I wanted to write something about changing decades until I realized that the minute it got into the paper, or on-line, I’d be subjected to all these people who will tell me that, no, the new decade starts next year.
“Uh, Steve, we didn’t start civilization in the year ‘zero,” we started in the year ‘one,’” these people would say. “So, the next decade wouldn’t start until 2021.” Then, they’d fold their arms smuggly.
Phooey on that. The decade starts when the second number from the right changes. And since next year — which should be arriving any day now — is 2020, it fits all the qualifications. We’re going from 1 to 2. It makes the most sense, and it guarantees that even a moron can be clear on the concept.
The new decade starts Wednesday.
In some ways, I’ll be thrilled to wave goodbye to the old one. And in some other ways I’ll be sad to see it go.
For example, I became an empty-nester in the ‘10s, even though my son is only about a mile-and-a-half away from us. He’s been in the house he rents from my sister and me since 2010, and there have been times (many of them) that I’ve wanted to just give it over to “We Buy Ugly Houses” and let that sad sack with the beard try to unload it.
As a sports fan, this has been a decade of amazing highs and excruciating lows. The Bruins started things off by winning a Stanley Cup in 2011, and the Red Sox followed by taking such a nosedive that they went from being one of the best teams in baseball to being out of the playoffs.
One only has to say two words to remind everyone of how bad it got for the Red Sox this decade: Bobby Valentine.
But they rebounded, and in such a noble way you wouldn’t believe it if you’d read it in a Frank Merriwell book.
It starts with unspeakable tragedy in 2013 when two anarchist punks (Thing 1 and Thing 2, with apologies to Dr. Seuss) stuck bombs in front of massive crowds at the Boston Marathon and killed three people (four if you count an MIT cop who was just out doing his job).
The Red Sox took it as a personal affront and went on a season-long crusade that ended in a World Series victory. Of the four they’ve won in this century, 2013 was truly the biggest gift in terms of how it impacted the city.
We also had three more Super Bowl titles by the Patriots, making it six in the Bill Belichick era.
I am 66 years old, and did, easily, the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. In early 2016, I got some pretty strong angina pains while at a Patriots game. Mike Shalin, a sports reporter and a good friend, had the phone out to call 9-1-1 when I told him that I was OK.
I was not OK. But I walked out of the stadium, got into my car and drove home. Whereupon I was met by my son, who threw a look at me that was remarkably similar to the ones I used to give him when I was thoroughly disgusted with him.
“You are going to the hospital,” he said.
I ended up having a triple bypass, or, to use the technical term, cabbage x 3 (CABG = coronary artery bypass graft). It was one of two times I was incarcerated at Salem Hospital during the decade, the other being this year.
We took two relaxing cruises during the ‘10s and both of them were altered by hurricanes. The first one threatened Bermuda, so we ended up at Coco Beach in Florida and found out that the “I Dream of Jeannie Way” street sign is the No. 1 most pilfered sign in America.
For the second one, we couldn’t go to either St. Maarten or St. Thomas because those islands were decimated by the hurricane that had just hit a month before.
I guess hurricanes/tropical storms just don’t like us. We had one on our honeymoon too.
Otherwise, the trip of the decade for us was Gettysburg, Pa. I’ve never been in an area where there were hundreds of people being unloaded from tour buses into this big, open battlefield full of monuments — and nobody uttering a sound. It was like being in church. The 9/11 memorial in New York is a little like that too. Gettysburg was just fascinating and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The traveling low point was driving to Indiana. Not Indiana itself. Just driving there. It meant going through Ohio, which was somewhat like being forced to listen to Josh Groban records every day for a decade.
I turned 60 in August 2013, but the surprise party came in January 2014. I spent the period in between going to other people’s parties. I was none too happy about this, and whined quite a bit to my wife.
So when it finally happened, I just leaned over to her and said, “I hate you!”
Of course, I didn’t, and don’t. I was ashamed, actually.
Finally, in 2014, the paper changed hands for the first time since it was established in 1877.
The current ownership, Essex Media Group, purchased the paper from Hastings & Son Publishing Company on Oct. 17, and its first front page was simply a sunrise over Lynn Beach, taken by photographer Mark Garfinkel. It represented a new day — and a new direction.
You spend more time at work than you do in any other single place. So the change of ownership had a more profound impact on my life than anything else that happened to me in the last 10 years.
With any luck at all, I’ll be able to do one of these stories in another decade.