This New Year’s there’s a shortage of collard greens. According to Newsweek, it’s due to bad weather across the South. Hurricane Michael in particular destroyed most of the crops. A friend of mine went to the grocery store last week to buy collards and the grocer tried to sell her kale. That is so wrong on so many levels. That’s not just un-Southern, it’s un-American. I’m not much into conspiracy theories, but I can pretty much guess where Newsweek will lay the blame.
New Year’s is the time to make resolutions. Try as we might, they are usually out the window by the third week of January. Usually, it is because the resolutions look good on paper, but when it comes to the actual application they are much harder than we anticipated. This year I have decided on a couple of goals that are hopefully within reach. One is to change my some of my work habits. I have been blessed with a job that affords me a fair amount of free time. It has been my habit to use that time pursuing various creative endeavors. I have for the most part used that time wisely, but not always. It is my goal this year and beyond to become more disciplined so that I have time to tend to things that I have neglected in the past. We’ll see how things are going the third week of January, but it is a goal I feel is attainable and one that I am excited to begin working toward.
And, of course, New Year’s is time to Ring Out The Old and Ring In The New. Throughout my childhood, I was always allowed to stay up until midnight with my parents and watch the ball drop in Times Square on television. To a ten-year-old kid, staying up until midnight was an unheard of, once-a-year treat. At my age now, staying up until midnight on any night is definitely unheard of and certainly no longer a treat.
In the days of my misspent youth, Ringing Out The Old and Ringing In The New was never calm and certainly never quiet. The first time I actually went out for New Year’s Eve was in the early Seventies. I took my little sister and her girlfriend to Scarlett O’Hara’s in old Underground Atlanta. I know that may sound weird, but my little sister was definitely not little and neither was her girlfriend. We drank Flaming Hurricanes and danced past midnight.
Depending on how you look at it, subsequent New Year’s Eve festivities got better or worse. By July plans were beginning to be made for New Year’s Eve bashes. There were parties at clubs and apartment complexes. One year a friend who owned Mother’s Pub at South DeKalb Mall rented the clubhouse at Spanish Trace Apartments. For the then astronomical sum of thirty-five dollars, all the food and beverages were covered, along with a live band, champagne and party favors at midnight. One girl, I won’t say who, wound up dancing on a table. A buddy and I slept in his ’66 Chevelle in the parking lot. We woke up to a twenty-some-odd degree New Year’s Morning. I went home, crawled into bed and the flu set in. Happy New Year.
Over the years the parties began to calm down, maybe because we began to finally grow up, became responsible and moved past the wild and crazy days of the Seventies and Eighties. We would gather at house parties, feast on heavy hors-d’oeuvres, play cards, listen to music, watch a bowl game and the Peach Drop on television. A few of us would spend the night. Others would ride home with a designated driver. Eventually, we all realized that the risk of even being on the road on New Year’s Eve was too great. These days, we Ring In The New safe at home. It is wonderful. You can stay up late and watch the festivities in Times Square and Underground Atlanta, or go to bed early. Either way, you wake up for New Year’s Day breakfast without feeling as if the Peach dropped on your head.
I read a post earlier this week asking if you could go anywhere this New Year’s, where would it be? The responses ranged from the Canadian Rockies to tropical Bora Bora. “To bed,” was my response and not facetiously. I heard once that you know you’re getting older when you actually want to buy a mini-van. You know you are really getting older when you actually want to go to bed at eight o’clock on New Year’s Eve.
As far as the collards, turnip greens are an acceptable substitution. Preferably fresh, frozen acceptable, but never under any circumstances out of a can. Spinach will work too, as will Fordhook lima beans, which are my personal favorite. Both go well with black-eyed peas. Kale is simply not an option. You’ve got three weeks in January before the diet goes the way of the dodo and hopefully takes the kale along with it. Here’s to wishing everyone a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous new year! Peace to you all!