MY INTERVIEW WITH FATHER TIME: A Year in Review 

This was an interview I’ve been looking forward to all year. I tried to get a few words with him in his younger days. Of course as the Baby New Year, it was all incomprehensive gaga-googoo gibberish. In his teen days, it was hard to pin him down, for his time is limited. But now that his time is coming to a close, he had something to say. Although his words were few, and sometimes speaking gibberish much like when he was the Baby New Year of 2022. 

Taking on the title of Father Time was earned, to say the least. It was a busy year, trying to accomplish in 12 months what many of us try to do in 80+ years. There’s an old saying, if you can change the world, do it. But there’s this thing called free-will, and in many cases, Father Time finally had to let it be, realizing there were things even he had no control over. Mother Nature’s temper (or sense of humor) was the first thing he learned the hard way with regards of having no voice in the matter. 2022 here in Wenatchee Valley started off with one of those crazy snow storms where we got hit with up to 23 inches in some areas. And as we’ve seen on the news recently, a major winter storm has caused havoc all over the country, TikTok videos of sliding cars in Seattle crashing into other cars, and Karens freaking out over Southwest meltdown at Sea-Tac, have gone viral. 

If you were anywhere near Apple Blossom festivities at Memorial Park just before the parade, you’ll remember the shooting incident in front of Living Hope Church. There’s the lawsuit against Confluence Health by employees who lost their jobs for not taking the covid shots. But our masks came off. And we were able to attend AppleSox and Wild games with family and friends. There was the confusion as to where the Oktoberfest was held with separate events in Wenatchee and Leavenworth. But many of us attended both. And Alaska Airlines reducing flights to just one in and one out of Pangborn.

There’s the war in Ukraine. The battle of speech on Twitter. The slap heard around the world. 'Us vs Them'. There was the lost of a Queen. The rise of gas prices as inflation worsened. The fall of late night ratings as comedy became commentary. Although social distant restrictions were lifted, Father Time still couldn’t get people in a theater to munch down on $10 popcorn and watch a 3 hour movie. 

In seemed that whatever he touch turned to bronze at best. Like when CBS cancelled Magnum PI, he got ABC to pick the series up. But it won’t be until 2023 before we see what happens between Magnum and Higgins. And for many other things on his list, he will have to push onto the Baby New Year of 2023. 

I asked the old man how old he was. He said 39. If that was true, all the smoke we had in the Wenatchee Valley this summer has really aged him. He finally confessed he would be turning 100 when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. I did the math. And by that I mean I had my cracked research team do the numbers. And I can see why he was a bit bitter. He was almost 16 on Valentine’s Day. Too young for real love, so Cupid passed him by. He was 30 by the time Spring Break came around. The college girls at the beach would have thought he was a creepy old guy. By the 4th of July, he was going through a mid-life crisis. Come Autumn, the hair on top of his head was falling like leaves on a tree. Today, it’s no wonder he gave up shaving that long gray beard. “Why bother?” Father Time rhetorically asked. I suspect it wasn’t really about shaving his beard. Or the fact that he was too lazy to even dress up for this interview, deciding to wearing Ebenezer Scrooge’s night gown. Between being frustrated and being let down, he was just hoping that in the end, maybe we’d look back at 2022 with a bit more fondness. He knows he wasn’t the best keeper of a year. But it wasn’t completely his fault. There were the residuals that he inherited. 

But here’s something he’ll soon discover. There’s a theory loosely based on a Greek myth that when Father Time passes, his walking stick becomes a scythe. His white rob turns black with a hood that covers his face, so no one recognizes that Father Time is now the Grim Reaper.  How odd it must be to wish 2023’s Baby New Year all the best, while having a new job that may seem counterintuitive. Stranger yet that Death was once Baby New Year 2022. It’s kinda like how baby Anakin would later become Darth Vader. 

By the way. At the end of the interview, I asked Father Time, "What's your real name?" He smiled for the first time, nodding his head. "It's Gary. My name is Gary. Thank you for asking."

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