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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in V.O.A. Special English.
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This is Bob Doughty. On our show this week:
Music for celebrating the beginning of a new year…and twolistener questions that involve the final hours of the old year…anight commonly called New Year’s Eve.
Drinking Age
HOST:
Tonight is New Year’s Eve. Many people will attend New Year’sparties where they will drink alcohol. A listener in Vietnam wroteto ask why a person in the United States must be at least twenty-oneyears old to do this legally. Nguyen Hoang Phong noted that eighteenyears is the legal age for drinking alcohol in most countries. Hereis Faith Lapidus with our answer.
ANNCR:
Discussing the drinking age in the United States can lead to anargument. I will try to explain both sides of this issue.
In nineteen-eighty-four, Congress passed a measure called theNational Minimum Drinking Age Act. President Ronald Reagan signedthe measure into law.
It bars people in the UnitedStates from drinking alcohol unless they are twenty-one years of ageor older. States must obey the law or risk losing federal money forbuilding roads and road repairs. The measure was the result of workby several lawmakers and groups such as Mothers Against DrunkDriving.
Last July, that group and members of Congress celebrated thetwentieth anniversary of the law. They praised the measure as one ofthe most effective anti-drunk driving laws ever passed. They saidthat twenty-thousand lives have been saved since its passage.
However, some opponents of the measure say it did not saveanyone. They say young people who want to drink will find a way toget alcohol. They also reject the number of young people reportedlysaved by the law. They say fewer young people are drinking now thantwenty yeas ago.
Other people say the National Minimum Drinking Age Act is notfair. They say a young person can join the military and fight in awar at age eighteen. However, they are still not permitted to drinkalcohol until they are twenty-one.
Many Americans would like to change the law to make eighteen theage when a person can drink alcohol. But just as many want to keepthe drinking age at twenty-one.
The question of a legal drinking age involves ideas of freedom,responsibility, religion, politics and the rights of parents. It isa question that will be argued in the United States for many yearsto come.
New Year’s Eve Ball Drop
HOST:
Our second listener question this week also comes from Vietnam.Le van Thanh wants to know about a big ball seen dropping at afamous New Year’s celebration in the United States. The ball dropsdown a flagpole during the final minute of the year. When it reachesthe bottom, a new year will have arrived.
That ball dropping ceremony takesplace every New Year’s Eve at Times Square in New York City. ThisNew Year’s tradition began in nineteen oh four. But the tradition ofdropping a time ball reportedly began in the eighteen hundreds inEngland. Lowering a ball was a popular way of telling the time sothat ships at sea could make sure they had the correct time. Timeballs were used in many ports during the nineteenth century.
In the early nineteen hundreds, the New York Times newspaperowned a building in the Times Square area. The company began holdingNew Year’s celebrations on top of the building. The firstcelebration in nineteen oh four included a fireworks display. Threeyears later, officials added a time ball to count down the secondsto the New Year.
The ball lowering has continued every year since then, except fortwo years during World War Two. Crowds still gathered in TimesSquare for the event in nineteen forty-two and nineteen forty-three.But they observed a minute of silence followed by the sound ofbells.
The first New Year’s Eve ball weighed more than three hundredkilograms and measured almost one and one-half meters around. It wasmade of iron and wood and covered with one-hundred lights. The ballused last year weighed almost five-hundred kilograms and measuredalmost two meters in diameter. It was covered with almost onethousand four hundred moving mirrors. The lighted ball dropstwenty-three meters in sixty seconds.
Many years ago, the only peoplewho could watch it drop were those who went to Times Square tocelebrate. Today, New York City officials say the ball drop hasbecome an international sign of the New Year. They say satellitetechnology now makes it possible for more than one thousand millionpeople around the world to watch the event in Times Square eachyear.
Auld Lang Syne
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HOST:
That is a song millions of Americans will hear this New Year’sEve. It is called “Auld Lang Syne.” It is the traditional musicplayed during the New Year’s celebration. Jim Tedder has more.
ANNCR:
Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish poem. It tells about the need toremember old friends. The words “auld lang syne” mean “old longsince” or “the good old days.” The song’s message is to forget aboutthe past and look with hope to the new year. Here, it is sung byBilly Joel.
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No one knows who wrote the poem first. However, a version byScottish poet Robert Burns was published in seventeen-ninety-six.The words and music we know today first appeared in a songbook threeyears later.
Today, “Auld Lang Syne” is heard in the United States mainly onNew Year’s Eve, as the clock strikes twelve and we enter a new year.We leave you now with “Auld Lang Syne” played by Guy Lombardo andhis orchestra. But before we go, all of us in Special English wantto wish all of you a very Happy New Year.
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our special AMERICANMOSAIC program for New Year’s Eve.
This show was written by Marilyn Christiano, Nancy Steinbach andPaul Thompson, who also was the producer. Our engineer was WayneShorter.
Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Besure to include your full name and mailing address. Or write toAmerican Mosaic, V.O.A. Special English, Washington, D.C.,two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, V.O.A.’s radiomagazine in Special English.