Back before digital photography with all its electronics and pixels and sensors, we took pictures on film. If you’re old enough you’ll remember that we would shoot a roll of film and then send it to the lab to get it developed. This might be the local place where they had developing machines inside or you might drop it off somewhere to send it off for processing. In a few days, for the sendoff places, and then eventually a few hours for the local processing machines, you’d get your pictures back.
In the parking lot of Bryman’s Plaza there used to be a little kiosk stand you could drive past and drop your film off there and then come get it again in a few days. Maybe I’m wrong, but I remember there being a person sitting in there to help take film and accept payments when you picked them up. The kiosk was just a little bigger than a telephone booth (if you remember what those were!) and there must have been a lot of slow time for the person in there waiting for pick-ups and drop-offs.
Once you got your pictures back they would be in a little paper envelope and inside were the prints of the pictures. Look! There’s Uncle John-John smiling with his dentures out! There’s Cousin Sara-Sue eating her third piece of birthday cake and looking guilty when she spots the camera taking her picture. and finally, there’s a picture of Dad’s thumb in front of the lens.
Apart from the photos that might or might not end up in a photo album, there was a separate pocket in the envelopes for the negatives. When we took pictures on film, the photo was actually on a piece of film whose chemicals allowed the light to “burn” the film depending on how bright it was. When developed, the film/negative made an image where the darkest parts were the brightest on what you saw and the brightest parts were where no light had hit the negative through the lens.
When the negative image was exposed to the photo paper that would be the print, the negative image would come out “normal” on the photo. If you looked at the negative it was a weird, backward world where the whites of peoples’ eyes were black and their dark pupils were white. In some horror or sci-fi movies they would use the negative image to achieve a creepy or weird look in the film. For black and white film the negative is reverse of black, white and gray. For color film the positive is red, blue and green and the negative is cyan, magenta and yellow.
Now that we’re thinking about the negative image of something and how unfamiliar that seems to us, I thought it might be interesting to look at New Year’s through a negative image. There are several traditions we have that are connected to greeting the new year but I thought what if we also give the old year going away a chance to enjoy the fun!
Baby New Year
There’s always the focus on Baby New Year in the diapers coming in with the number of the new year on a sash across his chest. Meanwhile, the Old Man Last Year is played for laughs, worn out and literally on his last legs.
Whether it was your “best year ever” and “one for the books” or it was a “thank goodness it’s over” kind of year, you’re either celebrating the past year’s victories or celebrating its being over and done with.
I thought it might be nice to think about letting Old Man Last Year get in a last hurrah. This year was a tough one for my family, with three broken legs just being the tip of the iceberg. On the flip side, I just saw a post from a couple we’re friends with where they celebrated their wedding anniversary on Dec. 28 and the wife described an incredibly great year they had traveling, working and enjoying family success over the last 12 months. We’re glad to see the old man go and good riddance; they’re going to miss the old man and are hoping the new kid can live up to the standard that’s been set.
Fiery flowers in the sky
For New Year’s, plenty of people celebrate by firing off fireworks. I like fireworks! For the year coming the loud bangs and the blasting light show are kind of like the old “slap the baby on the bee-hind to get them up to speed.” It’s a welcome bouquet of fiery flowers in the sky. But for the Old Man, maybe we could think of it as a final salute to what was. When old soldiers pass or retire, volleys are frequently fired for them, either from rifles or even cannons depending on how big the big shot is. So here’s to at least one of the fireworks bursting with the rockets red glare for the year going out. Good or bad, memorable or forgettable, we salute you because we all spent a year in each other’s company.
A tip of the glass
Another tradition is the toast. Whether it’s a bottle of the finest French champagne, Cold Duck (if you remember that from the ’70s) or a sparkling grape wine for the teetotalers among us, at midnight on New Year’s Eve millions of corks pop and a sip or two of something bubbly is poured into the nicest glasses from the cabinet and a toast is presented.
Usually there’s not time for speeches because all eyes are on the latest pop star you may have never heard of singing on TV, and couples are busy with a midnight kiss to bring on the fresh start, so it’s a lift of the glass and a down-the-hatch and laughs and cheers.
But let’s take a second to turn the tide of bubbles and see how it might play to last year. Let’s think of it as dousing the fire that burned bright for 365 days, the year we were in and had to ride out, good or bad or both. Here’s a tip of the glass and a sip of the grape to say adios amigo. We won’t see you again (except in pictures) but we won’t forget you. It can be a little going-away party in a fluted crystal glass that sends the Old Man on his way, like a bottle of champagne smashed on the bow of a new ship sends it on its way. Here’s a taste instead of a bash to see you set sail.
The big ball drop
When things first get going on New Years’ Eve, the TV goes on and whatever your favorite channel is gets tuned to (I think most folks still watch “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve”). It’s a lot of music with big stars and different hosts trying to be exciting and witty as they bounce around from the studio to the stage to the streets.
The highlight of the whole thing is when the big ball drops in Times Square. There’s the countdown to midnight as the ball floats down to hit the deck right as the calendar changes over. I don’t know if they still have it, but back several years ago in Atlanta they had a giant peach they dropped at midnight.
As a side note, the countdown, at least for a rocket blastoff, and I don’t know what else you would need a countdown for, came about in a German sci-fi movie made back in the 1920s. That was back in the silent film days so the director came up with counting down to the launch to add drama and tension to the scene. Otherwise, you’d just be watching and the spaceship launches with no notice. For the sake of the year past, we can view the countdown and ball drop as a sign off, like they used to do when TV stations quit broadcasting at night. It’s the countdown looking backward to a farewell instead of a countdown to a greeting.
Singing “Auld Lang Syne” at New Year’s actually works for seeing off the old year. It’s an old Scottish song based on a poem by Bobby Burns himself, and it’s a mix of English and Scottish. Auld lang syne means basically “old times since” or something like “old long since ago” or more simply “old times.”
The song goes through several verses looking back on the “old times/good old days” and good memories of times past. In the song there are verses where a cup is lifted to toast the old days. The gist seems to be to remember the good times, don’t forget them, and salute them with a toast.
In Scotland, the traditional way to sing the song is to stand in a circle and hold hands. On the last verse everyone lets go and crosses their arms across their chest so that now their hands are holding the opposite hands of the person next to them. Then they all move toward the center and then turn facing outward, untwisting their arms as they face … the new times a’coming.
And that is perhaps the best way to say farewell Old Man Last Year and hello Baby New Year … holding hands with friends and loved ones!
Mark Hannah, a Dalton native, works in video and film production.