A NEW KIND OF NEW YEAR

The last scrap of fudge has been eaten, the last piece of fruit cake devoured and all the cookies are gone. I'm talking about my place, while hoping my doctor isn 't reading this. She is aware that I live alone surounded by mountains of beckoning, seductive dressed-to-kill calories all through the holidays. She also knows my self-control on a scale of 0 to 10 has never quite reached 1.

Maybe I'll go away for a few months to what is referred to as, "The Fat Farm." That way somebody else can do the hard part, like locking me in my room and sliding the raw rutabagas and hardtack through a hole in the door. Or, administring a lypo-suction treatment or two when my back is turned. What better place to start.

Why do we perform this marathon of baking and cooking anyway? It's the only time of the year that most of us make divinity, fudge, decorated cookies, and all the rest of it. We ladies go at it as if we have to turn everything in sight into something edible. We work feverishily at that end of it for a week, then go into a frenzy trying to make it all disappear and reappear on our hips.

I could, of course, be speaking to females out there who have nol clue as to what I'm taling about; and with their rock-hard ab's, pec's and whatever else has turned to stone through their efforts. I have ab's too, I just can't get to them. However, I'm hopeful there will be a few of you who can relate.

Maybe the whole situation has something to do with the fact that we are beginning another year and feel we should gorge ourselves in case the coming months bring a drought, or a total supermarket failure. We might even be reduced to tearing up our own lettuce, instead of shaking it out of those neat little packages. Facing a new year is always a little scary.

Yes, it's probably the New Year. Now that it'ws over I can admit I never did see anything so great January 1st and I've see quite a few. We never paid much attention to it as kids. Once Christmas was over who cared about Father Time with his scythe and Baby New Year with his diaper. Sure, we would beg to stay up and listen for the neighborhood whistles and howls when the clock struck midnight. All children will promise anything to be able to stay up past their bedtime, including never to utter another syllable until their thirtieth birthday. Dad would have the radio dial turned to New York City so we could hear the reaction of our fellow Americans when midnight came. Guy Lombardo and his band were always there too playing "Auld Lang Syne."

It was many years before we knew that no one really understood more than a word or two of the famous New Years song. As an example, if you care to check on it, two of the last verses go like this: We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine, But seas between us brad hae roar'd, sin auld lang syne. And there's a hand my trusty fiere, and gie's a hand of thine, and, we'll take a right ouid-willie waught, for auld lang syne.

But, you know what? I want to confess that this New Years Day was different to me. Those long-used phrases and strains of the melody of Auld Lang Syne--understood or not--by mind and brain--were clearly known by millions of American hearts this time around. We know the song is full of every ache, pain, yearning, longing desire and hope that we don't know how to put into words. We can only feel them in the unity of one great country.