Phew! Year 2020 is over! It is finally over!

Now, we can engage in that New Year’s tradition that is traditionally a failure for plenty of people.

Instead, I am referring to the we-are-just-kidding-ourselves custom of making …

New Year’s Resolutions.

Making New Year’s resolutions may be a non-serious custom nowadays, but for the people who started New Year’s resolutions, the custom had a serious purpose.

From History.com:

“The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted. During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be.”

The ancient Romans had their own serious custom that took place on the first day of the year.

From LiveScience.com:

“After Rome became an empire in 27 B.C., New Year’s Day became a time for city leaders and soldiers to swear an oath of loyalty to the Emperor. This was not always mere political theater: In A.D. 69, after Emperor Nero died, civil war broke out over Rome’s next leader. The Roman legions in Germany refused to swear allegiance to the next candidate for Emperor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, said Richard Alston, a professor of Roman history at Royal Holloway University of London. Galba’s bodyguards in Rome soon turned against him as well, and killed him in the Forum, Rome’s civic plaza.”

The modern-day equivalent to all that is swearing allegiance to the emperor Donald of Orange …

… except that Donald’s rabid supporters did not wait until January 1st to swear allegiance to him.

It is a bit prophetic that a July 2017 Daily Beast article asks, “Is Donald Trump the Modern Nero?”

Well, Nero fiddled; Donald golfed.

Here it is: I resolve not to use size 8 font in any more of my posts for year 2021.

You’re welcome.

David Robertson

The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”

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