Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
January 1, 2008

New Year’s Resolutions for 1979

Journal Entry:  January 1, 1979 (age 9)

There’s not much time left to make the ‘70s a success.  President Carter, Charles Nelson Reilly and I have some serious work to do.  I’ll do my part, by making these resolutions:

• Visit Camp David with my Cub Scout troop.  Take Polaroids to capture the scene in anticipation of its inevitable rechristening as “Camp Jimmy.”
  

• Cheer up the lunch lady at school, who imbues her gravelly offers of “bread…jello” with enough bitter ennui to completely ruin recess.
  

• Break bad habit of replying to everything my mother says with the word “So?”
  

• Bottle water.  Sell it.
  

• To show his solidarity with the less successful among us, urge new Pope John Paul II to change his name to “Pope George Ringo.”  (Second choice of “Pope Pete Best” would be even more populist, but could lead to confusing papal names in the future, like “Pope Pete Best II:  The Bestest Ever!”)
  

• Memorize the Schoolhouse Rock anthem that put a melody to the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.  Use similar technique to compose a Wagnerian opera cycle based on the Pentagon Papers.
  

• Horde new Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, and invest earnings in the emerging video technology leader, Betamax.
  

• Convince parents to buy two Volkswagen Rabbits, and see what happens.
  

• Unionize our school safety patrol.  Use strong-arm tactics to push through new workplace rules that replace the traditional, fluorescent orange sash with body armor and night-vision goggles for undercover safety patrol ops.
  

• Tune into the Oscars to watch Ralph Bakshi sweep the major awards for his definitive take on The Lord of the Rings.
  

• Petition my Congressman to revoke the newly-signed Panama Canal treaty, and instead offer the Panamanians ownership of Love Canal.
  

• During her summer hiatus from WKRP in Cincinnati, marry Jan “Bailey” Smithers.
  

• Following rejection by Jan Smithers, engage in rebound handholding with anonymous girls under the parachute in gym class.
  

• Start telling people that I have kept a daily journal since birth.

Some of my resolutions are self-centered, but that’s in keeping with the spirit of the “Me Decade.”  For my resolutions in the 1980s, I will follow the more enlightened zeitgeist of the “Those Guys Over There and Their Girlfriends Decade.”

© 2008 Tim Mollen

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