As I reflect on the past year, it is initially hard not to frame it in loss. Old friends and family members who suddenly passed and a dog I loved beyond reason gone way too soon would all be losses on which I could dwell.

But the calendar flips. What shall we do with it?

The past is past. Putting everything in the past as a wonderful memory and moving on is the only logical path but not always the easy one.

So, for me, I’ll start with baby steps.

Fixing the faucet in the kitchen sink and the sticking closet door that I have walked past all year might just begin to move me out of slacker mode. Then taking my aging Gordon Setter “Maggie” for daily exercise walks despite the brutal winter weather conditions here on the Northern Great Plains will be tonic for us both.

Along that walk I will explain to her that there might just be a puppy in our near future that she will need to help train by example. She, being the only dog in the house for the first time in her life, is luxuriating in that role, so I will break this news to her slowly.

And then we will come home and take a little nap together. And I will likely dream of a New Year’s Day now nearly five decades ago.

I had met a much older and yet kindred spirit, “Doc,” who invited me and two friends to join him on a quail hunt in Lincoln County, Tennessee, near a small unincorporated hamlet once known as “PoGrab,” an area likely now in the rearview mirror of history. The day’s hunt and the near-choreographed dog work from my friends’s well-bred English Pointers were nothing short of unforgettable and a capital way to start the New Year. At that moment in my youth, everything seemed possible.

Concluding the hunt with ravenous appetites, we found the nearest roadside diner and proceeded to order copiously from the menu.

The waitress offering desert at the end of the repast presented two pies for our consideration, one chocolate and one coconut. My older friend said, “We’ll take them.” The waitress said, “Which one and how many slices?” The reply was, “Both pies — just set them down.” And we proceeded to eat them both.

Walking out to Doc’s Gold Country Squire station wagon, arguably the SUV of the ‘60s and '70s, it began to snow. Once inside the vehicle, we all decided that a nap was in order. Bess, the older of the two English Pointers, jumped into my lap and cuddled up, and with her warmth and nearness I likely slept sounder than most.

We awoke to a darkness, although it was still early afternoon. Four inches of fresh snow had covered the old station wagon windows while we napped, thus shutting out the light.

Stirring about and a turn of the ignition switch and a flick of the windshield wipers and it was once again daylight — and with a brand-new year stretched before us.

And if you really think about it, starting a brand-new year and leaving all the worthless baggage of the past year behind is really just that simple.

Turn the ignition key and hit the windshield wipers, my friends, and have a wonderful 2024!

Annum novum faustum felicem!