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by Pettus Read
If you are reading this, I guess we made it past December 21. But, does anyone know where 2012 went? Did the days of this year really happen one by one as they used to, or did the government figure out some way to speed them up like Day Light Saving Time or did the Mayans also get a hold of our clocks as well?
It seems like it was only yesterday that we were celebrating a new year and making resolutions that we would break in the next twenty-four hours. I have always heard older people say that time seems to fly after you reach an older age, but I never thought it would happen to me. I am in that early sixty range, but I'm not ready to get old. However, compared to the alternative, I guess it is better to age gracefully.
As we close out 2012, all of us seem to be making resolutions and having wishes for 2013. My first resolution will be to not participate in all the downer talk that seems to circle the country these days. I will not let the 24-hour news media get me down and will continue with life as I have for the last 64 years, and that is just to take one day at a time. When you get a little down in the mouth, just remember the dog that caught the duck and started spitting out feathers. I also wish our president the best, as well as our country. Hopefully, things can make a turnaround.
Here are a few resolutions I have made for you and myself over the years. I sort of like to just renew them each year and attempt to make them happen. Some I never got to do in the past year and now is the time to resolve to get it done this year.
May all of our seed catalogs arrive on the gloomiest day of January, just as we have started a roaring fire in the fireplace. May those catalogs cause us to plan and hope for an early spring and give us the energy to follow through on our planting of some of the most beautiful gardens ever. This year I'm going to have a few raised beds with seedless tomatoes for my friends with stomach problems.
I hope we all get a chance to watch an afternoon snowfall with our grandchildren, and to make snow cream without worrying about what is in the snow, other than sugar, vanilla, and cream.
I hope that all of us have an opportunity this year to see a starry nighttime sky without streetlights and other artificial lights present. May we also lie down on a grassy hillside at night and see a blanket of stars overhead that only God could make, and to stay there long enough to see a shooting star or even the space station go over.
I hope we get a chance to sleep under a tin roof on a spring night as thunder and lightning crashes outside. Maybe we can even open the window to enjoy the smell of the fresh rain as it touches the ground outside.
May we have a chance to take our shoes off and walk in freshly plowed soil just as spring begins and feel it push up between our toes. May that soil be the beginning of this year's crops, which will allow us to see one of the best production years yet and not too much rain and no drought.
Maybe this Fourth of July we will get the chance to have homemade ice cream with family and friends. And then that evening enjoy a community band playing in the park some of those great patriotic tunes that go well with late evening fireworks.
I hope we don't get too old to catch lightning bugs in a Mason jar and then place them in our bedrooms at night to see them light up the room with their twinkling lights.
May you get wet running in from the field as a quick thunderstorm comes up and you have to spend the afternoon on the porch swing catching up on your reading, or better yet, talking to your grandchildren or children about when you were a child.
May the county fair in your parts be one of the best yet and don't forget to ride the merry-go-round with someone you love. Don't forget the cotton candy and snow cones to finish out the day.
I hope your fall harvest fills all your bins, farm prices spike when you sell and may the colors of the trees on your hillsides be the brightest ever.
May 2013 move as slow as you want it to and as fast as needed.
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