Comments & Curiosities -- Peter Buffa

It is time. Another year is all but done. A tick here, a tock there

and 2001 will be a thing of the past. And not a tick too soon, I might

add. Be that as it may, this is the appointed time and place for the

Annual Peter “Wow-How-Does-He-Know-That?” Buffa Predictions.

Each year, I share with you my prodigious powers of prognostication

and predilection for prediction. I have no idea what it means either, but

I like all the “p” sounds. Am I really clairvoyant? You must be joking.

Is the Pope Italian?

Hear me on this. I have a gift. I see things. I hear things. Sometimes

I see things and I hear things. Sometimes I see things, but I don’t hear

them. Other times I hear things, but I don’t see them. It just depends.

There’s no modest way to say this, but my success rate is, well,

stunning -- 96.4% to be exact. How can I say that? Easy. I’m lying. It’s

a psychic joke. If you were gifted, you’d laugh and laugh.

Seriously though, I knew I was psychic from the age of 8, when I set

my mother’s fox stole on fire playing with matches in her closet. I had

this really strong premonition that she’d beat me like a bongo when she

found out. It came true, exactly like my dream.

Psychics also have really bright auras, but only other psychics can

see them. You should see mine. It’s kind of a reddish-pinkish thing with

gold specks on the outer edge. Very spiritual. Also very practical if you

have to get up at night. I’m like a giant nightlight.

But I must be honest with you. This year, I can’t see a thing. I’ve

been sitting here for hours, watching, listening, turning my aura up and

down. Nothing.

I tried it with my eyes closed, eyes open, one ear to the wall, head

out the window. Zero, zip, nada, bupkis. Not a single inkling of an

earthquake, an extraterrestrial sighting, not even a local scandal. It’s

embarrassing, I tell you.

But no worries, I found something you might like. You’ve heard tons of

stuff about Christmas traditions, but has anyone ever told you about New

Year’s traditions? Why do we do the things we do when the list minute of

the last hour of the last month of the year is nigh? Nigh is an old word

that means “near.” See? We haven’t even started and you learned something

already.

To understand the origins of New Year celebrations, you have to free

your mind from the shackles of January 1st. That just happens to be what

we consider the first day of a new year. The actual date differs from one

culture to the next, but all the other trappings -- parties, noisemakers,

etc., etc. -- are the same today as they were thousands of years ago.

For instance, what on earth is that noise? Since long before Moses was

a small boy, people have been using anything they can get their hands on

to make a racket when the clock strikes midnight on the last night of the

year -- all to drive away evil spirits, the devil, whatever name you

prefer. Tomorrow night, when you twist and shout and smooch and make

noise at midnight, you’re doing exactly the same thing some Abyssinian

did in 3,000 B.C., except you’re a lot better dressed and you don’t eat

with your hands.

The Swedes were among the earliest to throw a non-stop bash between

Christmas and New Year’s, with masked revelers and a grand parade. There

are also some great examples of how, sooner or later, everything old is

new again.

In March 1773, the New York State legislature passed a law banning the

firing of guns or cannon to celebrate the new year. How about the idea of

a New Year’s Day open house for all the neighbors? Good idea, but it’s

been around for about 800 years. European villagers would lay out some

food and drink, then open their doors for anyone who happened by.

What about New Year’s resolutions? Funny you should ask. In the Middle

Ages, people avoided being in debt like the plague. Get it? “The plague.”

It’s like a joke. You were supposed to settle, or “resolve,” all your

debts by the end of the year, thus, “make your New Year’s resolutions.”

This idea we have of making a New Year’s resolution to do this or that

is only about 150 years old. I think most people are done with the

resolutions thing. Why is it easier to go on a diet or quit smoking on

January 1 than on July 14? I don’t get it.

The one custom that has been lost to us -- and I say thank you so much

for that -- is giving gifts on New Year’s Day. I have enough trouble not

buying the right thing for Christmas without doing it wrong again a week

later.

But of all the people we can thank for our New Year’s traditions, most

of the credit, or blame, belongs to the Dutch. “Beer,” “wine,” “feast”

and “party” were concepts the Old Dutch colonists understood very well,

especially on New Year’s Eve. In fact, if you invited a couple of the

boys from Sleepy Hollow to your New Year’s Eve bash, everything would

look pretty familiar to them, except the TV and the appliances.

So that’s it. Out with the old, in with the new, on with the show.

Wait. I almost forgot. Do you know how to say “Happy New Year” in

Hawaiian? “Hauoli Makahiki Hou.” I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays.

He may be reached via e-mail at [email protected].