WALTZING IN THE NEW YEAR WITH THE OLD HOME SINGERS. Pt. 2

And with this unwelcome development, I aimed the channel changer at my wide screen T.V. and clicked the scantily dressed, slightly past prime time performer into oblivion. 

Did I mention I had a backup plan? (Well, I did). No, I hadn’t changed my mind. Alcoholic spirits and the comradery of wild celebrants still hadn’t worked their way up the list of my priorities for the evening. 

You see, in the past few days I came across one of the 4 minute audio wonders which had as its title, “Auld Lang Syne,” (by Robert Burns), and of course, I connected that old ballad with the approaching New Year’s celebration. Never a backup plan at all, for my decision to slip said cylinder on the roller, turn the crank (for what seemed like an eternity), and lower the needle had been premeditated. 

As the notes of that old familiar ballad began to waft their way across the room, and as those dearly departed voices of those dearly departed singers rose in unison, I invited my wife to her feet. And taking her in my arms, we waltzed ourselves into the New Year.
By now, I had clicked the television back on to watch the Times Square ball drop, (and drop it did).

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

and

…1

And it suddenly occurred to me that my wife and I had been accompanied by a musical instrument purchased in 1917; (at Sears & Roebuck). Exactly 100 years prior to the New Year which she and I were at that very moment celebrating with one another. 

Afterward

There was a time when these dearly departed, disembodied voices owned physiologies of their own in which they resided, and lived, and loved, and moved, and breathed; when they were, and we were not. 

I mused it was possible that in the entire world at that moment, no other couple had chosen a century old Blue Amberol audio cylinder with the music of “Old Lang Syne,” as sung by “The Old Home Singers,” to waltz in the New Year. 

I like to think that my wife and I were in better company ringing in the New Year with the archaic voices of “The Old Home Singers,” (God rest their souls) than we would have been with Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, or any of those other so-called recording artists of our time and ‘culture.’

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 48. Copyright pending

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