New Year's Eve 1999

 

Did you feel anything different at the moment the millennium changed or since then? I have, but it's hard to put in words. I'll give it a try.

 

New Year's eve is usually ignored by my town, but this was the big one. The city fathers planned a big hoorah in the business district. The streets were closed off and food vendors lined the sidewalk. There was a different type of music in each block and the bands were set up in the middle of the street under the red lights.(which were turned off.)

 

There were 4 of us together (2 couples) and we walked from where I live, about 10 blocks to the festivities. Bleachers had been set up in front of each band and the place was rocking. People were milliing around and I saw some, I hadn't seen in months. One vendor was selling beer and some people had cocktails in thermos bottles. The atmosphere was party central. There was an excitement in the air, as no one knew for sure about the computers(Y2K). Concern had been building for months and this was a last chance to whoop it up, in case it did happen.

 

All day long I had felt strange. Not sick, just odd and sorta jumpy. Once I took one of my sister's diet pills and although this isn't really how I felt, it's close.  I didn't really want to go and I didn't want to stay home. I had been invited to several parties, but didn't want to be away from my area, in case there was a computer problem and it affected phones, ect.

 

The street lights are a mercury vapor type and the lighting looked odd. Mostly because there were no car lights or business lights, breaking up the harshness of the lighting which looked kind of neon. The sound was hollow on all the band music. The acoustics in an open area always suck. I suppose I was the only one to notice, as everybody else was having a wild time. Dancing in the streets, hollering over the music and hugging everybody they came in contact with.

 

A few minutes before midnight, my little group left the bleachers and walked over to a small park that borders main street. It's really just a strip of trees and flower beds not even as wide as a football field. We found a bench, where we could hear the count down and watch the people.

 

Just as the millennium changed there was a flash. Actually it was an anti-flash. What I mean is... this was a sepia colored flash, like a negative. It was really fast and if you blinked, you would have missed it. The girl with my buddy saw it and said "what in the hell was that?" She and I were the only ones that saw it in our group. Some of the people out in the streets saw it as they were looking up at the sky, but for the most part it was ignored. Those that saw it, soon forgot it and were caught up in the music and dancing. I'm sure they thought it was part of the fireworks display, which by now was covering the sky.

 

The rest of the night was uneventful, but I can't shake the feeling that everything has changed. The weather isn't right, not only with unaccustomed storms and unusually high temperatures, but the air feels different. If you work in an office, you might not even notice it and most people I have talked to about it, say it changes ever so many years.

 

People are different around me. I can't feel them, like I could before. Perhaps it is technology, that has isolated so many people and kept them at their computers instead of with each other. I dunno. I just think something big has happened and I can't put my finger on it.

 

Curious if any of you have noticed anything since that time.