It is the start of a new year on the calendar. I have often felt that time stands still up
here at the Old Place. Pretty much
everyone keeps to the old ways, the good old ways. We have a general store, run by a retired
Marine. It also serves as the post
office and first point of contact for strangers to the area, usually lost because
their navigation app was inscrutable. Older,
and more able to appreciate the good old ways, we welcome them as long lost
friends. Our police department is a park
ranger station whose “Major Crimes Division” handles nothing more exotic than a
band of masked marauders cavorting about in someone’s attic. (Raccoons)
So, it came as a surprise when at 6:00am on December 31st my
short wave radio began to crackle; it was Ruth.
“Mornin’
Colonel,” she said, “Sorry to bother you, but you have an overseas telephone
call.”
“Really, at six in the morning, now
that’s strange Gunny,” I replied.
“Oh that’s not the best part,” Ruth
chuckled. “Despite all our travels, this
call is from the one place neither you nor I have never been to before.”
“I’m listening,” said I.
There was a brief pause from Ruth, then, “Come on over.”
This was intriguing. I went out, hopped in the old Tornio and
drove to the store. As I walked in, I
could smell the coffee. Ruth put a big
mug, laced with real cream and sugar, in front of me, and went off to unlock
the front door.
“Hello?”
The heavily accented Micronesian
voice on the other end replied, “Kukuri Menaái Ririki maiia Kiribati*, Colonel Jim!”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I
replied, “but it’s not New Years day yet,” or was it? I began to think and to muse. Kiribati was a name I had not heard in a long
time. Long before MaryHannah was born,
way before I met Melinda, indeed while I was still in short pants, Sister
Claire Germane had taught our 2nd grade class about time zones. This phone call was from the future!
It is now, almost 18 hours later, on
a chilly New Year’s Eve night. Folks
across the globe are partying their way through the waning hours of 2017. The Old Colonel is curled up under a
Biederlac in front of the fire. Audrey and Molly are in my lap as usual while
the gliders bark and glide around the Old Place and throw bottle caps, a cute
but noisy ruckus. I sat there and
contemplated how this day had begun and what I should learn from it. I had received a call from the future, but if
so, then the other person had placed a call to the past! We all know that it is possible to go back in
time Einstein proved it, in theory. So
all I had to do was take a phone call from Kiribati and all of sudden I was
much more clever than Einstein. This was
fantastic! I could go back in time, back
to the good old ways. . . . WOAH hoss,
not so fast. When I received that call at
6:00am on December 31, 2017, from the tiny island of Kiribati in the Pacific
Ocean, there it was already January 1, 2018.
How? Kiribati rests astride the
International Date Line on the opposite side of the world. On one side today, on the other side,
tomorrow! Disappointed? Don’t be.
We have an entirely new year full of new days and new months, to live,
to learn, to share, to love.
Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place I am, Col. Jim.
* Happy New Year from Kiribati.
