Happy New Year!
Given the day, an excerpt from Buckley’s 1961 essay for Esquire magazine, “Why Don’t We Complain?” seems appropriate.
Buckley writes:
Every New Year’s Eve I resolve to do something about the Milquetoast in me and vow to speak up, calmly, for my rights, and for the betterment of our society, on every appropriate occasion. Entering last New Year’s Eve I was fortified in my resolve because that morning at breakfast I had had to ask the Waitress three times for a glass of milk. She finally brought it — after I had finished my eggs, which is when I don’t want it any more. I did not have the manliness to order her to take the milk back, but settled instead for a cowardly sulk, and ostentatiously refused to drink the milk — though I later paid for it — rather than state plainly to the hostess, as I should have, why I had not drunk it, and would not pay for it.
So by the time the New Year ushered out the Old, riding in on my morning’s indignation and stimulated by the gastric juices of resolution that flow so faithfully on New Year’s Eve, I rendered my vow. Henceforward I would conquer my shyness, my despicable disposition to supineness. I would speak out like a man against the unnecessary annoyances of our time.
Forty-eight hours later, I was standing in line at the ski repair store in Pico Peak, Vermont. All I needed, to get on with my skiing, was the loan, for one minute, of a small screwdriver, to tighten a loose binding. Behind the counter in the workshop were two men. One was industriously engaged in servicing the complicated requirements of a young lady at the head of the line, and obviously he would be tied up for quite a while. The other — “Jiggs,” his workmate called him — was a middle-aged man, who sat in a chair puffing a pipe, exchanging small talk with his working partner. My pulse began its telltale acceleration. The minutes ticked on. I stared at the idle shopkeeper, hoping to shame him into action, but he was impervious to my telepathic reproof and continued his small talk with his friend, brazenly insensitive to the nervous demands of six good men who were raring to ski.
Suddenly my New Year’s Eve resolution struck me. It was now or never. I broke from my place in line and marched to the counter. I was going to control myself. I dug my nails into my palms.
My effort was only partially successful. “If you are not too busy,” I said icily, “would you mind handing me a screwdriver?”
Work stopped and everyone turned his eyes on me, and I experienced that mortification I always feel when I am the center of centripetal shafts of curiosity, resentment, perplexity.
But the worst was yet to come. “I am sorry, sir,” said Jiggs deferentially, moving the pipe from his mouth. “I am not supposed to move. I have just had a heart attack.” That was the signal for a great whirring noise that descended from heaven. We looked, stricken, out the window, and it appeared as though a cyclone had suddenly focused on the snowy courtyard between the shop and the ski lift. Suddenly a gigantic army helicopter materialized, and hovered down to a landing. Two men jumped out of the plane carrying a stretcher tore into the ski shop, and lifted the shopkeeper onto the stretcher. Jiggs bade his companion goodbye, was whisked out the door, into the plane, up to the heavens, down — we learned — to a near-by army hospital. I looked up manfully — into a score of man-eating eyes. I put the experience down as a reversal.
You can read the rest here.
I don’t know about you, but the fact that even the patrician Buckley could make a hash of things — starting from the best of intentions — is mighty reassuring.
Whatever your plans or resolutions for the New Year, thank you for making National Review part of it.