New Year's Eve is approaching

As if I had to tell you that. I was trying to remember the first New Year's Eve that I could remember and simply there was one in Cincinnati, Ohio in the' middle 50s. We had just moved into the first home my parents actually purchased instead of renting and they went to Michigan for New Year's Eve as my dad had been transferred and they hadn't told us yet - so why they were at the Winona Hotel in Bay City Michigan calling us was a mystery to us and a grand plan to them.

The hotel, until it burned down, sat on Water Street overlooking the Saginaw River and it was old when it was young. Barber shop on the first floor, a few dingy guest shops for toothpaste and sundries, and a fish fry on Saturday night, come one come all. The deal was that my dad was going first to Grand Rapids for half a year and we were following him a year from that March so I was 10 and then on to Bay City after another half year.  My older brother was drinking Mogan David wine from the refrig in the kitchen and WLW as broadcasting horror flicks...all that I remember. TW 20754 was our phone and it rang with my mom and dad on a lobby Hotel Wenona with a polka in the background pretty near midnight and that was that.

I suppose that was the first NYE I can recall. I led a very sheltered life.