Dispatch: Portland, Oregon #2

Happy new year. It's an odd-numbered year, so perhaps odd things will happen. I know some of the things scheduled and waiting just over the horizon, but the more new years I encounter, the less apt I am to either predict or count on such things actually taking place. It's a product of age, I suppose.

I spent some time last night trying to recall memorable New Year's Eve parties, but I couldn't come up with much. As a kid I probably stayed up as late as I could; when my children were small I assuredly wanted nothing more than to go to sleep as early as possible. I woke up to a new year in Pensacola, Florida, once, most likely after standing a main gate watch at the U.S. Navy's Corry Station, where I spent half a year getting trained to do what I did for a couple of years afterward. I do not recall if I was an especially good main-gate watcher, though nobody ever told me I wasn't.

And I started a couple of new years aboard an aircraft carrier or at least close by. One year I think I, along with other young men who were allowed to drink, spent a good amount of time in a club in Yokosuka, Japan, trying to name all of the Seven Dwarfs.

Last night my hotel was filled with drinking and over-drinking people who were there for some type of party that I was not invited to. You spend that much money for a hotel room, and you'd think you'd get invited to the parties. The party must have ended just after midnight because hordes of revelers were packed in the small lobby waiting for an elevator just as I was trying to my room for a good night's slumber. And with proper hotel efficiency, only one of the four elevators dropped to the lobby. The seemed to be stuck on the twenty-third floor, and the others seemed to go to the basement and stay there for awhile before rising to floors above the lobby. Based on my own experience, I imagine that many of the loud, happy people who were in the elevator car with me are less loud and happy this morning.

Good for those people! It's okay to let loose every now and then, even if it's only on the final day of the year. After all, for the first time in many years, I ate beef, lamb, and pork yesterday--by choice and not influenced by alcohol. And who could have predicted that?