Bye Bye, 2006 - You Won't Be Missed

A New Year's reveler in action. As the Mafia might say, he now sleeps with the fishes.

Last night I laid on my couch at midnight, watching New Year's festivities on the TV (I was downtown earlier in the evening), just kind of laying there, slightly tense, and clutching up just a little; waiting for 12:15am or so to come around. The reason for this is: at 12am, the gunshots start to go off. Now I don't live in a real bad, rough area (although, nor do I necessarily live in Candyland either, I guess you could say - maybe somewhere in the middle), but with almost without exception, wherever I have lived, at least a person or two pops off a couple of shots at midnight in celebration of the New Year. This tradition seems to be everywhere across the U.S., and around the world also to some degree. I know that they fire the Kalishnikov's up in the air in the Middle East at weddings, at feasts, at the drop of a hat, or many times just plain at each other, but I've never understood why people in an urban setting would want to do this, during each and every New Year's celebration. These bullets have to come down somewhere! In the 1990's, one of those stray bullets came down here in Denver, and hit an old man sitting out on his porch at midnight; rocking away in his chair, all set to greet the New Year, and it killed him. This guy happened to be a relative of the Mayor of Denver during the time, and so it received a fair amount of coverage. Therefore, it can happen, and does happen, every so often.

So, I squirmed around a little. Is it better to be hit in the side, or maybe just head on? As 12:20am came around, I think I began to relax a little more, and began to start to drift off. My last thoughts I think were, "if they get me, they get me, I'm tired, wha?, ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

I made it!

Welcome, Welcome 2007, and so long 2006; you were a little rough on me I would have to say, yet I still made it through you - but don't come back here no more!