Probably because President Lyndon B. Johnson had just thumped Barry Goldwater in the race for the White House, the Old Man was pleased enough to entertain the idea.
But he wasn’t out of his mind. He said staying up that late was only for people mature enough to make “resolutions.”
“Write a list of things that you promise to change next year,” he said. “It could be something like, oh, I don’t know. How about, ‘I promise to not shoot anyone with a BB gun in 1965’?