Pat Bean's blog

This New Year’s eve found me and my dog, Maggie, escaping rain and fog at Lake Bob Sandlin State Park. Located 10 miles south of Mount Pleasant. It’s a great place for some gentle hikes, my favorite being one that winds through the woods to a small pond where catfish and trout keep fishermen happy.

New Year's Eve at Lake Bob Sandlin ... Photo by Pat Bean

This day, however, I was lucky to find a few moments between downpour episodes for Maggie and I to take a quick walk around the paved Cherokee Trace camping loop where my RV was hooked up. I had chosen a spot right on the lake, a premium site that in less inclement weather would already have been taken when I arrived. It’s availability was the silver lining that always accommodates a storm, as were the raft of ducks that ignored the rain as they swam past my view near the lake’s shore, and the blue jays, mockingbirds, tufted titmice and fat squirrels that played in the trees outside my window when the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Instead of bemoaning my alone-ness on this celebratory night of the year, I found myself rejoicing in it. Maggie and I crawled into our above the cab bed early, but I set my alarm so as to be up to watch as 2009 would dissolve at the magic moment into 2010. It’s always been an exciting time in my life, a sheaf of 365 blank pages on which to write.

I awoke without the help of the alarm, fixed myself a hot chocolate, added a dash of Jack, and listened to fireworks off in the distance. I’m not sure exactly when Father Time whisked past my RV, but when I knew he had, I crawled back into bed. As usual, I had to scoot Maggie over. She had slept through the change of years. The warmth her body had imprinted on my side of the bed felt good, and helped push me back into the world of dreams.

 I awoke at 5 a.m. to a blaze of light streaming in the window by my head. By turning on by stomach, I could see it’s source. A full moon. And not just any moon, but a rare New Year’s Eve Blue Moon. The last time we had one of those was 1990.

 I got up and sat on the couch, wrapped in a bright red, gold, turquoise and black furry blanket a granddaughter had given me, and watched this glowing miracle melt into a morning sky. It just seemed the right thing to do on this first day of the year.

Afterward, I fixed myself some coffee and sat at my table. The ducks, blue jays, mockingbirds and titmice, joined by a couple of bright red cardinals, were back, but this time playing and singing beneath the rays of a golden sun that came with the dawn.

It wasn’t until I finished my second cup of coffee that I decided it was time for me to stop watching 2010 begin its 584 million-mile trek around our solar system and begin inking my own exploratory journey on those marvelous blank pages. And with that Dr. Seuss’ words rang through my head:

 “Oh the places you’ll go and the things you’ll see … Will you succeed? Yes you will indeed.”