Ghosts of New Years Past

I told the story last year about stealing my friend Mike from the hospital on New Years Eve, which was the best one I could think of. I’ve tried to remember memorable New Years and they have escaped me. A lot of planning went into not much. Too much anticipation when I was younger.


I am having a hard time with this memory. It’s New Years Eve and its about 2:30 a.m. The year is maybe 1957 or so and I’m on the road with some other guys. I think it was only guys and it’s perhaps past party times and our dates are home in their beds.

We stop for gas somewhere in Virginia in the only open place we can find. It’s small, seedy and there are two or three guys sitting around with a dog. The dog is humping the leg of one of the guys who are all encouraging the dog to keep it up. They continued to yell,” F**k ‘em baby!”

As much like a very bad dream as it sounds, it’s a real story but I have blocked out any significant details.

In the early 80’s we had an ice storm on New Years Eve in Detroit, and we were all pretty much without electricity for three days. My condo was on the first floor, and the water heater was below it in the basement. The gas was working and heat travels up, so my bedroom was the only warm place in the house. I entertained in the bedroom for then three days.

We went to visit a friend‘s house who was away for the holidays and her freezer was dripping juices out of the door as everything had thawed.

I just remembered having dinner reservations at an upscale Chinese restaurant in Troy, MI for 8:30 p.m., and I had a date (I'm not sure with who) and when we got there we discovered they must have said yes to everyone who called for reservations, and they had about 500 people waiting for 8:30! I never even made it into the door! We chose a downscale Chinese restaurant in Birmingham without any reservations needed.

I am having a hard time finding any significant New Years for me. I stayed away from places that gave you a paper hat and a whistle, and “dancing ‘til dawn”, but to no avail.

This years we went out for an early family dinner which was great and came home and I slept through a movie on TV and woke up to watch the ball drop.

Oh, well, Happy New Year.