Remembering New Year’s Eve With Ben and Guy

            Tonight, millions of otherwise-sensible Americans will leave their warm, safe homes, gather in public squares or at restaurants or night clubs, and put on funny hats.  At approximately ten seconds to midnight, they will start counting backwards like mission control before a space shuttle launch.  (“10…9….8…”)  At the stroke of midnight, they will scream “zero!”  They will then jump up and down, scream and yell, and kiss one another, all in celebration of the fact that the Gregorian calendar will now read “2010” instead of “2009”. 

            I will not be one of these crazy people.  I intend to enjoy a quiet New Year’s Eve at home with my wife, Judge Claudia.  We will watch the Vols play in the Fried Chicken Sandwich Peach Bowl and have a little dinner, and we will then toast the New Year with a bottle of Baptist champagne (Coca Cola Classic, 2009.)  I seriously doubt I will see the New Year arrive.  When midnight comes, I will be snoring away, unless the Fried Chicken Sandwich Peach Bowl goes into overtime.

            My wife and I jokingly refer to New Year’s Eve as “amateurs’ night”.  Real party animals like Judge Claudia and I always stay at home on December 31st.

            But the truth is that I am no longer a party animal.  Rather than going out and howling at the moon, this old dog prefers to stay on the porch.

            But this wasn’t always the case.  There was a time in my life when I would party hardy each New Year’s Eve with my friends Ben and Guy. 

            Yes, I remember those New Year’s Eves well.  Ben wore a top hat and tails.  Guy wore a tuxedo.  And I wore my pajamas.  They were footy pajamas, nice and warm, with a button down escape hatch on my bottom. 

            While Ben and Guy and I would party together each New Year’s Eve, we were actually at three separate locations.  Ben was in Times Square.  Guy was in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.  And I was on the sofa in my family living room curled up next to my momma. 

            “Ben” was Ben Grauer.  During my childhood, he was the MC of the telecast of New Year’s Eve from Times Square.  He was the Ryan Seacrest of the Eisenhower Administration. 

            “Guy” was Guy Lombardo, the director of the big band “Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians”.  They claimed to play “the sweetest music this side of heaven”. Guy was sort of a Canadian Lawrence Welk.  As a child, I was convinced that every member of Guy’s orchestra was either a Royal Mounted Policeman or played hockey for the Montreal Canadians. 

            Since Memphis is (thank goodness) in the central time zone, the New Year would arrive for Ben and Guy in New York City an hour before it came to Memphis.  I thought that was amazing.  It was still 1959 in Memphis, but it was already 1960 in the Big Apple!

            I still remember how exciting it was, sitting on the family sofa a few minutes before 11:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.  We had a little Sylvania TV set with a rabbit ears antenna.  We attached aluminum foil on the tips of the rabbit ears to give us better reception.  I have no idea why we thought this would give us a clearer picture.  I have never seen a real rabbit with aluminum foil attached to its ears.

            Each New Year’s Eve, my buddy Ben would appear in living black and white on our tiny Sylvania screen, broadcasting live from Times Square.  He would always make a little speech about the year that was passing and the New Year about to begin.  He would say something like, “1959 was the year Sputnik circled the earth, but the Russians know it’s only a matter of time before we catch them in space!  It was the year that Vice President Nixon beat Khrushchev in the kitchen debate, and the Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League Pennant!”  (Ben momentarily forgot the Dodgers had moved to Los Angeles the previous year.)

            And then, looking forward to the New Year, Ben would say, “And now here comes 1960! Who knows what it will bring?  Flying cars?  A color TV in your home?  Another pennant for the Brooklyn Dodgers?!’

            And then, as the giant electric ball descended down the Time-Life building, the telecast would switch to the Waldorf Astoria where sophisticated New Yorkers would count the final ten seconds of the old year, and then Guy and the Royal Canadians would play Auld Lang Syne.

            When this happened, at 11:00 p.m. Memphis time, my mother and father and I would jump off the sofa and dance around our living room as if we were in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria.  For Baptists, we were pretty good dancers.  We would then uncork (unscrew, actually) a bottle of Welchade and have a little toast to the New Year and all the great things we dreamed it would bring.  We were secretly hoping that Ben was right, and that in the coming year, we would get a color TV.  (We never did.)

            And then mom and dad and I would kiss each other goodnight and go to bed.  By the time the New Year came to Memphis at midnight, we would be fast asleep.

            My old buddy Ben is gone now.  He died in 1977.  Guy passed away that same year, and he is now directing the sweetest music on that side of heaven.

            And tonight, when the Fried Chicken Sandwich Peach Bowl is over and I climb into bed long before midnight, I will remember those days when my mother and father and I would party with Ben in Times Square and Guy at the Waldorf Astoria without ever leaving our living room.