Frankly Speaking

I suppose it had to happen. My personal limitations? Or choices and preferences? I refer to the fact that as this final column for this year comes around, I’m a wee bit unsure as to what to share views on.

All other columnists, commentators, letter-writers; everyone and his cousin are writing on every “issue of local and international significance”. Can’t quarrel with that state of affairs can I? I should just state my perspective; share my own view, right? I find it challenging sometimes. No wonder I’m amazed at the fellow, seized – almost paranoid – as he is with some objective, who can repeat one theme or issue almost daily. Wow. But how desirable is that?

Look let me wander into different and diverse matters in my attempt to be just a tiny bit different.

“Old Year’s” Day?

Just before the writers/researchers dig into this on Sunday and Monday, let me reminisce for two/three paragraphs on Old Year’s Day – and night – in the spirit of Godfrey Chin’s “Nostalgias”.

When you are over fifty/sixty, you tend to remember, recall, reminisce and review more and more. (And an over-sixty plus individual also tends to compare times past with situations current. Take the description “Old Year’s”.

Quaintly Guyanese or Caribbean? Elsewhere they say New Year’s Eve. My grandmother, fifty-five years ago, would show me the clouds at midnight on Old Year’s Day. Grog in hand, she would explain to me that those clouds at midnight on Old Year’s Day. Grog in hand, she would explain to me that those clouds meant that “the Old year was passing into the new