HAPPY NEW YEAR

Dear Wife and I take this opportunity to wish YOU a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

During my growing -up years there were few, if any, occasions to celebrate the birth of a new year. For families like mine, walking a financial tightrope, there was no money for "riotous welcoming."
I cannot recall even one time that we welcomed a new year in the traditional way as a family, until we affiliated with a local church that offered us the opportunity to join in a midnight "watchnight service," in a somewhat subdued fashion.

I think the main reason, other than financial, for ignoring celebrations, was my family's aversion to drinking alcohol. My parental grandfather and five of his children were heavy drinkers which probably contributed to their premature deaths. My mother's family was influenced by their Presbyterian heritage which frowned on drinking. The one deviation in that family was a brother who, because of WWI wounds (he lost a forearm and was gassed), reverted to drinking and died rather young of age. My parents, in their retirement years, would indulge occasionally. When Mother and her three sisters dined out (chauffered by my dad), the three women had a cocktail - just one, and Dad had a cold beer.

Knowing my family's drinking history, plus my firsthand knowledge of corporate misuse of alcohol, has given me the incentive to follow my parents' example.

More, later.