As the new year came in, I started collecting the Christmas cards I had displayed around the house on every shelf, windowsill and table, but they looked so nice I was reluctant to remove them. Suddenly I realized that there was one card missing.

This card had always arrived early every year from Frank, one of our very best friends. He was an artist friend of my husband, but he was from the South (Lynchburg, Virginia) and was the first Southerner we had ever known. As a temporary transplant to Philadelphia, he missed his own family and had become close friends with our family. He was a great admirer of my husband's paintings as well.

After the war (WWII) he returned to Virginia and we visited him there, and met his family. Through the years, we kept in touch, and after my husband died, Frank came to visit me here, and continued to paint in his own studio in Lynchburg.

When some of my husband's paintings were selected for the Pentagon's permanent collection, Frank was almost as excited as I was. A few years ago, Frank invited me to fly up and host a retrospective of his own work, to be mounted in a Lynchburg gallery. I was flattered, but not anxious to disrupt my Gulf Breeze life. I considered it, but finally declined the invitation.

Now I wonder why. It wouldn't have been so much trouble, and it was nice to be asked - well, I could go on, but here it is a couple of weeks after Christmas and I still have not gotten a card, and he is a few years older than I am - maybe he's no longer around - well, I won't think about it.

But now I am asking myself, why do we always remember the things we should have done at the end of the old year?

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On January 15, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at Seville Quarter, you will have an opportunity to enjoy the Jazz Society of Pensacola's monthly "Jazz Gumbo" presentation.

The cost is $8 for members and $10 for non-members. This concert features the Modern Jazz Trio with Dr. Norman Vickers, familiar to local audiences for many years. This is a good way to begin a new year with the kind of music that gets your toes tapping. And you will also warm up with a bowl of the Quarter's famous gumbo. You don't need reservations - just show up and enjoy.

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Now that the holidays are over, the start of the new year is a perfect time to begin a new, healthier way of living. It's time to put those party foods and elaborate dinners behind us.

According to Fitness magazine, you can improve your diet and mental attitude since 70 percent of how you age is determined by your daily habits, not your genes.

The article also recommends eating meat at only some of your meals, in three or four ounce portions. (Some of my recent meals 'dining out', where the meat covered three quarters of the entire plate, puts me in complete agreement with the latter!)

Those smaller portions help cut down on artery-clogging fat, a big contributor to heart disease. Stay young inside and out, and enjoy lots of New Years to come.

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While you're making your plans for this season's entertainment, consider attending the Pensacola Opera. This month's offering, "La Traviata," is a wonderful way to start if you have never attended opera before, since it is one of the alltime favorites.

Beautiful music, English supertitles projected above the stage, and beautiful costumes may make you an instant opera fan.

La Traviata will be presented on January 26 at 7:30 PM, and at a January 27th Matinee at 2 pm at the Saenger Theatre in downtown Pensacola. Come and see the story of Alfredo and Violetta - it will break your heart.

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The irony of life is that, by the time you're old enough to know your way around, you're too old to go anywhere. ~

See you next week!