My best to you on my New Year’s Day

February 28th is not just another day on the calendar. It’s my personal New Year’s Eve. I came into this world on Mar. 1, 1955, which, by coincidence was also a Tuesday. Thus also ends the year where my age matched my birth year and my IQ.

Mar. 1, by the way, was New Year’s Day, briefly anyway. This was under the Roman calendar, probably before some do-gooder reformed it. Need proof? Consider the last four months of the year: September; October; November; December. These are the 9th through 12th months, but their names are derived from words that mean the 7th through 10th months-Sept-a prefix that means 7, octo-means 8th and so on. These months could only be numbers 7-10 if March were the first month, so at one time, I would have had a shot at being the first baby of the year. I could have been a new-born contender!

And now, in the words of Monty Python’s Graham Cleese, for something completely different; some thoughts about some of the really good things I’ve found on this earth in my 56 years. These aren’t anything grand, just simple things from a simple man.

The best store-bought bread, for example, in my humble opinion, can be found at Food City. It’s their Italian and French loaves, unsliced and full of goodness. It’s baked fresh at each store, and it is quite tasty. I started buying this bread to serve with my baked spaghetti, but I’ve found that it goes really well with any number of dishes. I buy the Italian style because I like the shape of the loaves. That is the only difference I can discern between them.

While you’re there, you might want to check out Natra Taste artificial sweetener. This is aspartame, a generic version of Equal. You remember Equal; this was the brand that had a patent on aspartame. For that reason, Equal was always a bit pricey. In fact, it still is, considering that there are now many generic sweeteners that contain aspartame. Natra Taste just happens to have the best price. It comes in boxes of 250 packets for a mere $3.59, and even Food City’s own brand can’t beat that.

I have my own theory as to why Natra Taste is so inexpensive. If I’m not wrong, it’s because its maker, Brooklyn Premium Corp. makes Sweet and Low, formerly the most popular artificial sweetener before Equal took top billing. Now you know that when Merisant, the maker of Equal, lost its patent, Brooklyn Premium decided to stick it to them, and so Natra Taste was born. And for them, if they’ve managed to cost Merisant some sales, you know that victory never tasted any sweeter.

Finally, the best way to live: Spend part of your life committing random acts of kindness. It’s not something you need to do on a daily basis, nor do you need go out of your way, but when you least expect it, you will find some soul in need of assistance, and you will have the means at your disposal to render aid. Do so. This is what makes life worthwhile. Heck, it might even get you out of a few minutes of purgatory in the next life.