Preparing for the blank slate of the New Year

Preface: This story is a chapter from my childhood memoir that spans 1950 to 1964 when my parents, Bill and Anne Haug, owned a bar on Bigfork’s Electric Avenue. 

Mom and I were sitting at the old poker table in the back room of the bar, making funny paper hats for the New Years Eve party. These were made from crepe paper, colored paper and foil wrapping paper, folded into a shape that would fit over the top of the head, or sit, secured with bobby pins, like a tiara. We had already unpacked a box of noise-makers.

“Why do people celebrate the new year, Mom?” I asked as I was adding a shiny foil rim to a hat she had just folded into shape.

“Well, the new year is like a blank slate.”

“But what’s a slate?” I asked, my brows scrunched together as I tried to figure this out.

“Don’t scrunch your brows, Sugar, or you’ll have a permanent wrinkle there,” she admonished, then continued. “A slate is like a sheet of paper, but it doesn’t bend. You can hold it in your lap and write on it, and then erase it, like on a blackboard.”

“Oh yeah, I have one of those in my room….somewhere,” I mused. “But why is the new year like a blank slate?”

“Well, you know, when its blank, you can put anything you want on it. The new year is like that; you can put away your mistakes and sorrows of the year just ended and start over.”

“You mean, like New Years resolutions?”

“Yes, exactly.”

I picked up one of the noisemakers and turned the crank. It made a horrible racket, so I set it down and picked up another one and blew into the mouthpiece. It whistled and unrolled outward, tickling Mom’s ear with the feather on the end.

“Cut that out, Sugar,” she admonished, brushing her ear with her fingers. “Here’s another one ready for a foil rim.”

“When does the party start, Momma?”

“Oh, some people will arrive around 8, I suppose, but it won’t really get going until 11. Most everyone will go to the Costume Ball, but will make a round of the bars when they get thirsty.”

The Costume Ball was a fundraiser for our volunteer firemen, held at the community hall. Kids weren’t allowed, but lots of our regular weekend customers went. Many stopped in the bar to show off their costumes before going to the Ball. 

One year Carol McShane came in dressed in an old Asgrow burlap sack (with ‘Asgrow’ right over her fanny), silk stockings with the dark seam up the back of her legs, high heels, an old cloche on her head, and a black mask over her eyes. She laughed with high-spirit as she drank her beer. I liked Carol; she loved to tell funny stories when she came in the bar with her husband, Bob. But then we wouldn’t see her for a few months until one evening she’d come back, in high spirits and telling more funny stories.

After we finished the hats, Mom made another batch of Tom and Jerry batter (I got to lick the bowl and beaters), and then we went home to make dinner and rest up for the party.

“Bye, Daddy; bye Long George,” I called as we walked out the door.

We came back to the bar around 6 p.m. to get Daddy, after Ak came on shift. Tonight was Ak’s birthday and Mom had made him a big ‘cake’ of meatloaf frosted with mashed potatoes. After dinner, we packed the cake in a box and drove back to the bar. It was already about half full of joyous people, the juke box blaring Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.”

Lloyd and Gaynelle were sitting at one end of the bar, talking with one of the Sullivans who was standing next to them; Doc and Bonnie Baines sat next to Worry Paulson in the middle of the bar. Harry and Betty Johnson were getting ready to leave at the other end of the bar.

“When do we hand out the hats, Mom?” I asked as we took off our coats and hung them up in the store room near the back door.

“Not for a long time, around 11,” she responded as we walked back to the front room. More people wandered in; before long, the bar was packed. At 9 p.m., Mom brought out the meatloaf ‘cake,’ and everyone sang Happy Birthday to Ak. I settled in a booth next to the juke box; someone played “Auld Lang Syne,” then the McGuire Sisters’ “Sincerely.”

It wasn’t long before I started to drift off to sleep. Mom carried me out to the car and tucked me into ‘bed’ on the backseat, with my head resting on my Skunky pillow, a beloved gift my cousin Fayrie had made for Christmas. Mom kissed my cheek; “I’ll come get you before midnight,” she promised, her hot breath already smelling of vodka.