Oh The Hell Of It All by Pat Montandon

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                                    ‘nother New Year

When a friend called and asked me what I was doing on New Year’s Eve, I was startled. I hadn’t realized the year was almost gone. Oh, I knew the end was near or, if not, I was planning to divorce 2009. But on its deathbed, no, I was surprised. Where had the days gone?  Like all our days they slip by without notice. Sometime we say, “I’ll sure be glad when this day is over,” or “I didn’t think the year would ever end.”  Yet, when it does end, when our lives end, we wonder where the time went. “It seems like only yesterday...” Is a comment frequently made.

            When I was in my twenties I loved donning a red paper hat, tooting a tinhorn, and drinking cheap champagne while seeing in the New Year.

            In my thirties I was labeled Party Girl Pat by the press because of the theme parties I hosted. Most people thought I was rich, or at least had wealthy parents to be able to afford such frequent entertaining. The truth was that I was a working girl living on a budget so thin it would make the proverbial shoe string look like heavy rope. But I just plain loved to entertain. Parties are like theatre to me, except there is the paying of the bills and no box office receipts.  Clever me, I learned that others will be happy to help when an idea sounds like fun for them. I made sure my shindigs were fun for all participants. I was able to give smashing parties because friends and acquaintances pitched in with food, entertainment, decorations, and libation, too.

            One New Years Eve seventy or so guests were crammed into my small apartment, (made to look larger by taking all the doors off their hinges) on San Francisco’s crooked street, to be entertained by fortune tellers, astrologers, and a man who could read the shadow one cast against a wall. At midnight the grandfather of a friend dressed as the Old Year, experienced a wardrobe malfunction when the diaper he wore slipped to his knees. His Grandfather Time sash and the scythe he carried (giving rise to a plethora of bad taste jokes), saved him. Grandpa was a bigger hit than Baby New Year who screamed at a high pitch while ushering in 1962. We liked the old year better.

            Having drunk quite a lot of good champagne and enjoying midnight kisses from half-soused revelers made 1962 a New Year to remember. However, the shadow I cast against the wall foretold a future of diet foods. A prognostication I happily ignore, as you well know.

Happy New Year!