Here we go – the last column of 2023. 

I am writing this one in advance as my kids sent me an airline ticket so I could be with them over the holidays. I am grateful for their thoughtfulness and love. 

I have just one word for 2023, and Kevin Burnham, the sharp-eyed editor, would not allow me to use it in a family newspaper, so it is better left unsaid.

It is the time to celebrate the New Year. Cue the joy buzzer.

First, I hope and pray that none of you has too much fun at a New Year's celebration.

Fun is fun, and I wish a good time for you and yours. Fun is not a midnight phone call from Sheriff Todd Brackett letting you know that one of his constituents has wrapped the family SUV around a lonesome oak beside River Road or some other obscure byway. 

Fun is not a visit to the Emergency Department at Miles Memorial Hospital. It is (absolutely) not fun to ride a helicopter down to a Portland hospital. If the accident does not do you in, the bill from the helicopter service might. Ouch.

Please, Please, have fun. Celebrate turning over the calendar, but be careful. OK?

Now that that warning is out of the way, it is time for a resolution for the New Year.

This one is for my friends who can still remember the first time they heard the jukebox play the Everly Brothers singing “Wake Up Little Susie.”

Take care not to fall down. Of course, it is tough to fall up, but you get my drift. The other day, I saw a news story about how Kareem Abdul Jabbar, one of the greatest basketball players of them all, went to a concert, fell, and broke a hip. Granted, when you are over seven feet tall, you have a longer way to fall, but still, when the bones of a senior citizen go to bat against a concrete floor, the floor always wins.

The Old Scribbler knows about a sudden meeting of concrete and human flesh. Last summer, as I shuffled through a darkened garage, I met a lawnmower. In a gymnastic move that would have earned a 3.5 from Simone Biles,  I landed on my back, wondering if I had broken anything. And if not, why not.

Well, the verdict was not, but everything below my belt buckle started aching, and I figured I probably ought to get up off the floor and into the house. The next morning, my body assumed a new color scheme involving red, blue, purple, yellow, and a touch of green.

I called one of my morning walking pals, an esteemed retired physician, and told him what had happened. He rushed over, bless him, looked at my new color scheme, poked and prodded a bit, and stared at me with a grin. “Bet that hurts,” he said.

No kidding, I replied. Tell me something I don’t know. He prescribed ice and a traditional remedy called Tincture of Time. 

I remember giggling at the old TV commercial for the device you hang around your neck to let somebody know you have fallen. You remember it. It featured a white-haired woman lying beside an overturned laundry basket and pleading for help. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” she said. 

After my nocturnal encounter with a stationary lawn mower and the garage floor, suddenly I understood her plight. Falling is not for sissies. It is not something you look forward to.

It seems to be a semi-miracle that the kids playing in the New Year lineup of football bowl games, not to mention the pros in the NFL, survive and play again and again after being pummeled by 300-pound tackles running at full speed.

Why they are not listed in the obituaries is a wonder.

So, back to the point of it all. Take care. Be careful. Hold the hand railing when you go up or down the stairs. Make sure the front stoop is cleared of ice and snow. 

Oh, one more thing. After the fall, I broke down and bought a smartwatch that automatically calls one of my kids if it detects a fall. I read somewhere that it will also call if it detects a sudden motion, like if, well, you happen to ride a roller coaster. I discussed the situation with the offspring, and they thought it was a pretty good idea, although I wonder what good it would do to call someone who lives a thousand miles away. I guess that is another story for another time.

Let’s all hope that 2024 will be a better year than 2023. 

P.S., I hate A.I., the magical power that keeps turning the Everly Brothers into the Evenly Brothers. 

Welcome to the Brave New World of spelling.