In No Particular Order

Every year at this time we (meaning the collective we, who allow our lives to be controlled by what other people (other than we?) appear to think) make up lists of things that are allegedly the best or most significant of the past year.

If that was going to be the subject of my column this week you’d have every right to stop reading right here. After all, in terms of other people (meaning the others who are or at some point were on somebody else’s list of significant people) I don’t really qualify as one of the better or most significant people who every year at this time make up those lists.
But I’m not going to do that – not exactly.
Instead I’m going to list those things, people, events, and random occurrences that during the past year (or whenever I feel like it) had meaning for ME – meaning the actual me, not a royal me, or an omniscient me. Just me: an admittedly egotistical me who’s annual lists of the best and worst don’t usually coincide with the other’s lists.

Person of the Year
It’s unanimous. Once again it’s Mary, my wife. The bread winner, the bread
maker, the shake your money maker. I could go on, but she would kill me.

Beer of the Year
The Old Speckled Hen. It comes in those cans that have a nitrogen dispenser built in to the bottom, so you get a real creamy head. Man that was good, Bob.

Year of the Year
I believe we’re on a 35 year cycle. That is, fashion – in music, clothes, and the arts, repeats itself every thirty five years. So this year was really 1971, which was a very significant year for me. I was 16, the Stone’s Exile on Main Street had just come out, and my dad was in Vietnam sending home articles about the dangers of marijuana use.

Sports Event of the Year
It has to have been my first round of golf in ten years. I went out with two brothers-in-law and a friend, and managed a very respectable 126 at Waverly Oaks. If I continue to play once every ten years, I know I can get it down to the high 110’s or so.

Gadget of the Year
Heelies. I know the school custodians don’t like them, but I see them as a kind of crowd control device. Did you ever notice how kids with heelies are quieter than other kids? I’d be in favor of building heelie parks, where large groups of pre-teens could glide silently back and forth for hours and hours while their parents golf. I wonder if someone could invent gloves that light up and quietly hum when you softly clap them together?

Fast Food of the Year
I haven’t had any, but I like the idea of those bowls that KFC offers, layered with just about everything they make. I have this idea for a restaurant chain called “Left Overs”, where everything on the menu is meant to taste like leftovers. Everything would be made in advance, and put together later. Our slogan would be ‘Not Just Comfort Food, Left Overs!’

Car of the Year
My vintage 93 Escort Wagon. The back left door doesn’t open, the trunk is a bowlful of rusted water, it doesn’t even have a cassette player, loses traction in a quarter inch of snow, makes a god-awful whining, grinding noise if you don’t give it an hour to warm up, and smells like the inside of a Clean Harbors truck - but it starts up every morning and takes me across the bridge to the sanitarium.
Our old Camry came in a close second: it looks better than the Escort and drives well, but cost me over two thousand to keep on the road this year.
If my well had wheels it would have been the runaway winner.

Movie of the Year
My movie rating system usually does not go beyond three levels. At the bottom with one kernel of unpopped popcorn is Not That Bad, followed by two kernels of unpopped popcorn which translates to A Waste of Time, followed by three kernels, which are only given out to films that reach the pinnacle of my diminished expectations – Remarkably Bad. This year the film Lady in the Water received an almost unheard of four kernels of unpopped popcorn. It was, truly, Worse than I Expected.

Song of the Year
My rating system for songs, is similar to my rating system for movies. I’m really only interested in talking about songs I dislike. If I like a song, I don’t want to talk about it, I want to listen to it.
That said, Death Cab for Cutie’s morose and melodic I’ll Follow You Into the Dark is a remarkably indulgent embrace of meaninglessness. For no particular reason, with a muddled philosophical perspective, and with bright and cheery acoustic guitar accompaniment, this song looks forward to the day when the singer will gladly join a generic ‘love’ when her cosmic GPS malfunctions and she ends up spending eternity at a rest stop on the Afterlife Interstate.
It’s a Rod McKuen meets the Grim Reaper kind of song: MacArthur Park on the Day of the Dead.

I could go on.
Lord knows I could go on and on.
But I know you probably need as much time as you can find, for the other lists that the others are asking you to consider at this time of year: the disaster lists, the war lists, the signs of the Apocalypse list, and so on.
Somebody should be put in charge of making an official master list of lists, that busy people like yourself could consult at their leisure.
After all, at some point, we’ve got to stop making and reading lists, and start living again.
Put that somewhere on your list.