Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Random thoughts came, about driving home from a gig one year, after a heavy snow, and seeing a car spinning on its roof. Fortunately, I heard sirens and the cops and paramedics were on their way.

And for some reason, I thought of seeing cigarette butts, ages ago – stomped out – on the floor of Sears at Six Corners. Two things may have prompted my musing. One, I was probably very young, so I lived much closer to the floor back then, and two, people did smoke in department stores in the 50s and 60s. In fact the doctor who set my broken arm, June 1963 (baseball accident – led to starting on guitar for therapy), was puffing on a butt while he worked.

But this is New Year’s Eve, so there are a few more apropos memories. Speaking of being young, I was about 8 when we had one of our large family gatherings, NYE. My uncles and my dad got wailing drunk and they decided to play confession. Uncle Stanley starred as the priest (he was older – born 1912), and Dad co-starred as the penitent parishioner. Out came a handkerchief, which served as the confessional, and it was placed over my dad’s head.

Uncle Stanley (God rest him) smoked huge, cheap cigars and rarely took them out of his mouth, except maybe to take a breath when he was singing, which he did often. But in this instance, he kept the cigar in place. As my dad poured out his contrition, Uncle Stanley leaned in to hear him and… it took a week for the burn to heal. Come to think of it, the handkerchief may have prevented a third degree burn. They didn’t feel much pain, anyway. Not till later.

Fast Forward to 1970. I spent New Year’s Eve sitting on the floor at Alice’s Revisited in Lincoln Park (Wrightwood and Sheffield), watching Corky Siegal and Jim Schwall (Siegal-Schwall Blues band) ply their trade. They were the real deal, well before the Blues Bros. came along. I was with my late, great buddy, Rudy Presslak. The house was packed and there were no chairs. Fine. Bottle after bottle of Boone’s Farm, or was it Strawberry Fields, or was it MD 20/20 (I was a budding connoisseur) was passed around all night long. You were uncool if you wiped the bottle. We might have sung Auld Lange Syne – likely the narcs joined in, as they were sipping, too.

I’ll leave out two of the three happy NY Eves that followed until I can get Margie’s permission to use her picture (not gonna happen). We spent the last one in Hofbrauhaus, Munich, where Hitler came to power in the 1930s. The place was filled with servicemen; USA and German, and the Lowenbrau flowed like the Tauber river. I remember having to dissuade a German solider, who wore a rascally smile, from lighting a firecracker under Margie’s chair. He was polite, and backed down.

And there was Y2K. If you recall, it was the end of the world. Everything was about to break down and the planet was going to blow up. Sandy and I – a little overzealous in our faith at the time (little?) – stood in front of the TV, our hands clasped, heads bowed. When nothing happened, we kissed and hugged and probably finished our drinks and went to bed. Kev was nine at the time.

These days, everyone else has the fun. I’m happy and warm in my studio apt. and will enjoy the spate of Astaire/Rogers movies on TV and probably finish up watching Holiday Inn. At Midnight I’ll take a low seat because I live across from the tracks where fireworks, and recently, bullets fly wild. Well, this is Chicago.

Happy New Year, everyone! 2023 – can you believe it? And farewell, Baba Wawa, wherever you may be.