I’m feeling pretty optimistic about the New Year. I know all the media and the economic news shouldn’t make me feel this way, but I’m thinking a positive outlook is the way to go right now.

And there’s something to celebrate. This is the last year of the first decade of the new millennium. So we’re nine years in and we haven’t figured out what to call this decade. We called this decade the “early 1900s” the last time it happened. Should we dust it off with a smidgen of an update and refer to this long trek through terror, war and economic uncertainty as the “early 2000’s”?

It doesn’t have the same ring as the “nineteen hundreds” does it? The “two-thousands” just doesn’t have the same historical weight to the term to me.

Then there’s the Aughts, which is what people in the “early 1900’s” called zeros. Professor Harold Hill in “The Music Man” is supposedly a member of the Indiana Music conservatory’s gold-medal class of aught-five. (05) But he was lying about that. So should we trust the aughts?

I’ve heard some people propose the “double-o’s”. Like 007. Bond. James Bond. So last year would be double-o-eight? This year is double-o-nine. Licensed to chill.

And then there’s the Zeros. Which brings me to this:

There’s nothing like Schoolhouse Rock to put things in perspective. Where would we be without zero? My hero. How wonderful you are.