Rain delayed some of our New Year’s plans, including our plans to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Alameda, California.
Despite missing out on what we had hoped would be a grand way to ring in the New Year (a Steely Dan Cover Band was on hand), we celebrated quietly at home by binge-watching Masterpiece Theater’s presentation of “Atlantic Crossing” while warming our bellies with a homemade fondue dinner, Gerkens, pickled onions, a bowl of black-eyed peas and our favorite adult beverages. The meal lasted nearly 4 hours (with plenty of leftovers).
During this pre-countdown time, we would switch back and forth between “Atlantic Crossing” and Anderson Cooper getting plastered in Times Square with Andy Cohen on CNN.
Which brings back memories of my youth. Not the getting plastered part, but watching a New Year’s Eve celebration on one of the local “over-the-air” stations in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. I recall Three Dog Night performing until midnight. My parents and brother were in the living room, watching Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, waiting for the band to finally play “Auld Lang Syne.”
But something extraordinary happened on the channel I was watching. Shortly after the “ball-drop” celebration in LA, the channel went to its usual sign-off screen displaying an Indian-head test pattern, as was the custom of the day. Even TV had to sleep back then.
But this night, after displaying the test pattern, a drunken male voice broke the silence and loudly slurred “Happy New Year!” to all those still watching. I laughed out loud at the happy lack of decorum. It was spontaneous and genuinely heartfelt.
Which brings me back to this New Year’s Eve, 2025. At the stroke of midnight, our cable box went dark. No audio, no video, no ads, no nothing. At first annoyed, we looked at each other, smiled, wished each other a Happy New Year, and kissed. It was another spontaneous moment of Auld Lang Syne.
But it begs these questions: Why was I watching a test pattern? Is “Atlandic Crossing” a holiday show? And did the U.S. just kidnap the president of Venezuela?