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DECEMBER 28, 2015

“Auld Lang Syne” and Four Generations ofMy FamilyBY ALLYSON HOBBS

EThe author’s father in 1943, at age three.PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ALLYSON HOBBS

very year, as the hour grows late onChristmas night, my father’s eyes become

misty. He sits at the dining table after our holidayfeast and stares off in the direction of the CDplayer, holding the remote in his hand. He wears alight-blue cashmere V-neck sweater over a neatbutton-down shirt and brown corduroy pants,classic “gifts for Dad” from previousChristmastimes. The 1963 album “Christmaswith the Platters” plays, and a dreamy version of“Auld Lang Syne” wafts through the living room.My father slowly takes off his glasses and dabs hiseyes. The phrase “Auld Lang Syne” translates to “times gone by,” and, whileAmericans expect to hear this song every New Year’s, few know what the Scottishlyrics actually mean (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/auld-lang-syne-what-does-it-mean-again/). So most New Year’s Eve revellers just mumble orhum along. But they get the gist of the main question of the song: Should oldfriends be forgotten? And the answer, of course, is no, the past must be remembered.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

While the song absorbs my father, plates are cleared, dishes are washed, Uno cardsare located, and new rules for the game are debated. The after-dinner hustle andbustle do not disturb my father’s reverie. For those few minutes that “Auld LangSyne” plays, he is far away from the dining table in Morristown, New Jersey, wherehe has celebrated Christmas for the past thirty-five years. He is a little boy, seven oreight years old, in a small apartment on the South Side of Chicago, which he shareswith his sister, his mother, and his grandmother. It’s the early nineteen-fifties, and hesits by the radio with his family, looking at the frosted Christmas tree with bubbly

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lights. He is dressed in his finest clothes. “There was a time when families gotdressed up for holidays. Remember that, Joyce?” he asks my mother. He laughs as hedescribes the suit that he wore, with a skinny tie, when they were first married, mymother’s fancy dresses, and the special holiday outfits purchased for my older sistersand brother.

For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup and surely I’ll buy mine!And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Robert Burns (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-burns), the Scottishpoet, wrote “Auld Lang Syne,” in 1788. His life was not an easy one. Perhaps hissuffering and hardships imbued his poetry with its signature passion and intensity.When his father died, his farm was on the brink of failure, and Burns and hisbrother moved the family to a new farm in an effort to stay afloat. The labor that thefarm required seemed to leave Burns (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-burns) with a heart condition that afflicted him later in life. Known as the “peasantpoet,” Burns fathered at least a dozen children, with several women, and after leavingthe farm he spent most of his career compiling traditional Scottish folk songs thatcelebrate life, love, work, drinking, and friendship, using warm melodies andemotional chords. “Auld Lang Syne” was not intended to be a holiday standard, butin 1929 the legendary bandleader Guy Lombardo (known as Mr. New Year(http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2012/12/31/guy-lombardo-legacy-florida/1801403/)) used it to connect two radio programs during a live performanceat the Roosevelt Hotel, in New York. Lombardo’s band played “Auld Lang Syne” justas the clock struck midnight. A tradition was born. Lombardo brought in the newyear with the song for almost fifty years(http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2012/12/31/guy-lombardo-legacy-florida/1801403/), from the stock market crash in 1929 to his last performance,during the country’s bicentennial, in 1976 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL60HdslvOk). Lombardo died in 1977.

We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies f ine;But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne.

As the youngest of two children and the only boy in his family, my father was dotedon, adored, and treasured. His family did not have much money, but, as he wouldlater tell us with a smile, “We didn’t know we were poor.” His grandmother cleanedthe homes of white families and often came back to the apartment with stories of

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“what the white folks do.” Setting the Christmas table with her best china, shewould turn to my father and my aunt and say, with satisfaction, “This is the way thewhite folks do it.” The world of the white folks was just as remote geographically asit was in imagination and in experience. It was protected by a boundary that no blackperson (aside from domestics and other workers) dared to cross. My father’sgrandmother had served “the white folks” at dinner parties, so she took great pride inmaking her own celebrations equally special. She wanted her grandchildren to knowthat, even though they might live in a kitchenette in Chicago’s overcrowded BlackBelt, they were just as precious and just as cherished as the white children who livedin the prestigious neighborhoods of the North Shore.

We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine;But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.

My father’s mother worked as a hairdresser. She was a master of improvisation, theoriginal mother of invention. While she worked, she sent my father and my aunt todouble features at movie theatres as a less expensive alternative to hiring a babysitter.One year, my grandmother splurged and bought my father a University of Chicagojacket for Christmas. My father, who dreamed of attending the University ofChicago, took great pride in wearing the jacket. Perhaps it was more beloved by himbecause he knew the sacrifices that his mother had made to buy it. An older boywould steal the jacket before its leather sleeves had the chance to crease. But suchwas life for my father, growing up in Chicago back then.

And there’s a hand, my trusty friend!And give us a hand o’ thine!And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.

I notice my father as he muses silently about times gone by and wish that I, too,could go to that kitchenette that he has described so vividly and glimpse him as alittle boy, dressed up in his Christmas finery. I wish I could hear the sounds of thecrackling radio and join him, my aunt, my grandmother, and my great-grandmotheraround the dining table or next to the frosted Christmas tree. I drift into my ownmisty reveries: a childhood when the excitement of Christmas would not let mesleep; years later, watching my brother-in-law assemble elaborate and exquisite floralcenterpieces as his generous gift to us; the games played; the joy and laughter beforemy sister’s illness and untimely death, at thirty-one; even the hectic but happybalancing act of celebrating two Christmases—one with my family and one with myhusband’s family—before our marriage collapsed, four years ago.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

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Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

My father can’t go back to the Chicago of the nineteen-fifties. Try as I might, I can’trelive my childhood or young adulthood in Morristown. But we can follow thepoignant instructions offered in “Auld Lang Syne”: to remember the past, the stories,the scenes, the settings, the friendships, and the family. Perhaps knowing that thesememories live on in all of us makes the “times gone by” a little easier to bear.

Allyson Hobbs is an assistant professor of history at StanfordUniversity and the author of “A Chosen Exile: A History of RacialPassing in American Life.”