Thursday, September 4, 2008

Turn The Page

Prayers answered, wishes fulfilled. It snowed on December 31st, and again on New Year's Day, so I could get outside for snowball fights and sledding down Chestnut Hill. I wouldn't have to endure all twelve hours or more of the Mummers parade. Carl and I and Paul Avis could wear ourselves out in the cold and the wet, and come in for hot soup and warm naps, a fitting end to Christmas vacation. Maybe if it snows hard enough, we'll get an extra day!
I didn't quite get New Year's Eve. What was it we're celebrating again? Turning the page on the calendar? An old man and a baby with dates stamped on them? And what did Happy New Year mean to people? 1961 was a pretty scary year, so I guess people were hoping that 1962 would be better. The Russians had that giant bomb, and the Berlin Wall was getting stronger, and that crazy Kruschev guy was still threatening to blow us all up, so it looked to me that the new year wouldn't be all that different from what we just went through.
Adults seemed to get a big kick out of New Year's. Sometimes my parents would have a party down in the basement, and there would be a lot of noise and music and really loud laughter. People from the neighborhood and all my relatives would be flowing in and out, up and down the cellar steps, and they all just kept getting louder and louder. Carl and Whee-Zee and I were expected to go to sleep with all this racket going on, but it was just impossible. I was always awake when midnight came and the cheering began. I waited for something magical to happen, but it never did, and I wondered what all the fuss was about. The next morning was the next morning,except our house was a lot messier, with dirty glasses and ashtrays overflowing. Yeah, adults could really be sloppy when they had a mind to.
Some New Year's Eves Mom and Dad would go out to someplace like The Latin Casino or the Hawaiian Cottage in Cherry Hill, exotic-sounding places where kids weren't allowed. Carl and I would have a baby-sitter, usually one of our female cousins, eager to make some money, but probably not too thrilled to spend the evening taking care of two goofballs like us. The whole night would be one big game, with us trying to con Barbara or Diane or Judy into letting us stay up later than we were supposed to. Carl never really had any trouble going to sleep, but I never saw the point of going to bed on a holiday, especially when there was no school the next day.
Watching and listening to your parents get ready for their nights out was a whole ritual in itself. You had to tread softly and not get in their way, because going out and having fun seemed to put adults on edge, and the slightest thing could provoke them. We stayed out of their way as they prepared themselves for the evening.
Mom was in a frenzy, did her hair look alright? Sounds of the hair dryer and the smell of Aquanet in the air.
Dad's electric razor buzzing, and their frequent trips in and out of the bathroom.
The aroma of Kiwi shoe polish as I shined their shoes, and the scent of Old Spice lingering.
Last minute instructions to Carl and me, our promise to behave, and then they were gone, and we could all settle down. I was ten years old now, so maybe I could stay up late and watch the new year come in, watch that ball fall down and hope that the snow would really pile up. Yeah, lots and lots of snow, and maybe school would close and Christmas Vacation would go on a little longer.
Extra time to fire off our Johnny Reb cannons in the cellar. Time to play with the TYCO trains, or marathon games of Stratego. I could spend hours looking at the battle maps in my new Civil War book, and imagine how much fun I would have had if I had actually gotten that Marx Civil War toy soldier set.
So what's coming in the new year? More snow all winter, and freezing cold so the lake will stiffen up and the skaters will dance and the hockey games can go on all day and into the night?
I hope those darn Cubans will quiet down now and the Russians and the East Germans will just calm themselves and stop planning to blow up the world.
We all made enough noise on New Year's Eve. Let's have some peace and quiet for a while.
Let me have one more nap with Whee-Zee before going back to school and Fourth Grade.
Let's be quiet now, OK?
What's that noise I hear in the distance?
I thought I heard a baby cry.
Just my imagination I guess.

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