Here We Go Again

By Nikola Maric

nikola_maricIt happened a long, long time ago, early sixties of the last century, if my memory serves me correctly. I was working in a bakery here in Cleveland, and since my English was very limited I used every opportunity to strike a conversation with my fellow workers, just to practice my new language in a new country. Somebody asked me when my father had been born, and I told him that he was born in the last year of the nineteenth century.

 

It - O, 1899, said the man.

- No, 1900, I replied.

And the discussion almost had me lose my job as every-body wanted to convince this “foreigner” how 1900 was a start of the new, not the end of the old century.

People dropped whatever they were doing and took part in a heated argument, but since were being paid by the hour the bakery management did not look so kindly upon all this futile arguing on their time.

I had long forgotten the polemic I held with my fellow bakers, and then came he year 1999. The entire American nation was getting ready to celebrate the new millennium. There were signs all over the place, even our post offi ce had one of those gadgets to count down the days, hours and minutes to December  31st 1999, and when I tried to explain to some of the postal employees how there was no zero year with twelve months, therefore you needed full hundred years to get to the new century, they just shook their head, probably feeling sorry for me. I caught one of them counting years from one to ten, but he did not have the courage to oppose his fellow workers and side with me. However, I was able to convince my high school students that I was right in my calculations, even some teachers. Others simply figured that the U.S. government as well as businesses were in a hurry to get to the new century, because it was somehow profitable to do so.

And once again, I totally forgot about the argument, only to hear a local news reporter mention how we were in the last year of the decade…

Again I called the radio sta-tion to tell them that they are jumping the gun with the new decade, and once again I was told how wrong I was.  I was dismissed with a well known phrase used in situations where people tried to get rid of you in a polite way:

- Have a nice day, said the friendly radio reporter, as he hung up on me.

...

Read rest of column in Liberty

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