Once more around the sun
It’s the end of a year and the start of a new one:
wishing us all peace and prosperity in 2023!
Interjection expressing discomfort, surprise, or dismay
2023 began with a crushing blow. After nearly three years, I blew my New York Times crossword puzzle streak at 899 games! All month I had been counting down (or up) to the 900th puzzle, feeling that reaching that number on New Year’s Eve would be auspicious. I had nearly completed number 900 on Friday night and intended to finish it up on Saturday. But with some unplanned errands and a lot of time in the kitchen making lasagna for our New Year’s Eve movie night, I forgot all about the crossword! Until this morning. As I say: Oof! (Get it?)
The funny thing is that I had nurtured this streak through several camping trips with sketchy or non-existent internet service. We even took time out of the day on a recent trip to drive down the mountain into internet range, just so I could download the latest puzzle!
And throughout our four-plus weeks in Botswana and Uganda, where internet access was dicey in most places we stayed, I was able to keep my streak going. There were even a few moments of grace, where I finished a puzzle after the midnight deadline but still got credit for a game completed in the required timeframe. We were never sure whether there was some complicated time zone calculation that gave me this latitude — midnight where? — or some bit of cruciverbalist magic at play or simply the beneficent puzzle gods at work (thank you, Will Shortz!).
While it lasted, maintaining this streak was a small daily thrill, punctuated by the little song that plays each time you solve a puzzle. (Linda Holmes renders it thus: “Za, zooba dah-da zop kazoo!”) On the other hand, this misstep doesn’t have to be the end of the journey. We all know that January 1 is an auspicious day for beginning anything, including a new streak. So onward!
After the rain
It rained and rained for days in December — about five inches yesterday alone — and more is on the horizon. In drought-stricken California, we rejoice in the rain. But on New Year’s Day we were granted weather of the sort of clarity and brilliance that only comes after the earth and sky have been vigorously scoured. This is the sort of winter weather I remember from growing up in the Bay Area. We would have many days of rain, and just when you thought you couldn’t take any more, the sun would come out to brighten skies and lighten hearts. Then it would rain again.
On this glorious morning, we headed up to Buckeye Creek to see what the rain had wrought. Not surprisingly, we found water everywhere: gushing down the creek beds, running down the narrow ravines, forming creeks where none had been before, carving new gullies into the trails. And pushing up mushrooms from the saturated ground.
Granddaddy Wise’s New Year’s rhymes
As I’ve mentioned here before, my great-grandfather wrote throughout his adult life what he called “rhymes.” I imagine that his intent was to disclaim pretensions to “poetry,” and after reading through many of his pieces I would have to agree that they could not be considered great verse. For me, their interest is chiefly as a glimpse into Granddaddy Wise’s life and thought and preoccupations. For my mom and her sisters, their grandfather’s rhymes were experienced primarily as recitations. He would sometimes declaim spontaneously and publicly, to the acute embarrassment of his granddaughters.
In honor of the new year, here are two of Granddaddy Wise’s rhymes. They were written during World War II, at the ends of 1943 and 1944. The first poem makes no explicit mention of the war, focusing instead on the change of seasons, the coming of winter, and the ringing of bells to welcome the new year. And yet the specter of death is not far away in the bells’ “parting knell” that rings out the old year and the “parting breath” that “presages coming death.”
New Year’s Eve (1943)
On this New Year’s Eve I listen
And hear a parting breath
That whistles through the treetops,
And presages coming death.
Each moan within the chimney’s throat,
Each rattle of the pane
Can speak as plain as human words
That Winter’s here again.
When I hear the wood that crackles,
And see the sparks that fly,
Or see the smoke roll upward
Into the frosty sky,
Or hear the sleighbells jingle
A-down the distant glen,
I know that Summer’s had her fling
And Winter’s here again.
Oh, Winter has her beauty:
The landscape, white as snow;
The lakes, with ice all covered o’er,
As on our skates we go;
The moonbeams show their luster;
The sleet, with crystals shine;
And sunbeams weave their curtain
In rainbows most Divine.
But all this music, plain as words,
Bring to my eyes a tear:
For with it comes a time in life —
The ending of a year.
The Church-Bells toll a parting knell
That sounds throughout the glen
May these same bells ring in the New
With Peace — Good Will to Men!
A year later, in 1944, a poem that starts out rather jauntily soon turns to the death and sorrow brought by war and the longing for peace: “How grand, could we sit in our home tonight | With the fire on our hearthstone burning bright, | And think of the world all free from strife, | Enjoying the blessings of normal life.” This rhyme feels particularly apt now, in light of all the suffering brought on by Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Old Year, Adieu — We Greet the New (1944)
The Old Year stretches, then gives a yawn
And says, “I’m Going, Going, Gone!”
Then the New Year comes bustling in so bright
And says, “Why Look! By George, It’s Night!”
Then when he hears these clanging bells,
These shrieking whistles, childish yells,
He hails the children with delight,
Then, turning, says, “Old Year, Good Night!”
“Glad to have known your girls and boys.
I have shared your sorrows and your joys.
But my Old Friend Time just marches on,
So a last Good Night! I must be gone!”
I just got a glimpse as I passed him by —
A scythe on his shoulder, a tear in his eye.
His whiskers were draped on his shrunken breast,
As he topped the hill on his way “Out West.”
His scythe was wet, as with dripping blood!
Not a year so sad since “The Noah’s Flood”!
Then the people of earth in water drowned,
But now, even fire from the sky came down!
No beast is so cruel that man can name —
They simply put our race to shame!
Our selfish greed and cruel pride,
And millions of God’s creatures died.
The most we hear in the year gone by
Is when and where and how men die.
May the New Year show us some way to mend,
To save a life, and make a friend.
How grand, could we sit in our home tonight,
With the fire on our hearthstone burning bright,
And think of the world all free from strife,
Enjoying the blessings of normal life.
************
I’ve examined thousands of our Brave Boys,
Where thousands of Mothers had buried their joys;
Where children were torn from a Father’s breast,
Who would never return, but would go “Out West.”
May the New Year bring us such books and toys
That teach us Peace for our girls and boys.
May fears and hatred and care and strife
Be banished forever from each one’s life.
And so may I say, “Old Year, Adieu!”
And beg a blessing from the New.
Sing it in!
Alix Herrmann’s New Year’s Round is one of my favorites. It’s energetic and rhythmic and joyous, and too delightful to be sung only once a year. I learned it from Alix’s mom, Lani Herrmann, way back in the 1980s when I was collecting rounds for my master’s thesis. Here it is:
Ring it in, ring in the New Year.
Ring it in, ring in the New Year.
Bells are ringing, bells are ringing.
Bells are ringing, bells are ringing.
Peace and love throughout the new year.
Peace and love throughout the new year.
Joy! Joy! Joy!
Joy! Joy! Joy!
Borrowing from Granddaddy Wise:
May fears and hatred and care and strife
Be banished forever from each one’s life.
Connections
- I found Linda Holmes’ version of the puzzle song in one of her Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletters — which now I can’t locate. But check out the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast.
- Facial Expressions for Reacting to the New York Times Crossword
- How the Digital Era Has Changed the Daily Crossword
You might also like…
2 thoughts on “Once more around the sun”
Love the heartfelt “oof”, Jenny. Mini-goals are so important! I do like Wordstack, the 3D Scrabble game. But 899 wins is just your public achievement. You still got the 900 in your heart of hearts. ? so happy new year to you both!
Thank you, Ann! I like your way of looking at this, shall we say, setback. A good way to think about many things…
Hope you and Lance are both well and wishing you a wonderful 2023!
Comments are closed.