big Julie got things worked out pretty well, hence the so-called Julian calendar, which is still used by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
By and by, the Julian calendar stretched out longer and longer until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered that a new calendar be made with about ten days chopped off. This became the Gregorian calendar, which we still used today.
However, while Catholic countries generally accepted the new calendar, most Protestant countries did not. England and its colonies did not accept the Gregorian calendar until well into the 17th century.
In our country, in fact in most of the western nations, New Year’s Day is a time for merriment and revelry. Big parties coming so soon after the Christmas holiday celebration are, for some people, too much of a good thing.
New Year’s Day is traditionally a time for making resolutions on changing bad habits. Usually these brave resolutions may last through February, if that. As Samuel Butler said: "great actions are not always true sons of great and mighty resolutions."
So have a happy and exciting New Year’s Eve, and may it be a preamble to the rest of the year.
A happy New Year to all of you, and may your joys surpass your woes in 1999.
