On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

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Just saying the words, two thousand and eleven is very strange. Where the heck did all the time go?

If I knew it was going to go so fast I would have saved more money,  and made some other changes. I would have actually used that eye wrinkle and bag cream that has been sitting in the medicine cabinet for five years. Weren’t we just all freaking out about the millennium? Well folks that was over 10 years ago.

When you mention “New Year,” you think of resolutions. Some people don’t bother making them. I remember trying to have that last cigarette or last swig of booze right before we watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV. One year it was as my band played Auld Lang Syne at the Dilboy Post amidst a ton of Chinese food.

I would usually put it off until I woke up hung over and wanting a butt on New Year’s Day. Needless to say, resolutions didn’t usually pan out for me. I had to quit on my own terms. It was usually when I hit a particular wall or had a spiritual awakening. Other times it was when someone gave me the old, “do it or else!” ultimatum.

I will try to make some sensible adjustments in my personality and habits, but there will be no list of resolutions for me. We are all constantly changing and I am doing my best to be a better person. But at my age it’s pretty much as The Dramatics sang back in 1972, “What you see is what you get.”

Last week I made a last minute stop to the Post Office in Davis Square. The customer windows don’t open until 8 so I parked and walked to Dunkies for my coffee.

Now mind you I am 57 years old, so why did I feel the need to hold up my large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and smirk, as I walked by Starbucks? Once an idiot always an idiot I guess. So do I write down on a piece of paper, resolution: stop being a wise guy? The horse is out of the barn, the boat has left the dock and that bird has flown the coop.

My sister and my Dad were like that too. We were just born wise guys. I am afraid that my 14 year old son has received the “smart alec” gene also. I think it is more of a class clown thing than just being a jerk for the heck of it. Or not, who knows.

I like to get a rise out of people. I try to be entertaining, all in fun.  It’s no wonder I was always in the principals’ office for causing some trouble in school. At 14 it’s cute, at 57, it can be disturbing.

2011? Holy mackerel! As I was walking in Davis Square I thought of some changes that have occurred. When Redbones had just started renting the kitchen at Barnaby’s around 1994 or so, the major infiltration was in its infancy. The pierced nosed migration was just starting. You could still find your friends in the square. We all met in some gin mill or another after work.

Now, not. I don’t drink anymore, but still. Today, it’s all laptops and Blackberry’s. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not my thing. Although, I used to drink shots of Blackberry brandy and spill bar nuts in my lap.

So here comes 2011 and I will make no resolutions. There is always a little voice in my head advising me to do the right thing. It tells me not to lose my temper, not to flip other drivers off, not to eat too much pizza.

If anything, I will try to do what that little voice says more often. Happy New Year and watch out for the amateurs out there on the road on New Years Eve. Get a designated driver. There’s a resolution we can all live with.