A page from dad’s book

I have always preferred a quiet night at home on Old Year’s night.

No parties for me. The couple of times I let someone talk me into going to a party I felt miserable.

I couldn’t wait to get home to my book. Much of that feeling stems from my father’s comments about Old Year’s night. My mother always begged my father to take her to an Old Year’s party, and he refused.

“My idea of having fun on Old Year’s night is not having a bunch of drunks stepping on my feet when I’m trying to dance,” my father always said.

Perhaps my penchant for staying at home on Old Year’s night is really a tribute to my father’s gentle and genuine spirit. He needed no one to entertain him. He was perfectly content with himself, his children and his cows. From my father, I learned a little introspection is good for the soul.

And so, on Old Year’s night, he made sure my mom bought lots of nice snacks — potato chips and Frito corn chips and sour cream dips. My mother put out plates of sugar cookies, Paisano (wine) cookies and nut kipfers. My maternal grandmother always made pigs-in-the-blanket, giant meatballs made from ground pork and white rice smothered in sauerkraut because she said it was important to eat pork — never chicken — just before the new year. “Pigs root forward,” she said, “and chickens scratch backwards.” It was her way of saying “Forward ever, backwards never.” So my family started the new year with good food and family.

While my children were growing up, I modified some of my family’s New Years’ traditions to include pizza with snacks and Christmas cookies – always gingerbread, and when my children fell asleep, I would conjure up every fond memory of the past and plan for the new year.

This year, I will be thinking about the two nonfiction books I am writing. Working on these books — both of which deal with West Indian history — brings joy and a sense of fulfilment. I have learned so much about the West Indies, and that knowledge fills me with pride.

When the new year chimes in, I’ll be bursting with joy for all of the upcoming projects I have planed for my new library in Port-of-Spain Prison that Children’s Ark has been helping me with for two years now. The library will be opening in January.

I’ll be thinking about what I can further contribute to education in this country through that prison library.

One of my favourite writers, Victor Hugo, once wrote “When you open a school, you close a prison.” I feel the same way about a prison library. You will be hearing a lot about the Port-of- Spain Prison library, and I am promising that it will be a model for prison libraries throughout the country and even the region.

Of course I’ll be thinking about my reading for the year.

I promised myself I’d read a book about every US president.

I’ve started to put a dent in that promise already. Plans are good.

I know this because of the family traditions passed down from my grandmother.

H a p p y New Year, dear readers.

Plan a great year.