The Cleveland Daily Banner Sunday, January 10, 2016 | Page 23

www.clevelandbanner.com

Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 10, 2016—23

The ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of a pre-New Year’s resolution
“I've never had much luck with New
Year's resolutions. Last year I only lasted
three days before realizing I couldn't survive without junk food. And the year before
that, when my sister and I promised not to
argue anymore, we didn't even make it to
the end of my dad's New Year's Eve party.
I'll spare you the gory details, but fruit
punch and guacamole were involved. So
was dry cleaning.”
― James Ponti
Italian-American writer
Author, “Dead City” trilogy
———
Already 10 days deep into 2016, it’s as
good a time as any to write about New
Year’s resolutions.
I didn’t make any.
Well, sort of ... not, in a manner of
speaking. But there was this one. It
started a few days before the new year.
Actually, it came on Christmas Eve ...
the afternoon of Christmas Eve in fact,
probably about the time elfin twins Jim
and Joe Bob were greasing the skids on
Santa’s sleigh.
Of course they grease the skids. It’s a
North Pole rule.
My pre-New Year’s resolution was simple, bold and came as an act of desperation: Get back to those daily runs; or, at
the very least, almost daily.
Since the mid-80s, I’ve enjoyed running. And, I’ve found the more frequently
I do it, the easier it gets. And the easier it
gets, the more fun it is. By the early 90s,
I was running — or jogging or jaunting or
loping or whatever term you want to use
— practically every day.
Subsequently, the weight fell off and it
stayed off. The blood pressure numbers
dropped, the bad cholesterol wilted and
the good cholesterol exploded, the triglycerides went flat as a pancake and even
the bathroom scales stopped their incessant taunts of “... Oh no!” every time I
passed by.
Life was good.
And then, six years ago a voice from
somewhere deep within uttered, “Go
back to newspaper work. Go back to
newspaper work. It is where you started.
It is where you should end.”
I listened.
But my excitement in returning to the
land of the printed word — from whence
I had launched a career in 1977 —
erased the memories of those early years
of long, long days and even longer, longer
nights. It veiled all recollection of working
every weekend and all those holidays. It
blinded me to th R&W77W&W2