2020: Going, Going…
Out with the old – and good riddance! In with the new – and good luck! Of course, this being the time for my usual “end of one year, start of another” column – the “old” I’m referring to is that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year we are about to say good-bye to. Hardly anyone would disagree that 2020 has been a year to forget – except, of course, that none of us will ever forget it.
How could we? This is, after all, the year that brought us not just the coronavirus – which changed so many things in all our lives – but which also delivered to our California doorstep those horrendous heatwaves, those wildfires that scorched millions of our acres and killed dozens of our state’s residents, and those smoky skies that gave us, for a time, the worst air quality in the world – right here in our own little Central Coast town of Paso Robles.
It was the year when we became afraid to eat inside restaurants – when those restaurants were allowed to be open, that is. A year when we stopped going to movies – when theaters were open. A year when many of us were afraid – and rightfully so – to gather for family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And it was also the year when too many of us – not me, and not you, I hope – but too many “others” of us – ignored health experts who urged us to wear those masks and to keep at least six feet away from others. Those were simple requests – but they got all mixed up with conspiracy theories and with our hateful political climate that turned everything – everything – into partisan warfare.
And, of course, we had that presidential election that – no matter how it turned out – was destined to leave half the nation thinking it was rigged. Oh, brother. What a country. And what a year.
Of course, none of us could have known – we had no way of knowing – what this Year of Grace 2020 would bring when that ball descended at Times Square last New Year’s Eve. Heck, if we had known, we all would have voted to skip the year entirely – never let it happen. But it did happen. And here we are, on the verge of ringing in another New Year – one we fervently hope will not be as bad as this one was. But there are no guarantees, are there?
I don’t have a lot of memories of New Year’s Eves when I was growing up in the Valley. Dad and Mom did not, as I recall, do anything “special” on the last day of the year – and so I didn’t, either. My first real memory of New Year’s Eve is from 1966.
That evening – a Saturday night – I tuned into KMJ Radio in Fresno because I wanted to listen to what I’d been hearing about during station promotions. NBC Radio was planning to go around the nation with live big-band performances to ring in the New Year in every time zone. That really intrigued me because, you see, I was a big-time radio nerd. Still am.
So I tuned in that night, starting at 8 p.m., and for the next five hours, I was fascinated – thrilled, even – to hear the network broadcast live band remotes featuring Les and Larry Elgart, Gene Krupa, Charlie Barnet, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Cannonball Adderly, Jonah Jones, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Lawrence Welk and Ray Charles. And each hour on the hour – starting with Times Square at midnight in the East – the network rang in the New Year in a different time zone – the last being from Los Angeles, here in the West.
After that, I tuned into NBC Radio’s “All Star Parade of Bands,” as it was known, every New Year’s Eve until the network killed those broadcasts in 1975. By that time, radio had changed – and not for the better – and NBC decided it was no longer worth producing a New Year’s Eve special that had aired since 1928.
Of course, as I grew older, I also watched Johnny Carson ring in the New Year on his “Tonight Show.” And when we got married and started moving around the country, Sharon and I sometimes went out to dinner on New Year’s Eve – but too often, I had to produce TV newscasts on those nights and could not celebrate the New Year. Trust me – working on New Year’s Eve wasn’t much fun.
One year – in 1992, when I was employed at NBC in Burbank – we got to attend Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” (he had taken over for Johnny months earlier) on New Year’s Eve. Jay normally taped his show at 5:30 in the afternoon, but on that Dec. 31, he went “live” to the East starting at 8:35 our time (11:35 in New York) and had a live remote from Times Square at midnight. It was exciting, being in the audience as Jay tossed to Manhattan for the ball’s drop – then watching as Mr. Leno started dancing with Mrs. Leno on stage, while the nation saw New York’s festivities.
As far as New Year’s Day goes – I’ve been a creature of habit almost all my life. For one thing, I’ve watched the Rose Parade almost every year since I was about 10. In fact, the first color TV broadcast I ever saw was NBC’s coverage of the parade in the early ’60’s. No, we didn’t have enough money for a color TV — but our neighbor Eleanor across the street did, and she invited Mom and me over. I’ve never forgotten seeing the parade for the first time in “living color,” as NBC called it. This coming New Year’s Day, of course, the Rose Parade won’t be marching through Pasadena – another victim of the coronavirus.
I’ve also watched the Rose Bowl football game almost every New Year’s Day that I can remember. Some truly legendary announcers have broadcast that game, but my favorite was NBC’s Curt Gowdy. There was always something comforting – something “right” – about Curt being in Pasadena on the first day of the year.
I always looked at the New Year with great anticipation – precisely because no one knew what was going to happen. Everything was possible, right? I never anticipated that anything “bad” would happen. Call it youthful exuberance. Or ignorance. But I kept that “good things will happen” for a whole lot of New Year’s. Of course, bad things could happen – and they often did. But never, in my lifetime, did we have the amazing abundance of lousy events that we’ve had this year.
So here we are – another New Year’s Eve is bearing down on us. Can we dare hope that 2021 will be better than this horrendous year? Well, we have to hope it will be better, don’t we? We have to be optimistic – optimistic that, yes, we all will have access to a vaccine that will allow us to start living more normal lives again. Optimistic that enough of us will actually take that vaccine – and make it possible to slow the spread of this insidious virus – and, yes, make it possible to dine out again without being afraid, or go to the movies without worrying about who’s coughing behind us.
As for this New Year’s Eve, Sharon and I will spend it alone – it’s safer that way – and we’ll watch that ball drop at Times Square at 9 p.m. our time, as we have for so many years and so many decades. Yes, we will be grateful to leave 2020 behind – even if it means we’ll get a year older in 2021– and, yes, we will be as uncertain and unsettled as you and everyone else about what this New Year will bring.
But most of all, we will fervently hope that when we say, “Happy New Year,” it will be – please, let it be – an accurate prediction of what’s to come – for you, for Sharon and me, and for the whole world.