Complicated Lives.....part 31

Should old acquaintance be fergot and days of Auld Lang Syne...or something like that

The first time I heard that people did weird things to celebrate the New Year I was 16 and was totally shocked. Seemingly normal friends would go outside in Chicago banging pots and pans at midnight. I thought this was totally radical and quite daring. Perhaps some quirky German thing? (the friends were German)

In later years I learned that people shot guns up in to the air to celebrate the New Year.

As a small child...birth to 15 I only knew of one tradition...Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!!

Each year we gathered around the 25" black and white console with the rabbit ears to watch one of 3 tv stations...whichever one had the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! special on. It never occurred to me that NY was EST and FL was CST. Each year I watched that apple go down on the count of 10 during the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! special, I never realized I wasn't actually staying awake for the 'real' new year.

After Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! I would go hatefully off to bed pondering my world and wondering if this was the year I would at long last attain trashiness. I would hear lovely "fire crackers" in the distance and fall sound asleep. Sometimes I would hear a loud truck or 10 go down the dirt road to the park. I would hear hollering and screaming...lots more "fire crackers" sometimes an ambulance siren or police siren...never could tell them apart since we rarely heard them in our town...at least I didn't. I just assumed someone had blown up a can with "fire crackers" after watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! and gotten hurt or something.

I didn't realize until...ummm recently (now) that those were NOT fire crackers!! I am sure Mama never intended to mislead me. Did she?? Was she holding out on more fun in addition to trashiness??? Did he know they were using cherry bombs?? Just kidding! I know now, that those were happy/drunk rednecks shooting guns, drunk driving at the park and getting up to all sorts of lovely mischief. While I was tucked safely in bed listening to "fire crackers" and the strains of a Shaun Cassidy song in my head from Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! My neighbors were having a thrill a minute shooting guns off around bonfires, with beer, song, dancing, driving...etc

Oh to be young and trashy for just one night!!

I guess it's all in perception, one little girl's fire crackers and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve!! is another little girl's uncle/daddy shooting a gun and drinking beer while driving and listening to the radio...

sweet sweet perception

And yes I do know the words to the song ;-)