Letters to the President: #712 'Welcome to 2011!'

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Reporter's Note: Out with the old! In with the new! That’s a good slogan for most folks, I guess, but I don’t let my wife hear it. Ha! Here is my new letter to carry on my old tradition of writing every day to the president.

Dear Mr. President,

Well, here we are with a whole brand new year stretching out ahead of us, full of as much promise as a new box of pencils! Mind you, I suppose that doesn’t sound like much portent to some, but when you do a lot of writing…as you and I do…the point is clear.

I tried to do celebrate the final day of 2010 by doing something I almost never do; I stretched out on the sofa for a nap.

After all the long months of work, the worries over unemployment, housing values, savings accounts, and whatever those wacky North Koreans are up to, I thought I could use the break. I imagine you could, too. My wife, however, was cleaning out the refrigerator (also a good “last day of the year” activity) and she started grinding unidentifiable foodstuffs into the disposal so relentlessly, one of the final scenes of Fargo kept haunting my dreams, so I gave up.

By the time you read this, the whole family will probably be finished with a 3 mile footrace that we thought would prove a nice and healthy start to 2011. It was slated for 10 a.m., which seems pretty civilized even if the idea of sprinting through the cold does not. I don’t think we’ll find a lot of folks there. Maybe a few hundred or a thousand at most.

Of course, we will have our lucky black eyed peas and ham for lunch. There was a brief insurrection in which a family member (who shall remain nameless) suggested barbequed ribs would be a suitable substitute. That prompted a walk around the block and a heart-to-heart talk with dear old dad who explained that there are superstitions which can be ignored, and gospel which can not. Ham and black eyed peas are the latter. Thankfully, we’ve heard no such heresy again, and that’s good because it would be terrible to start the new year by making one’s old child homeless.

Other than that, we’re just hoping to cool out for the weekend, and Monday morning roar into 2011 with gusto. I have a lot of thoughts about resolutions which I’ll break down for you tomorrow. As for now, Happy New Year to you and yours. Call if you have a moment. Seriously, can you think of a better way to start your year?

Regards,
Tom

Follow Tom on Twitter @tomforemancnn.

Find more of the Foreman Letters here.