By G. E. Shuman

I was writing this column for the paper the other day and told you how amazed I was that the holidays were over, and that another year had already passed. We talked a few moments, you and I, about how we would now need to practice writing another number for the year, and I know I said it would take a while for me to stop writing ‘last year’s’. I remember telling you how I simply can never get over how quickly the seasons pass. You nodded in agreement, I think. (Actually, I have no way of knowing that, but it makes me feel better if I think you are agreeing with me.)

And now I sit here again, in the same spot in our home, writing about the fact that that ‘other day,’ when I wrote that other column, was another whole year ago, already. Amazing!

“Where has the time gone?” people sometimes say. “How time flies!” or “Time flies when you’re having fun!” are other statements expressing the same thought. I once heard someone state that “the passing of time is relative, and how fast it goes depends on what relatives you’re passing it with.” Even the master of the whole relativity thing, Albert Einstein himself once related that spending an hour with a beautiful woman can seem like two minutes and spending two minutes in a dentist’s chair can seem like an hour.

For me, last year must fall into the ‘beautiful woman’ category, because that entire 365-day period seems to have just flown by. Some of the reason for that is probably simply that a year really isn’t that long a period of time, and each year is a smaller and smaller percentage of this life I am living. More of the reason is likely that time does seem to pass quickly when you are busy, and our household, our family, seems to always be busy. I don’t always appreciate some of that busyness but need to. I need to hang on to those times, to THESE times, for as long as I can.

Before I forget to say this, and before more time goes by, I want to wish you and yours a wonderful, blessed, Happy New Year!

“Anticipation”, a Carley Simon song from way back in the early ‘70s, ends where I will end this column, with better words that I could write about the year or the passing of time. If you happen to be of the vintage who remembers the song, you will know that it ends with the haunting thought: “I’ll stay right here, ‘cause these are the good old days. These are the good old days. These are the good old days.”