I love music all throughout the year. But I truly love the music of the holidays. There are songs each go’round that seem to stand out more than others. There were several that really resonated with me this season, but I kept returning to one in particular, one that’s usually only heard around New Years Eve – “Auld Lang Syne.” We either hear the actual song itself, or that Dan Fogelberg version about when he “met his old lover in the grocery store.” Yeah, that one. 

“Auld Lang Syne” is actually a poem, written by Robert Burns back in 1788. And the best translation, in my opinion, of the title is “for old time’s sake.” We pause in those moments between the end of one year and the beginning of the next, and we reflect on where we’ve been and who has been along for the ride with us, and who or what we’ve lost and gained. And then we “raise a cup of kindness,” for old time’s sake.

I don't know that Buffalo Jackson needs an official theme song. But if one were needed, one that goes hand in glove with everything this company stands for, then I believe a top contender would be “Auld Lang Syne.” And why? Well, because we believe that there are people and values and stories worth remembering, for old time’s sake. That old time’s sake stuff is not just worth remembering, but somehow recreating for our world today. And it’s certainly not limited to one night a year, but living out every day of every month. 

Everything we do is for old time’s sake. We’re convinced that the only way to build a future worth a damn is to draw from our rich foundational history, a history in which men with names like Muir and Lincoln and Roosevelt and Stegner and Hemmingway walked the earth with grit, honesty, pride and joy. The values they held dear and the lengths they were willing to go to live and die by those values is a reality that has inspired us from day one. Can those values be translated through flannel shirts and leather bags? We say yes. 

So we pause and raise a cup to you, for without you we couldn’t do any of this. Your patronage of our products is not a small thing, not at all. For some reason you like what you see here. And we want to believe that’s because you, like us, place confidence in living “for old time’s sake.” Happy New Year, and thank you very much!