A Farewell to the Teens

By Jeff Baker

As I write this it is just past three A.M. on December 25, 2019. In less than a week it will be 2020. Something very cool is about to end. In a few days, we will no longer be in the teens. No longer writing ’15 or ’19 to designate the year on a check. Those of us who are old enough will remember our elders referring to ’18 or ’14 as 1918 or 1914. Growing up with sixties, seventies, eighties, the teens always sounded quaint and interesting.

Not that there was anything quaint about lynchings, a killer flu or “The Great War.” And the last time the teens ended we had the Roaring Twenties; a decade-long party (if one believes all the nostalgia) which all came crashing down in 1929.

So, here come the Twenties. Brace yourselves. Let’s make some new nostalgia.