How often do you get to write a headline like that?

I’m enjoying Clean Slate day — not to be confused with Clean Sheet day that happens, more or less, on a weekly basis as opposed to once a year. It’s a new beginning, a fresh start — it’s reinvention, rebirth and renewal. (And you thought it was just Saturday.)

This year, instead of making a list of declarations, at day’s end, I plan to catalog all of things that I have accomplished. Three hundred and sixty-four days from today I expect that I will be flat-out astonished. For instance, this morning I watched a movie, read yesterday’s paper and two short stories by the woman who wrote Out of Africa.  And here it is, only just — noon.

I suppose I need a vision of the target I have in mind. Okay.  

By year’s end, I want to marvel at new things I have learned, be satisfied with things I have done, feel comfortably healthy and fit, and look back on a host of hilariously good times with family and friends.  

I best get started.

Happy New Year!

The man and boy moved through the sea grass that edged the beach headed toward the cabins in front of them.  The boy held on to a black kite shaped like a swallow.   

They were a companionable couple. Shoulder to shoulder in animated conversation; they were, no doubt, recounting how the kite had performed well beyond their expectations or perhaps, how clever and skilled kite masters they, themselves, had turned out to be.   

The path narrowed and the elder of the two took the lead. By the looks of it, he was the father to the father of the boy. He turned slightly — enough to see the boy joyously fling the contents of his pocket up into the air, white paper of some sort that quickly sunk out of view in the thick grass.  

The older man stopped right then, turned and faced the boy, his head moved in quick bursts as he gestured out toward the beach with his arms.  

In an instance, the boy’s exuberance vanished. His head tilted to his chin, his shoulders fell and his black swallow kite dipped sadly toward the ground. He stood totally still and looked straight ahead.   

The man, then turned, and continued purposefully up the path.

The boy threw back his shoulders and then waded out into the grass. He made several small circles, peering through the grass as he flattened it with his feet. All of a sudden he stopped, bent over and in one gesture scooped up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.

He lifted up his kite, pointed it straight in front of him and ran with it as fast as he could to catch up.

A 14-year-old girl was featured in the paper this morning along side of a cake she had decorated with a perfectly proportioned replica of the Eiffel tower done in pastillage and piped with royal icing. Her cake won first place last fall in the Oklahoma State Sugar Art and Grand National Wedding Cake competition in Tulsa. She had taught herself to decorate cakes by reading books and watching the Food Network. 

She also draws, quilts, bakes, takes pictures, paints ceramics, trains dogs, and does public speaking. This while maintaining an A average and taking part in lots of extracurricular activities at school. She wants to be a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.

When I was fourteen, I was president of the Mad Monsters Club; our bylaws included doing a bad turn at least once a day. When Sister Charles Mary got hold of a printed copy of the our bylaws, she had a fit in a nun-sorta-way. She told me I wasn’t living up to my potential. I told her that the bylaws were more of a parody than a governing document. She would have loved this cake decorator.

In case you’re wondering,  pastillage is sugar based edible dough.