Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Dec. 24, 2012
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Three easy resolutions It is that time of year when people from Maine to Mexico start compiling lists of New Year's resolutions. Most of these resolutions are doomed to failure because people are always resolving to give up things they really like and start doing things they really hate. They make grandiose statements about how “I resolve to give up beer and cigarettes and bacon and candy this year, and start exercising and eating only pine bark, bean sprouts, celery and kelp. So help me God!” The first time you hear that, you know that within a month they'll be lying drunk on the couch, face covered with a thick layer of rich milk chocolate, clutching a smoldering cigarette butt and smiling that sublime smile that only unrepentant backsliders know. I knew a fellow several years ago who was a fine fellow in many respects, except for his constant boasting. He bragged about his possessions, his talents, his morality, his children, and his work ethic. Some of his friends pointed this out to him, and since he had dedicated his life to personal perfection, he made a New Year's resolution to give up boasting. For nearly two months he was very humble, but eventually he became impressed with his humility, and began bragging about it. Regardless of his many accomplishments, which modesty forbade him from mentioning, he was humble ... and proud of it. He constantly quoted great philosophers like Plato, Socrates, St. Augustine, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Zig Ziglar, Oprah and Dr. Phil, and said that all deep thinkers were humble, and he only wanted to be like them. He couldn't help himself. He became even more insufferable than he'd been before he gave up boasting, until his wife finally cured him by taking a sizeable hickory limb and beating the humility out of him. That single resolution had cost him two teeth, three cracked ribs and a broken kneecap. A few years ago I wrote a New Year's column about what I thought would be the best way to make resolutions. It involved giving up things you hated anyway and taking up things you really loved. It was reviewed favorably, and a large group of local citizens later appeared at my door, requesting copies. Okay, so in the interest of journalistic integrity, it was not a “large group of citizens,” only a “group of large Jehovah's Witnesses.” Three, I believe. And they were not interested in that column at all, only in giving me a Watchtower pamphlet. I took it, but insisted that they take a copy of that New Year's column which I just happened to have printed off, so they agreed and left. But technically, they did indeed leave my home with a fine piece of what might well have been a very popular New Year's resolution column if you didn't count the typos and the fact that it appeared in late March. So maybe, I thought to myself, a similar column about “New Year's Resolutions the Easy Way” could become a regular annual feature. Here are a few I've already made for 2013. I WILL NOT KEEP A GOAT AS A HOUSE PET THIS YEAR: When my wife was young, and she and her family lived in Michigan, they knew a family named Fiebelkorn. Or possibly “Feeblecorn,” I'm not sure which. Whatever the spelling, the Fiebelkorns, Tubby and Cleta, kept a goat as a house pet. Marilyn's mother attended a baby shower, and one of her friends took her aside and advised her “Don't eat the cake.” When she asked why, her friend told her that as Cleta had been getting ready to leave for the shower with her cake, her goat licked a large portion of the icing off. She had no time to bake another cake, so she simply re-iced the thing and took it along. There is a moral lesson there, somewhere, but I couldn't locate it. It's probably because Marilyn can't remember the goat's name. I WILL NOT WATCH THE SUPER BOWL THIS YEAR: Yeah, so I'm a grumpy old man, but Johnny Unitas, one of the very best pro quarterbacks ever, had a starting salary with the Colts of $7,000 per year. Now the average NFL yearly salary is $720,000, and the top 25 players' salaries range from $11 million to $19 million per year. If I'm going to watch a bunch of millionaires scramble around on the gridiron after a little tax exempt piece of pigskin, I expect an awful lot. I expect that $19 million quarterback to be able to levitate himself twenty feet into the air and fly like a bird toward the end zone, dribbling that football all the way. And I also expect that $16 million linebacker to levitate himself, too. And if he can't intercept that $19 million quarterback's fancy air dribble, at least he can jet up to seventeen feet and make a miraculous shoestring tackle. But since I know none of that will happen, and none of the multimillionaires on the field will stop on the fifty-yard-line to recite Hamlet's soliloquy in Pig Latin, the Super Bowl is on my “not gonna do” itinerary this year. I WILL NOT TAKE OFF ALL MY CLOTHES IN ORDER TO ROB A BEE TREE: Marilyn's family has a lot of excellent stories. Her dad, Al, used to tell about a close relative who spied a bee tree in the woods, told Al he was going to get him some honey, stripped off all his clothes except his shoes, and charged that tree with gusto. I am not sure of the advantage to removing his clothing, and Al never seemed too clear on that point either, but the relative actually outran a large percentage of a swarm of bees. Maybe he felt the clothing would slow him down, because Al said he left his clothes where they were. I firmly resolve never to rob a honey tree naked. I am diabetic, and my doctor advises against it. There. Those three simple resolutions are enough for one year. Have no fear, I will keep them all. |