Auld Lang Syne

Today is one of those paradox days for me, New Years Eve. I hate it, yet I love it. However my love for it gets smaller every year as I get older. In my teens, I used to look forward to it. I have fond memories of two New Years Eve’s in particular.

The first was on New Years Eve 1986, soon to be 87. I was a senior in High School. I had asked for nothing but money for Christmas, which I got. On top of that I was working the odd job so, I had a little bit of green on me. I was seventeen. This girl I hung out with Margaret, was throwing a party. She had no booze though and entrusted Mike Dell (another friend of mine) and myself to purchase the alcohol. Mike and I gathered up money from the rest of gang, (about six bucks) and went with Mike’s older brother John, to Dominick’s to hit their liquor section.

We were like kids in a candy store, putting liquor in our carts with glee. All John asked was that we buy him a 12 pack of Stroh’s and he would purchase anything we wanted. The bill came to like $120 dollars. Remember this is 1986 dollars. Mike and I basically split the bill. That night, we were the conquering hero’s. Being only seventeen, we drank but few knew how to drink. It is that age when drinking is a game. Zar and Chuck, two friends of mine both got hammered before the New Year even approached. Zar, passing out around 10ish and Chuck getting into an insane argument about women body builders with anyone who would listen to him. It’s funny but eighteen years later if you bring the subject up his opinion of them, (that they are no longer feminine) has not changed.

The other memorable New Years was in89 going on 90. My friends and I were looking for anywhere to throw a party when my friends convinced me to throw one at my Mom and Lou’s house. Now I knew that no good could come of this yet, I agreed. I told my Mom that only fifteen people would be showing up and that since we were all under twenty-one that all we would have was a bottle of champagne to drink. I knew I was full of shit, but I wanted to celebrate the end of the 80’s damn it.

My Mom and Lou were going out for the evening and I knew they would be back around 1:30. I figured most of the patrons would go home by then. So, they left at around 8 and I had my friends bring over the booze. Of course most of the southwest suburbs knew of the party and there had to be close to one hundred people throughout the night that came in and out of the house. My brother’s first very unpolished high school band, Feedback played and the basement was wall-to-wall people with patrons sitting up the stairs to try and get a peak of the entertainment. You would have thought the Beatles were performing thier reunion show.

The New Year rang in and of course no one left. My Mom and Lou walked in the door to see me with some long forgotten K-mart check out girl on my lap and the movie extra’s of Caligula gallivanting and wreaking havoc upon their Willow Springs home. I knew I was dead. How I am still not grounded is beyond me and shows the infinite patience that my Mom and Lou showed. Lou went into survival mode by making sure no one left who could not drive. He then ordered me to take the most drunk and put them in the spare room, which would be come to be known as the cattle room. Men were laying next to other men like it was a San Francisco bath house, and it had a smell that I still get nightmares about. It was such an event that 15 years later we still talk about it.

As the years have gone by, New Years Eve has become less special. Usually I ring in the New Years at a friend’s house and I am home by 12:45. It is just such a pain in the ass, putting up with all the amateurs on the road and knowing the cops would pull you over for anything makes the night anti-climatic. So, tonight I have three different places I could go to and I don’t want to go to any of them. I guess that is part of growing up. Where as I considered myself a loser back in the day if I stayed home and watched Dick Clark, now I long for it.