Begin new year on clean slate

Dear Readers: Happy New Year. We hope you don’t need to recuperate too much from your celebrations last night and are enjoying the first day of 2009. This is always a good time to clear the slate and start fresh, mend fences, re-establish relationships and resolve to do better in every area of your life.

Here’s a poem sent in by a reader (author unknown) to help you get started:

Share your gifts and talents listen with your heart. Do the things you dream about but don’t have time to start. Pick a bouquet of flowers show someone that you care, Be gracious and forgiving life is never fair. Hold on to your courage you may need it down the road, We all have a cross to bear it could be a heavy load. If you practice all these things no matter where you roam, You may find both sun and rain but you’ll never feel alone.

Dear Annie: I was watching a movie the other night, and there was a scene where all the characters sang “Auld Lang Syne.” I’ve heard the song a million times but have no idea what the words are. I can never make them out clearly, and even the ones that sound like English make no sense to me. Can you help me out? – Like To Know What I’m Singing

Dear Singing: The version we know best was written in Scottish by poet Robert Burns. The first stanza seems fairly understandable:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o’ lang syne. For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o kindness yet, For auld lang syne.

Those words seem fairly straightforward and familiar, but they get a little tricky after that.

Of course, few of us speak 18th-century Scottish, although you can use this to impress your friends. Here is the translation of the entire song:

Should old friends be forgotten and never brought to mind Should old friends be forgotten and the days they shared together For days now in the past, my dear, For days now in the past We’ll drink a toast of kind remembrance, For days now in the past You can pay for your pint tankard and I will pay for mine We’ll drink a toast of kind remembrance, For days now in the past We two have fun about the hillsides and pulled wild daisies But now we are far apart in distance, From those days now in the past We two have paddled in the stream from morning until noon But oceans now lie between us since those days now in the past So take my hand, my trusty friend and give me your hand And we will take a hearty drink together, In memory of those days now in the past.