This may seem like a million (or thousand) years ago, but remember when the millennium loomed large on the horizon? There was a huge question as to whether the world would actually function the next day. There was the distinct possibility of real chaos breaking out at the stroke of midnight. Would computers freak out and take over the world? Would there be rioting? I knew there was only one place to spend New Year’s 1999 and that was New York City.
My friends and I were not the only revelers braving the city that night. Our gang of six was in good company and the jovial spirit had enveloped everyone. Perhaps New Yorkers had decided that if this was going to be their last night on Earth, they were going to have a good time. The swirling celebration carried us around Central Park, concentrically moving closer to Times Square. If anything was going down, this was the place to see it.
We were in the crush of bodies grooving under Dick Clark’s disco ball waiting for the drop. The true impact of how much of our lives are interconnected with computers was really starting to sink in staring at all of the flashing billboards bombarding my senses at that moment. After a while, we decide to bail on the Square and take it a little further outside of the maze of police barricades.
I think we were all wishing we had made a plan for living off the grid should this whole thing really go up in a ball of flames when we heard the explosion of human elation coming from the distance. Eventually, someone pulled out their phone and the digital face read 12:00. It took a second to realize that the phone was still working! The streetlights were working! People were hugging and kissing not flipping cars or breaking store windows! When the realization had sunk in that, in fact, things were still pretty much the same, we went to the ATM, took out $200 and headed to the nearest bar to celebrate the end of the world happening some other time. Cheers! To NYC! To 2000!
