Organization: FidoNet node 1:321/110 - Physics Forum, Amherst MA
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Dear Peter, Lovely, lovely. I hope you WILL see the brolgas dancing. Your piece was just grand. It reminded me, parenthetically, of a little squib on the radio the other day in which someone reported that Christmas is the time for the most emergency medical services in Australia - something to do with all the time people spend outdoors near places where the wildlife and the sun prevail. The radio piece missed the point = that people go out because there is so much to go out to.
Here in Massachusetts, USA, we mostly stayed in and listened to a dry wind howl. No snow, nosun, just bare limbs and wild geese sailing around in their raggedy wedges. Lots of lights, though. People decorate the exteriors of their houses and trees with little pinpoint lights, some with several colors, some all in white, candles in windows. It makes a dark season bright and reminds me that the ancients would celebrate a season of light. Something Celtic in me, I guess.
We also have quite a few folks observing Chanukah, lighting candles, one a night, to recall the saving of the Temple. Families gather around, eat potato pancakes (latkes) with apple sauce, sing, etc. My friends got into a discussion, since a theme of the holiday is liberation from oppressors, about what it would be like if you had no one above you in terms of power.
African=Americans are now observing a feast called Kwanza which began in the l920s and is associated by a leader named Marcus Garvey. The festival goes for 8 days, and on each day a different precept is observed. I hesitate to name them because I am not familiar with them.
Soon New Year's Eve. Around here there are 'First Night' celebrations. The grandest of all is the one in Boston, our state capital, where there are many many performances in halls and theaters as well as on the streets, ice sculptures, arts of various kinds. People stroll around the city and drop in on the performances, eat street food, and then go to the harbor to watch fireworks at midnight. If the weather is okay, it makes a great evening. OUr local celebration in Northampton, a city l00 miles
west of Boston, is similar but on a scale appropriate to a population which is much smaller than 'Beantown'.
Thanks for your piece and best wishes for l993. Hope we'll meet again. Carol Rundberg
