HAPPY NEW YEAR...AULD LANG SYNE and all that jazz...

...Let me be one of the first people in my time zone to wish you a great 2010...

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I don't know what kind of a year its gonna be. Each year when I get a new calendar, I 'scroll'

through the months wondering what they'll bring. And ya never know, do ya? "Ridin' High in April, Shot Down in May", ol' Blue Eyes once sang. So, I'll convey this wish: If you do get shot down, I hope ya don't have to fall very far. I can hear the winds a-blowin' off the ocean out there. It would be a great time to fly a kite, but the sun won't be out for 7 or 8 more hours yet, and besides the wind is blowing so hard, you'd probably need a 100-lb. test kite string. Hard to find those on New Years' Day, when everyone...well, except for Wal=Mart, that is...is closed.
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Get used to writing 2010 on all yer checks, although if you're one of those who uses 'plastic', like me, I guess ya don't have to worry about that either. I'm on the 'debit' side of the plastic. No way will I ever get a credit card. I feel uncomfortable spending money I don't have. Gosh, I'm gonna be 56 this year. I'm getting so old and decrepid, and it's true...the face in the mirror looks stranger and stranger to me. Am I growing old gracefully? Well, I'm not very graceful, but I am growing old. I remember back to the days when I played drums on New Years' Eve, and I lead quite a few "countdowns" to Exactly Midnight, although I'm not sure my watch was ever that accurate. But I'd yell out over the mike, "Ten...Nine...Eight...".

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Hey, at least I'm in better shape than Dick Clark, who gets propped up every New Years' on network TV to try and say "Happy New Year" with even one-tenth the gusto he used to say it with in his pre-stroke days. But ya know, I'm not looking at this whole thing as "one more year"; it's just "one more day", followed by--hopefully--a lot of "one more days". I did play guitar with some people at a coffee-house New Years' Eve Afternoon. Does that count as a New Years' Eve gig? Probably not, since I did it for free. One time, long long ago, I played drums in a country band and made a hundred-and-fifty dollars for four hours' work...four hours, that is, unless you factor in the time it took to drive there, plus setting up and tearing down my drums. Maybe that wasn't such a good deal after all. But I'll always remember getting that sum for a New Years' Eve gig. It was back in 1985. I still have the tapes from that night. Talk about nostalgia...

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Well, I can see I've already broken one of my Resolutions, the one about "not being on computer so much"...well, that went down the tubes as I was online the the first SECOND of the New Year. Oh well...So anyway, just in case the blogging lines are filled up to the max, and someone else is waiting for me to end things here, I'll boogie-on-outta-here and wish y'all a Happy New Year...later, gators...