That Perfect Week Between

It's officially 2013, and in two days, I'll be back at work, wearing the professional mask, or hat, if you prefer, for the first time in a couple of weeks.  I'll have people -- many people -- stopping me to wish me a happy new year, then hoping to get their questions answered, questions particular to them in their particular niche at our school.  I'll wish them well, exchange pleasantries, then do what I can to answer their query.

Then I'll sigh, remembering this quiet time -- the perfect week between Christmas and New Year -- as a fading, pleasant memory.  For now, I bask in it.  I enjoy being in my pajamas on a weekday, sleeping late and sipping my coffee in my sunny home office.

Back when I was a younger person, this wondrous week was when I'd come down from the hinterlands, back to my home in the suburbs of New York City.  Sometimes we had snow, sometimes not.  I can remember Amtrak train rides that were delayed by frozen tracks and fallen limbs from wind-swept trees.  One of my fondest memories is coming down from Syracuse University with my buddy Mignon.  She was kind enough to give me a ride in her dying Scirocco, a car in such poor shape that the heater gave out, causing us to shiver during the five-hour drive home.  To make the time pass, we played travel games like Boticelli and something we called "The Movie Game."  Mostly, we laughed a lot.

My snowy childhood home, One Scott Lane, in Purchase, New York

Once we arrived home, it was all about reunions.  Our friends would find their ways home from the various institutions of higher learning they attended -- places like the University of Vermont, Franklin and Marshall College, Brown and the various State Universities of New York -- and we would reconvene in a number of places.  Sometimes we'd meet up at one of our homes.  More likely, though, we'd end up at one or another of two local bars -- the Cobblestone and the Hilltop -- which sat (and still sit) right next door to each other on Anderson Hill Road, near the SUNY Purchase campus.  They were comfortable bar-restaurants, with decent food and reasonable drink prices.  We were known there, and the bartenders and bouncers were kind to us, so we brought our reunions, and our money, to these two places regularly.

It was good to catch up with friends, to break out the old inside jokes, tell stories of college life, and get happily plastered.  Of course, we did a few things we probably shouldn't have, things we now warn our own children against, but there was a perfection to be had in that week between Christmas and New Years that can never be duplicated.