|
 | |||
| Lopez Island | Orcas Island | Visitor's Guide | ||
| Email this page to a friend | ||
| ||||||||||||||||
COLUMN BY MATT PRANGER |
Previous columnsList of columns written by Matt Pranger | |
|
In 2001, ‘I resolve to show more resolve’
It’s a new year, a new decade, a new century, a new millennium. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people are beginning to live up to new year resolutions. In a change of personal policy, I’m going to do the same. I will attain, pardon the term so overused in the San Juan Islands, "a higher quality of life." Don’t be mistaken, it’s not that I don’t keep resolutions. In recent years I didn’t even make them. There seemed little sense in pledging myself to something, such as dieting, that in my heart, I knew I would not attain. Sure, I might lay off the Mars Bars, Cherry Garcia ice cream, corn dogs and cheese-smothered chili burgers for awhile, but eventually I’d succumb to natural cravings. I say "natural" because I suspect I have a recessive gene from a fat-gobbling Arctic ancestor with a tremendous sweet tooth. He probably paddled his skin boat south, searching for warmer weather and landed in Ireland. His genes slowly were diffused by generations of Irish blood and whiskey until my mother and my German father conceived their fourth, best and most modest child. The combination of the Irish and German genes, as one Irish friend says, must have made my insides "all mixed up." And she might be right. How else can you explain enjoying bratwurst but not sauerkraut; corned beef but not boiled cabbage. Enough dietary descent digression. I’m not the only one unable to keep new year resolutions. I can’t think of one close friend or family member who sticks with their New Year program. I hold the sisters of the order of the BVM (Blessed-Virgin Mary or Blacked-Veiled Monsters) responsible for this. Encouraging us angelic and impressionable St. Mary’s Grade School students to give something up during Lent imbedded the notion that resolutions are temporary: That after those 40 days, Fifth Avenue bars, Tombstone pizza, Big Red pop, even pickled pigs knuckles were on the menu. The BVMs and other resolution promoters made the almost un-absolvable mistake of encouraging others "not" to do something. Affirming a negative resolution only worked a few times for me. And one such resolution – "I will not hog tie my younger siblings" -- probably succeeded more because my little sister and brother became quicker and stronger and my parents’ used more resolve in stinging my butt. It’s only taken four decades but this new year I resolve to show more resolve: I’m going to keep positive New Year resolutions. Here’s a few old resolutions and their 2001 replacements:
|
|
|
SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008 |
|
