“New Year’s Eve was much different,’’ said the Bruins captain, breaking out in a huge grin, a kid’s grin, as he thought back some 30 years to those celebrations near his home in Trencin, Czechoslovakia. “It wasn’t a big, crazy celebration, like [New York] with a huge ball dropping down.
“People were in the town square, and there was music and dancing and, you know, people drinking champagne and just celebrating. Not all crazy, but happy, like just a big party outdoors.’’
The children played tag and hide-and-seek, reveled in their tiny acts of tolerated mischief. Born in 1977, slightly less than 10 years after Czechoslovakia was occupied in August 1968 in a blitz of some 500,000 communist troops, Chara was among the scores of kids who tossed tiny firecrackers at the dancers’ shoes and played the harmless pranks that were as much a part of New Year’s Eve as wine and song.
“Fun,’’ said the towering defenseman. “Good memories.’’
Chara recalled all of that earlier this month, just after the calendar flipped to 2012, following a routine day-of-game skate during a road trip to New Jersey. It was one of those meandering, lighthearted conversations of no significant intent, sparked by my curiosity and offhanded question to him about whether Slovakia celebrates New Year’s as we do here in America.
It was Chara’s reminiscing about that other holiday from his childhood, the May celebration framed by communist rule and military might, that came to my mind this past week when Tim Thomas snubbed the club’s Stanley Cup celebration at the White House. As all the world learned early Monday evening, the supremely gifted 37-year-old goalie is fed up with all branches of American government.
In 21st century American politics, Thomas’s views, as posted on his Facebook, are fairly typical of far right-wing conservatism. It’s not a majority view, but it is shared by a sizable, vocal portion of our society, and there is no telling what influence it will have come November when we determine who will occupy the Oval Office.
