New decades and old resolutions

“We’ll be in Richmond by summer or I’ll eat Mr. Lincoln’s hat.”

-General George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac, January 1, 1862.

“I can’t believe the bear ate Grandpa. Next year we’ll have to be more careful.”

– Melvin Bedwetter-Toole, Glacier National Park, Montana.

“I hope to go peacefully in a whiskey barrel and end up in Heaven on Sunday afternoon.”

– If Wishes Were Nickels, by Attila Gudgeon Jr. Testosterone Bros., Boston

It’s New Year’s Resolution season again but don’t despair, this is not one of those stupid resolution columns that demands towering commitments or a burning desire for improvement. Although documented episodes of out with the old, in with the new exist throughout the annals of history, perhaps there is no better time to categorize these vows than at the beginning of a decade.

Conveniently enough, this enlightened harvest of historically linked passages arrived in our semi-cognizant copy basket on New Year’s Eve. While we realize that there are a multitude of promises and pledges that have had far more impact on mankind, we have chosen to focus on resolutions that were actually kept.

Despite other images that this piece may conjure up, it is apparent that the elements, the planets, and the gods have always looked favorably on 20th year resolution makers. It’s kind of an eleventh hour plus nine thing.

It should be of some relief to all that Big Brother has yet to get around to making these annual covenants mandatory for all citizens. Our earliest concurrent reference point is 600* that, in itself, represents an epic journey into the past by a bush league research team that has yet to recover from the office Christmas party.

Centuries after Guana, a Neanderthal inhabiting Asia Minor in about 4521 BC, started her New Year by promising that she would get her family out of “this drafty old cave and into something modular”, St. Augustine started the ball rolling. Curiously enough it was January 1 in the 20th Year of the 6th Century. The stodgy bandwagon moralist had promised Pope Gregory he would convert Britain to Christianity. Two months later he baptized a leading antagonist, Ethelbert of Kent. Ethelbert would go on to become one of the most abrasive lounge singer/performers in Canterbury. Seeing what he had done, Augustine made a second resolution in which he promised never to discuss religion or politics. He then retired to a remote monastery to write his memoirs. Highlights of other maintained resolutions quite possibly include:

721 AD: Marauding Arabs, searching for the legendary oil reserves described by the Roman poet, Sinclair, sack Carthage mistaking it for the planned community of Mesopotamia. Their leader, Caliph Abdelmelik III, then makes a New Year’s Resolution to have a map of Asia Minor stenciled on his right forearm.

821 AD: Byzantine Empress Irene overthrows her son, Constantine, blinds him, and assumes sole power. She then proposes to marry Charlemagne. After repeated rejections of that conjugal arrangement, Irene promises to quit chasing men and to stop blinding people. Despite her behavior and due to family money, the Greek Orthodox Church later canonized her.

921:  After a string of architectural disasters, early electrical contractor, Alfonso III, resolves only to wire castles built with drywall. Saracens, looking for an open service station, get into a gas war with Bulgarians. In January they make a resolution to put their condos in the Holy Land on the market in order to pay for further military excursions into Europe.

1021: On December 31 Danes promise to stop sacking the Irish Coast but they don’t say anything about rape and/or pillage. The Sultan of Ghazi resolves to send his gums to the dentist once a year. Gondola operators in Venice pledge to go on strike until tips improve. A dramatic population explosion in China gives birth to the concept of 1/2 orders on sweet and sour pork.

1121: The Cid takes Valencia from the Moors and promises to return it when he’s finished with a Christian remodel. Unfortunately it is mislabeled as a present to his precocious offspring, who break it the day after Christmas.

1221: An assortment of holy men, including St Anthony of Padua and Chinese philosopher, Chu-Hsi promised to stop talking to the sky.

1221: Scots defeat British at Stirling Bridge and then again at Chevy Chase. King Edward I of England’s New Year’s Resolution is to refrain from playing his bagpipes before dawn. He instructs his troops to avoid looking up the kilts worn by anyone related to Robert T. Bruce.

1421: The Duke of Gloucester vows to stick to his diet in 1398 but is murdered before he can properly push himself away from his dining room table.

1521: Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, shocks the Vatican by divorcing Giovanni Sforza and running off with Alfonso of Naples. Her New Year’s Resolution: Don’t unpack until the ring is paid for. Michelangelo sculpts “Bacchus” and pledges to stop using profane language during his next project.

1621: Vasco de Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope under the flag of Lisbon. However, after the check bounced, the explorer resolves that further business dealings with the Portuguese would be on a COD basis. The Second Spanish Armada is scattered by storms in the Atlantic. Spanish King Phillip II makes a resolution to start watching the Weather Channel in 1620. He further pledges to move out of his mom and dad’s basement by summer.

1721: Peter the Great luggage is once again lost during a journey through Prussia, Holland, England and Vienna. He makes the trek disguised as Peter Michailoff in order to study European ways. In January of 1701 he vows to travel with only a carry on.

1821: Casanova drops dead moments after vowing to stop chasing young women. After taking Vienna, Napoleon resolves to keep an extra pair of dry socks in his pack. He then exhorts his tired soldiers to “let the good times roll”. Headhunters in New Guinea make their first New Year’s Resolution: To eat only vegetarians. The Court of Versailles promises to clean its Venetian blinds once a month.

1921: The citizens of Savage Basin, Colorado pledge to stop carousing and staying up late. Old Man Roberts, proprietor of Tuller and Roberts Grocery vows to stop bitching and chewing tobacco when he has to cut up a chicken. Mrs. Williams, a cook at the Victor Restaurant in Ophir, promises to stop burning her husband’s toast. “Shorty” Bridgeman, “the racker salesman” resolves to stop spitting while during conversations. Dr. Copp, a Durango dentist vows to stop drinking at the New Sheridan Hotel before oral surgery. The United States government promises to uphold all future treaties with the Ute Nation since most of the tribe has already been relocated to Utah anyway.

Next time: 20th Century Dog and Pony Resolutions

*All dates approximate and generally rounded off to the next decade by eunuchs mining the vast expanse of archival material strewn about the breakfast dishes like concrete and raisins. Is this art? I asked myself, or just hope’s excuse to be a dreamer.