Oh Jeez…another New Year’s Eve. I’ve written previously about my quickie foray to Times Square as 1969 turned to 1970. This time around I’m looking at nursing my recently repaired left knee and reveling in the fact that Kathy Griffin won’t be on my TV screen. My son will be asleep. My wife’s away on family business.  So my New Year’s Eve kiss will be the oversized Hershey variety I received for Christmas/Hanukkah/old guy sympathy.

It sounds lonely but it’s not. We long ago gave up getting blitzed at some bar or party to usher in the next solar circumvention. Besides, I personally also celebrate the new year on Rosh Hashanna in the fall. As Mindy Kaling once aptly put it, “Jews, pick a new year. You don’t get two!” I wasn’t alone for the start of the year 57 bajillion, so I’m good.

The more I think about, the more I’d prefer to celebrate the Vernal Equinox as winter transitions to spring. That’s when things really start to warm up, the bulbs start to sprout, baseball season begins, the snow is melted and reveals the small kid stuck in a drift since February but didn’t cry because it’s fun to drink snow and pee in it,  and the gardening departments at the home improvement stores really start smelling like soil, fertilizer and lawn equipment. It also seems to be the time workers at one large home improvement chain finally launder their orange vests and dig the dried up glue out of their pockets…and fingernails.

Sure, people won’t gather in drunken mobs to watch a bag of Scott’s Turf Builder drop to mark the change of seasons, and no one would stay up late to watch Dick Clark’s Vernal Equinox Dripping Eaves, but I’d definitely get in line at the stroke of midnight to take advantage of the coupon I receive every year for a free mower blade sharpening.

Now I understand our culture sees the turn of the year as a way to celebrate the new hope of the 365 or 6 days to come, but then at the end of them it seems all we do is look back at all the famous people who died some time during those days. Nice to remember them but it gets a bit depressing. I admit, when I see those lists, there are some who died earlier in the year I forgot about, but then I’m bummed all over again once I’m reminded. I’m sure when they died they received adequate media coverage. Isn’t that enough? In the spirit of hope for the new year, maybe find an actuary who can estimate how many new lives will begin, and better yet, how many newborns won’t grow up to be reality show personalities or cable TV talking heads.

No, looking back isn’t for me at all. I lived it. I dealt with it. I’m done with it. As the great pitcher Satchel Paige astutely advised, “don’t look back. something might be gaining on you.” With my newly repaired knee, I’m moving as fast as I can…and I’m not looking back. Happy New Year to you all..spring’s just around the corner.