New Year's Eve Speculations

Filling in with some background information during a letter-writing hiatus from December 20, 1949 to January 5, 1950, as June enjoys Christmas break at home (with frequent dates with Art)…

When Art was young, the Price family would celebrate New Year’s Eve by staying up until midnight, listening to Guy Lombardo on the radio and waiting for the countdown to the ball dropping in Times Square.  At the stroke of midnight, Art, his sister Dorothy, his father, and his mother would cry out, "Happy New Year!" and bang on whatever was handy, making noisemakers out of anything available.  Art’s mother would sometimes open the front door and clash the metal lids of her pans together like cymbals.  Then, from the radio, Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians would play Auld Lang Syne, the traditional first song of the new year.

One of Art's photos, circa 1949, unknown location
and people at a party.

That was back in the old days.  Art was older now and would take June out to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  His first plan of spending the evening at Smitty’s fell through when Smitty booked a private party at his restaurant.  We don’t know if the fall-back plan was another restaurant or a private party.

Drawing by Art Price.

Chances are that Art and June spent the evening somewhere with “the boys,” the now familiar group of Joe Cerullo, Bruno Marcincuk, Jack Raynor, Walter “Singer” Hoinski, Frank “Farmer” Stachecki, and Frank "Footles" Hoffman.

Did June and Art see each other just on weekends and holidays over this two-week break or was it more often than that?  Well, at the end of this time, Art will look back and write:

“This is the first evening I’ve been home in two weeks.  There were some awfully nice evenings in between there.”

It sounds like they saw a lot of each other.

© 2010 Lee Price