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I've never been a huge fan of New Year's resolutions; they're kind of self-inflicted traps for failure.
I remember wanting to lose weight back in the late '70s. My state's attorney investigator, Jan Ray, also wanted to lose weight. In fact, we needed to lose weight as both of us could barely squeeze into a large van.
So we both made a resolution in December to lose weight by April 1 of the coming new year. We even backed it up with a $100 bet going to the one who lost the most weight.
When that date finally came, we both weighed in at the Tuscola Grain Elevator. I had gained 28 pounds and Jan had gained 34 pounds. We both got into an argument about whether I should get the $100 because I'd gained less weight. He wouldn't pay.
Dismayed, I quit making resolutions for decades. But time for my self-improvement is shortening at a rather alarming rate. So I've decided to make resolutions again, the achievement of which might help to clear my name and burnish memories of my life.
Resolution #1: QUIT BELLYACHING SO MUCH. My friends increasingly call me "El Gripe O" and say they're getting tired of me "dragging them down" into whatever slough of despond I'm festering in.
I know. But getting older -- painful arthritis that makes me scream with the simplest movement, memory failure, no energy, sight and hearing leaving me, and did I mention toe fungus? -- is hard to deal with on a daily, never-ceasing voyage of pain and discomfort -- you wouldn't believe it ... but, HEY, who's complaining?
Plus -- COME ON NOW -- you people could help me with my negative-nellie-nattering. Take our do-nothing, know-nothing, incompetent politicians: "Can't you get your corrupt act together?" And those Mad Max drivers riding my bumpers, honking, yelling at me to pull off the highway and "take a nap, grandpa."
Is it too much to ask you hot-headed rabble-rousers to help me keep this resolution? After all, it takes a village.
Resolution #2: TREAT BECKY BETTER. I'm not sure this is humanly possible -- given the objective fact that absolutely everything I do is for her -- except for all that stuff I do for myself.
But Becky insists it's not only possible but better happen soon or she's going to keep bugging me until I pop a gasket. Then whose fault will that be? Not mine!
I've been married twice and, coincidentally, have repeatedly heard this complaint from not only both wives, but sundry girlfriends.
Concerned, I've thought long and hard about the matter, and finally concluded that the common denominator is: obviously not me -- it's women.
Something's wrong with them when it comes to me. Perhaps they're either missing a "get real about the perfectibility of men" gene or they have a utopian, over-developed "men can be perfected" gene? Can't be me.
At least that's my current working theory.
Resolution #3: QUIT REPEATING OLD TALL TELLS THAT BORE EVERYONE. This resolution will be difficult as I have no new adventures, and can't remember who, or how many times, I've told of my past adventures. But I'll try.
How about this one? I don't think it's been told before. But if it has, please disregard and move on to someone else's article.
Once upon a time, Engo and I hopped a freight to San Diego, then rode camels through Central America, finally catching a skiff to Cuba, where we picked tobacco for El Capo de Largo. (Have you heard this one?)
Anyway, one day this Che Guevara revolutionary nut comes charging into the tobacco field spraying bullets everywhere, because, as I understand it, he thought "capitalist pigs" were stealing the national treasure of Cuba, being really good cigars.
Engo and I fled the fighting by hitching a ride with this CIA agent on his super-secret hydro boat that had special markings to distinguish it from drug-runner boats, thus avoiding vaporization from above. (Are you sure you haven't heard this one?)
This is about the time the whole "Bay of Pigs" thing blew up in President Kennedy's face. I tried to tell the President that Engo and I had nothing to do with it, we were just there, caught in the middle of things, trying to make a living picking leaves and scoring free Cohiba cigars.
True, we did tell the CIA agent of the Ruskies' plan to bring nukes into Cuba. This intel came directly from Vladimir -- a then-KGB operative, now head cheese of Russia -- who was cutting tobacco right along with us. He thought we were Che's mules and on his side but we weren't.
I mean, what a mess. Who was the President gonna believe? Engo and me or the CIA creeps? He listened to them, not us, and look what happened. I'm just saying.
(If I repeat this story next week, that means this resolution is probably kaput on arrival.)
These are my resolutions for the coming year. As for your resolutions, my wish is that those of you blocking my path toward personal improvement will resolve to get out of my way.
You know who you are!