Getting through the holiday season for many of us is tough work with the stresses and rushing around that are part and parcel of turkeys, relatives and endless events. Even with fewer people traveling and flying across the nation for fear of terrorist attacks, and the equally distressing escalated airport security, this year’s finale seemed to contain enough of the frantic element for most.

Even so, it seemed there was a subtle withdrawal of sorts from the holiday action and some of the customary feelings of good will toward men and peace on earth, probably based largely on September’s events, news reports and incessant warnings. This was coupled with a general cocooning by the nation — out of fear and suspicion — leaving us a little more concerned for the safety of ourselves and our loved ones, a little less open to the all of humanity. It was almost with a sigh of relief that the new year entered. Rather than the overdose of outlandish behavior that leads up to midnight and 2002’s entrance, there appeared to be a feeling of hope for better times ahead in its place. The new year gives us a chance to start again, and allows us to turn in our calendars and the problems of the past year in exchange for another opportunity to do better, another possibility of not making the same mistakes, another crack at world peace.

I always try to start the new year with an upbeat outlook. At the very least I have survived the holidays, and resign myself from what I didn’t get done before the past year’s end. On our way back from the Carolina coast on Jan. 1, I held this thought, only occasionally distressed at what I saw through the windshield for 375 miles. We got back to Sylva as darkness finished filling in the valley, glad to be a few thousand feet higher up than I had begun the day and back in the hills and coves I cherish. I hoped the feeling would last as I fell asleep, exhausted from the waning days of 2001.

The morning of Jan. 2 meant back to the job for most of us, a bright cold day still full of yesterday’s hope and another chance to keep the positive energy high throughout the year. My first stop on the way to work was the recycling center with the bottles and cardboard we brought back from the New Year’s get together at the beach. It was barely 8 a.m. when I pulled in with my load of gala evidence, only to find a swarm of cars and trucks lined up for the garbage bin loaded with the cast-offs of the holiday season. My heart sank a little as I saw bag after bag of unsorted trash piled into the crusher from my vantage point at the glass recycling trailer. It took me a little time to get all that green, brown and clear into the right spot, followed by #1 and #2 plastic, metal and aluminum cans, cardboard and mixed paper, reliving the get-together with good friends in a peculiar way. The motor ran non-stop on the compactor arm as cars and trucks continued to roll up to the one-stop repository chucking their bags and driving off. Where were their recyclables, I thought. Don’t they go through bottles and cans during the holidays? So much easier just to toss it all in a big black bag and forget it.

From the stream of traffic came big stuff that had to go to the open dumpster behind the compactor. Couches, computers, tables, VCR’s, microwave ovens, beds, benches, lamps and the like piled high, all no longer of use since Christmas had brought replacements, sending their predecessors to the “delete” pile. Too much trouble to find another home for these once expensive and sought after pieces, “Get this crap out of here,” goes the New Year’s cheer. The joyful sail I came in on was deflating, dampened by the blatant consumption of my throw-away fellow man. Time to go before I started a “recycle or die” lecture to some unsuspecting 10-plastic-bag villain.

I pulled out onto U.S. 441 a little dimmed from what I had just witnessed, disheartened that my hope for everyone to start working together to make the world a better place hadn’t taken hold yet even though it was already the second day of the new chance. It appeared that the president’s message to get out and consume, to be patriotic by spending recklessly to keep the economy rolling, was working. It was also keeping the dumpsters overflowing. I wasn’t able to dwell on the idea for long. I found myself having to drive defensively, steadily aware of boxes, bottles, bags and paper in and along the road, blown out by a poor attempt at packing trash. The wind blew every now and then, creating a challenge for drivers to dodge flying litter and swirling swaths of Styrofoam packing peanuts as they swept over the road into the ditches and across fields. Merry Christmas, thanks for the trash.

I would love to awake tomorrow and find that it was just a delayed start to the new year, that the ball had dropped too early, that the president had urged and persuaded people to recycle and make do with just a little less, be patriotic by driving less, help the war by ending mindless consumption and massive waste generation, that the roadsides would be filled with flowers and honeybees instead of plastic, that the creeks were home to fish and frogs instead of refrigerators and junked cars. Maybe it’s not really the new year yet, maybe we could recount the calendar and find that 2001 isn’t quite over, and we all still have time for each of us to make the best use of the opportunity, the chance and the hope and promise that each new year brings.

(John Beckman is a building contractor and operations manager at Unahwi Ridge in Jackson County. He can be reached at www.unahwiridge.com)