Two thousand twenty-four is drawing to a close, and with Christmas behind us, most of us are now making those last-minute New Year's Eve plans. For many people, those plans include staying up late to ring in the New Year, and 2025 will arrive in the Great Land hours later than in most of the United States, meaning we have to stay awake longer.
That gets a little bit harder every year.
Observing the new year is celebrated in many ways, and like most holidays, the way we observe it has evolved. I won't go into the broad strokes of that; my friend and colleague Becky Noble has already written a great piece on precisely that topic:
See Related: The Evolution of New Year's Eve - A Look Back at How We Celebrated Then vs. Now
Becky writes:
We are all aware of just how drastically our lives have changed from 25 to 55 and beyond. School, jobs, marriage, and family all entered the picture. But back in the day, maybe in the eighties (yes, I'm that old), things were very different. I'll concede that maybe there was a bit more planning involved for twenty-something young women. First and foremost, the lynchpin of the evening was wardrobe. This was the decade of big hair and shoulder pads for women, but everyone, even the guys — admit it, guys — everyone had that one outfit that made us feel invincible when dealing with the opposite sex when it mattered.
While Becky describes the '80s to a T, I'm going to take you back to a time that was even more remote - specifically, the New Year's Eve of 1979. That was the time of big hair, indeed, although I'm not sure if girls were already wearing shoulder pads or not. But my three best buddies and I - back in those days we were known as the Fantastic Four - were ready to bring in 1980 in style, and boy howdy, didn't we just.
The evening began in my buddy's basement, where he had set up what was essentially a party room: Couches on three walls facing an enormous 27-inch television (yes, that was positively huge in those long-ago days of tube TVs) and a big fridge to hold beer and other comestibles. The four of us met up there at about 6 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 1979. A table in one corner was covered in chips, dip, and frozen pizzas, hot from the oven upstairs. The fridge was full of beer.
Not for long.
The night before, the four of us had gone to a midnight showing of a double feature, "Fritz the Cat" and "The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat." I won't go into the details of those films, but suffice it to say the photo taken of the four of us, the photo at the top of this story, was taken by my buddy's sister about one-fourth of the way through the beer; we were re-enacting a scene from the first of the two films. (That's me, second from the left.)
The evening progressed liquidly. At one point, we ran short of beer, and in the fashion of the time, we all got on our winter gear; this was northeast Iowa, back before global warming had been invented, and it was below zero. Being already three or four sheets to the wind, we walked two miles to a gas station that was still open and bought two more cases of Miller High Life. Mind you, the legal drinking age was 18 in those days. We walked back, drinking as we went.
I don't remember a lot after that. I have a vague memory of watching an old Patrick Wayne "Sinbad" claymation film on the TV with the sound turned off and a ZZ Top album playing on the stereo; we spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out how the two were connected. I'm not sure we ever figured it out. The room was littered with empty beer bottles; the air was filled with cigarette smoke. I had brought with me four packs of my usual, unfiltered Camels, and the next morning, I found I had only half a pack left.
Finally, the New Year came, marked by the ringing of a cheap alarm clock. We shouted it in and greeted 1980 as we had seen out 1979 - by drinking more beer. Eventually, at some point in the wee hours, we all ran out of steam.
See Related: My Reverse New Year's Resolutions: Things I Won't Stop Doing, Despite Leftist Finger-Wagging
It was close to noon when I woke up on the couch in that same room in my buddy's basement. My friend Dave was lying on the floor nearby, snoring. The other two were sprawled across a couple of beanbag chairs.
I sat up. My head felt as though there was a jackhammer inside it. My mouth tasted of ashes and sour, stale beer. My tongue felt as though the entire Russian Army had walked over it in their stocking feet.
"Guys," I called. "Wake up."
They sat up, staring at me, frowning at my interrupting their recovery. To a man, their faces were a pale shade of green, their eyes like pee-holes in the snow.
One by one, we broke for the bathroom, there to discharge most of the previous evening's intake. We spent New Year's Day downing aspirins and Alka-Seltzer, muttering, "What the hell is wrong with us?" Of course, the only thing wrong with us was youth, which is wasted on the young.
That was a long, long time ago. 45 years ago, in fact. Oh, we're all still buddies. We're all still the Fantastic Four. But we're all a lot more sedate these days, as befits our advancing age. These days, I'll have a few adult beverages at New Year's, but I'm not sure I could survive one of the Richter-scaled hangovers that we accepted as routine back in the day.
Frankly, a more moderate celebration is probably a lot healthier.
To all you readers, accept the Clark household's wishes for a great New Year's Eve, and may you all enjoy a happy, safe, prosperous 2025. We're entering into this year with reasons for optimism, but it also promises to be eventful. Stay tuned - because in 2025, we'll be right here, bringing you the latest.
