The ‘One’ New Year’s resolution I’ve kept

By Tom Morrow

I’ve only kept one New Year’s resolution that I can remember.
It was a gloomy, gray, cloudy Iowa day 55 years ago as my wife and I sat huddled in blankets in front of our state-of-the-art black and white TV watching the colorful Rose Parade in Pasadena.
It had snowed on New Year’s Eve, and, of course, we were asleep long before the midnight hour — it was too cold to stay up.
While watching the floats parade across our screen on that first day of 1963, we noticed how nearly everyone the TV cameras focused upon was wearing summer clothing and sunglasses, especially the Wisconsinites in the crowd – (the Rose Bowl games was Wisconsin vs. USC). Their football team would meet Trojans later in the day on the lush, grassy turf of the Rose Bowl.
We had been back in Iowa about seven months after spending three years in Honolulu while I served in the U.S. Navy. Although we had grown up enduring those harsh Midwestern winters, after spending three holiday seasons in tropical splendor, the joys of a white Christmas season had lost its charm.
Twenty-eight days later I was outrunning another blizzard along U.S. 54 across Kansas. By the time I got to Tucumcari, N.M., the rear end of my 1955 Buick was impacted with snow that had pounded and pushed me along as I fled the Midwest.
I never looked back.
I resolved to go West and stay there — t was my one New Year’s resolution that was well-worth keeping.
I was headed for Los Angeles, but there was a 13-year detour in Phoenix. Okay, so I slipped back and worked a year in Oregon where it snows – I got my first newspaper job in Bend. But, for some reason I’ll never understand, the snow isn’t as cold and dreary in the Pacific Northwest as it is on the wind-swept prairie of the Midwest.
I finally made it to California and San Diego in 1975 – I’ve never looked back. Once your blood has been thinned by the warmer climates of Arizona and California, it’s really tough to live anywhere else.
ART CALL — This year Oceanside Days of Art is collaborating with the Oceanside Public Library’s BIG READ, (“Station Eleven” by Emily St John Mandel), Oceanside Museum of Art, The Old Globe Theatre, and North County Earth Festival to create a very special, One of a Kind Fine Arts Event!
“For the first time in our history, we have a theme for ODA – Art Saving Humanity,” says Eliane Weidauer of the ODA committee..
“We are encouraging all artists to create performances that support our theme—anything from Elizabethan scenes, dances and music to post-apocalyptic art and Steam Punk to share their talents on one of several stages,” says Eliane. We are looking for quality solos, ensembles, actors, singers, dancers, musicians.”
Performances are NOT required to follow the theme, but be creative!
For further information visit OCAF website www.ocaf.info or call OCAF message line: 760-433-3632.
WORD POWER — Hooker. (n.), a working woman commonly despised by people who sell themselves for even less.
FIND ‘UM – You can order any of my novels online at Amazon.com. For a list, just look for my name.
Humorous or human-interest stories or notes for my osidenews.com column can be forwarded via e-mail to me at: quotetaker@msn.com