The Sunday Memory Drawer - New Year's Eve in My Basement - A Photo Essay by My Dad

Marking the turn of the year on this soon-to-be-five-year-old blog, I have told stories before the two consecutive New Year Eve celebrations that my parents concocted for friends and relatives in our cold and musty basement.  I've written how they simply put up paper curtains to hide tool shelves and storage areas, set up some beach chairs, hauled down the high fidelity record player, and a party broke out like magic.

I've also waxed eloquently in the past about how this innocent six-year-old shown above acted as the family bartender and proceeded to get everyone in the family completely snockered.  Even with those awful specs, I couldn't tell just how much scotch was too much in Uncle Fritz' glass.  Sorry, you're not driving home, are you?

These galas fell during the period where my father loved to play with his Argus Technicolor camera, taking snapshots of anything and anybody.  Over the many decades since, Dad's photographic slides have been transferred first to video tape and then DVD.  Time, of course, has impacted the quality of these pictures.  You certainly understand why film studios do painstaking work to preserve history.  

Nevertheless, I include them here as a tribute to those two parties.  And as a homage to my father on the end of the lens.   His own photo essay on the internet.   I put them up on this blog and I can hear his voice as I hit "send" on the keyboard.

"Why do you want to do something stupid like that?"

 

In the background, you can see those paper curtains hung to hide Grandpa's numerous monkey wrenches.  And dig that crazy linoleum.  The woman on the left is my mother's sister, who looks totally bored.  Or perhaps she's drunk already.  Dad always said she "had a hollow leg."  It took me a while to figure out that this didn't necessarily mean she had once battled Moby Dick.

My father's cousin, Aunt Ollie, just passed away.  But, here, somebody is pouring a drink in her shoe.  When I thought years later about acting stupid at some party, I didn't realize that my folks were doing the exact same thing two decades earlier.

Hmmm.  My mother dancing with some guy I don't recognize.  It ain't my father and he apparently didn't care, since he's taking the damn picture.

Do people even dance at house parties anymore?  Or, in this case, collapse at house parties.  I had no idea Kate Smith had been a guest in our home.

On New Year's Eve, an exercise class breaks.  I'm noting that my mom has already ditched the high heels for some house slippers.

Of course, it's not a party until a couple of guests get liquored up and attempt to do the Can-Can.  Follies Bergere comes to Mount Vernon, New York.

As I look at this photo of my dad's brother, Fritz, I just realized that this may have been his last New Year's Eve.  If my calculations are right, he died the following September.

 This is either the Charleston or somebody who ate some bad creamed herring.

Dad didn't shy any from taking pictures of anything.  Even semi-discrete ass grabs.  Woo hoo!   It's hard watching your parents' generation when they're a trifle oversexed.  I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Sometimes, folks kept their hands to themselves. 

Eventually, Grandma would get up and cut a rug with her sister-in-law, Tante Emma.  So, where was my grandfather?

No dummy, Grandpa was busy chatting up my mother's hotsy-totsy, fast-running, hard-boiled gal pal, Marie.  I remember that she always wore the most lipstick of any woman I knew.   Make-up by Benjamin Moore and she put it on with a spatula.  She got married twice and who knows what else?  Our resident floozy and every family unit has at least one.

Like clockwork, somebody would drag out those "Sing Along with Mitch Miller" records, which came complete with the words for all to share.  Sobriety had left the party an hour earlier.

Even worse, these were some sing-along records of German beer drinking songs.  All of a sudden, we were transported to downtown Munich.   Here, Tante Emma is either singing "Ein Prosit" or checking out the racing form for the next day's card at Aqueduct.  By the way, Tante Emma, you might want to hit the cymbals...if you know what I mean.

It's likely now past midnight, because the party is starting to get silly.  Somebody discovered you can do dirty stuff with balloons.

Uh-huh.  I told you I was putting too much whiskey in those sours.

So, everybody had to get a turn with those balloon genitals.  I bet this got the attention of Mom's friend, Marie.

My mom on the right is loving this just a little too much for my taste.  This is the stuff you don't want to think your parents doing.  But, then again, how the hell did we get here?

Thanks, Dad, for the visual memories that lasted several lifetimes.   

Happy New Year to all.  Let's all have a terrific 2012!

Dinner last night:   New Year's Eve at Jar---pot roast.