Year S Day

SOMETIMES, AS when the fishing stinks or when the whole world seems cloudy and ominous and destined for war, I like to stand peaceably by a river, throw the dead branch of a tree in the current and watch it go. I did this when I was a kid -- so that my friends downstream would have something to bombard with rocks as it drifted by -- and I do it now during pauses in hikes. I do it now for the same reason some people call psychic hot lines: to see how the future might go. I know that sounds weird.

Eric Johnson celebrated the first day of the new year by picking out paint. The foyer and hallway of his Catonsville home were shabby from the hands and feet of his kids, so off he went to the Home Depot yesterday, convinced that he was observing the holiday right. "I'm trying to start out new and fresh," said Johnson, 31, who thought he could finish the chore in a day despite the distraction of children. "I have a way to keep them occupied: Cartoon Network, and lots of goodies." Across the Baltimore area, people found reasons to go out on the rainy start to 2003 - to practice good habits, indulge in a few bad ones or simply spend an hour away from the mounting cabin fever of a long school holiday.

If you haven't made your holiday travel plans yet, you may be too late for many destinations. In a typical year, that wouldn't be news because Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's are among the most in-demand travel times. Warm-weather resorts book up months in advance, plane seats disappear and airfares soar. Savvy travelers plan accordingly. But, of course, this hasn't been a typical year. The aftermath of last year's terrorist attacks, the bombing in Bali and the uncertain economy have disrupted travel patterns.

MEMBERS OF the Chinese Language School of Columbia brought in the Chinese New Year with a bang at the central branch of the Howard County Public Library on Saturday. The celebration began with the sounds of a ceremonial drum and a performance of the traditional Lion Dance. Yesterday marked the year 4699 on the Chinese calendar, the year of the horse. In China, the New Year's celebration is also called the Spring Festival. "A person born in this year will be very outgoing, active, faithful and energetic," said Emily Lee, executive director of extracurricular activities for the Columbia school.

Bowl games were born a century ago, before New Year's became fixed in collective memory as a day of dips and chips and families gathered around a warm TV. More recently, the college football games morphed into a marathon for bleary-eyed couch potatoes clutching the remote in one hand and notes on the office pool in the other. Nowadays, the bowl anointed as the one played for the national championship may not even usher in the new year. Witness the 2002 Rose Bowl, between Nebraska and top-ranked Miami, to be played on Thursday night.

Millions celebrate arrival of the New Year with bells and whistles, songs and sirens, bursting fireworks and even blasting firearms. But on Navy and Coast Guard ships and at onshore stations around the world, seamen standing the lonely midnight to 4 o'clock mid-watch will mark the arrival of 2002 with ... poetry. On New Year's morning, the Officer of the Deck - or of the Day if he or she is ashore - traditionally writes the mid-watch log entry in verse. "But some are verse than others," observed a seaman aboard the USS Rainier off Vietnam on Jan. 1, 1969.

Editor's note: A young boy aims for new beginnings and better luck with the onset of Chinese New Year. This next new year is about to begin, not the regular new year, January 1, when we watch the Rose Parade and football games and make crazy New Year's resolutions, but the lunar new year, the day of the first new moon. I call it Chinese New Year even though I am half Korean and my mother cooks duk gook, the Korean new year soup. My best friend Glenn, who is French and German, calls it Chinese New Year, too, even though he celebrates at his house by eating Thai food to go. And my other best friend Evelyn, who is part Hopi and part Mexican, says Chinese New Year is her favorite holiday because she likes to get red envelopes stuffed with money from her neighbor who came from Singapore.

Hail the holiday that pays little respect, honors nary a soul, lacks an inspiration, provides no solace, produces mild discomfort and encourages vertiginous upchucking! New Year's Day -- words so self-referential they presume the day belongs exclusively to itself. A day without memorial, saint, war, statesman, suffragist, liberation, birth, discovery or heroic hallmark will, once again, be turned over to an idea so thin and soulless that its peculiar deficiencies will enhance the mystery for yet another year.

New Year's Eve abounds with noisy, jubilant celebrations, including bonfires, firecrackers, singing, dancing, horn-blowing and the tinkling of temple bells. The next day, the activities are more somber - nursing hangovers and composing long lists of New Year's resolutions, which we promise we will keep this time. Who couldn't use a little help in the good-fortune department? Luckily, our ancestors were wise enough to pass along tasty traditions of eating good-luck foods for New Year's, delectable comestibles guaranteed to bring health, happiness and prosperity in the coming year.

During the first day of the first week of 1900, Baltimoreans awoke to a New Year's Day snowstorm and chilly weather that did little to hamper activities both indoor and out. The Sun reported that skaters were "out in full force" with the largest crowd taking to the ice at Gwynn Oak. "The ponds around Hampden and Woodberry were crowded all day yesterday. Quigley's Pond on Merryman's Lane, was in excellent condition, and 200 persons at one time enjoyed the sport. Woodberry dam and the ponds along Jones' Falls were also crowded.