Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, but Ken and I won’t go out to celebrate. For several years, I’ve been making lobster thermidor for supper and opening a bottle of Asti. We’ll reminisce about the night sixty-three years ago when my boyfriend was in the navy.
That evening, my folks and I stayed home, too. It had snowed all day and blocked our driveway. We missed the crowded dance floor at the Wigwam hall. At midnight, the band would play “Auld Lang Syne” while everyone donned paper hats, blew cardboard horns, and shook metal noisemakers. Instead Mom popped corn to snack on while we watched TV and went to bed after the ten o’clock news.
1958 began with the jangle of the telephone startling us awake from a sound sleep–a long and a short, our ring on the party line. Good news did not arrive at 2 a.m.
Mom crawled out of my parents’ warm bed to answer the phone sitting on the desk in the kitchen. I held my breath to hear her better. After a pensive, “Hello,” she paused before uttering a disgusted, “Happy New Year.” Her tone dripped with exasperation when she called, “Lolita, it’s for you.” She shuffled back to bed.
I knew it was Ken using a pay phone in California. His ship, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington, was docked at its home port of San Diego. I hopped out of bed, dashed to the kitchen, and eagerly picked up the receiver. “Hello” I said breathlessly.
My boyfriend had forgotten that in Durand no one sat at the switchboard between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. After-hours calls roused Nona, the middle-aged, corpulent, red-head who lived in the house where the system was located. I assumed our neighbors also crawled out of their cozy nests and lifted their receivers to learn about the Tschabolds’ catastrophe that necessitated a late-night call.
After a bit of small talk, Ken ended the call, which was limited to three minutes, “I’m here in San Diego at the Jade Room bar and I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year. I’ll see you in July. Bye.”
“Happy New Year. I’m glad you called. Bye.” I returned to bed feeling warm and gooey inside like a toasted marshmallow. After nearly four hour of sleep combined with the excitement of talking to my steady, it took me a long time to return to dreamland.
What is your most memorable New Year’s Eve?