by Mark Morelli
It's not like I was in a foxhole under whistling mortals. "Just get me out of this alive, God, and I'll be a priest!" Silence. Armistice. "Thank you, Lord, now, er, about that promise . . . ."
It's only this: The due bill on my new year's resolution has arrived.
We had big plans for New Year's Eve.
Well, big for us.
For any readers who are childless and go out to dinner all the time, skip over this part. I can live without your scorn and pity. Kind hearts - read on.
Our daughters were at their grandparents' house. And we were going out to dinner and then off to Benito's for drinks and jazz. We would ring in the new year and the new millennium with old songs.
Our plans were derailed. While computer programmers nipped in the bud any Y2K bugs, a few real viruses slipped into my wife's system and knocked her cold.
"Cancel the dinner reservation," said a hoarse voice beneath the lumpen pile of afghans on the couch.
I called the restaurant. As I hung up, I am pretty sure I heard the waiter chuckle, "Poor slob."
We watched a video - "Shakespeare In Love" - and tuned into television coverage of Times Square.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Are you going to kiss me?" she asked.
"You're sick."
"It's the dawning of the new century."
"In that case," I said, puckering up.
"Wow, fireworks," she said.
I was proud of myself. I still had it.
"No, really," she said. "Fireworks."
I heard the clap and boom of fireworks and looked out the window, wondering if I could see anything lighting up the sky over Akron's First Night celebration.
I saw only one thing. A single car sputtering along Tallmadge Road, and that's it. No other signs of life outside. It was midnight. Everybody was already where they had planned to be except for this one car.
Who was in the car? Somebody whose watch was off? Somebody who was late for a party? Somebody heading home from work. Or going to work? Whoever it was, this driver owned the street.
We went to bed early, and I rose not long after dawn with the desire to ring in the new year with hearty exercise. From my home near Preston School, I walked to State Road and back - four hearty miles in crisp air. The streets were pretty empty and no one, not a soul, was out walking. Like last night's midnight driver, I had the sidewalks to myself, and it was eerie.
This was the new millennium. The thousand years in which we will forevermore forget how to use our feet and sidewalks.
I always loved walking, but I began slipping a year or two ago, with two kids and all that. Blah-blah, they're all stupid excuses that even a blind man with a broomstick could fungo clear the hell out of Jacobs Field.
Owning the streets on the morn of the new century renewed my dormant love of walking, and I surprised myself by doing something I've never done. I made a resolution to walk as much as I could in weather that was remotely fair. For serenity. For health. And forever.
Notice how the mercury's rising, how March went out like a lamb.
Where's my sneakers?
Come back on the first of each month for a new issue of PAH! And watch out for my new book, to be published in late summer, "Ventriloquism for Dummies."
