Ten minutes before midnight we’d run outside with pots and pans and forks and spoons.  Some of the lucky kids had firecrackers.  We’d stand and wait in the cold (it was always cold in Cicero, Illinois in January.) Then, at the stroke of midnight, as anxious, sometimes irate parents looked on (they could have been inside watching Guy Lombardo and drinking champagne), we’d shout Happy New Year at the top of our lungs and bang away with the kitchenware. Then, mightily pleased with ourselves, we’d lumber back upstairs, exhausted.

From the age of ten or so, I made resolutions. Back then, the idea of the resolution was that you’d start the new behavior (or stop the old behavior) on January 1^st.  No exemptions. At least that’s the way I saw it. So, if someone resolved to go on a diet, the diet had to start on the 1^st and continue until a specific amount of weight was lost.  If the goal was broken, let’s say on the 5^th of January with a piece of chocolate cake, the resolver was a big fat failure. None of this My Goals for the Year Include Healthier Eating.

Last year I made five pretty big resolutions. They included reading a book a week, learning to read fluent German, and loving mankind with a capital M, including people who annoy me and/or who are jerks.

This year I resolve to get fit and flexible enough to be able to stand on my head.