Remembering New Year's...

When I was little my parent's owned a neighborhood bar and restaurant called "Kelly's Tavern". My Dad was the owner/bartender and my Mom was the cook. She made the best fried perch in Kenosha! Each year at this time we kids were enlisted in the preparations for the New Year's Eve party that would take place on Dec. 31. We had to clean the place up and set up extra tables and chairs. But the biggest job was blowing up hundreds of balloons. We would huff and puff until our face muscles burned. In each balloon we put a little slip of paper that had a prize written in it. These weren't huge prizes, believe me. The balloons were shoved into enormous bags tied with a string and hoisted to the ceiling. At midnight, my Dad would pull the strings and all of the balloons would fall. Our patrons, all of them from the neighborhood and life long friends, would run and grab and stomp on them, popping them, to see what they won. They would win things like a 6 pack of beer, a free dinner for two, a kiss from the cook, or a few free games of pool. Whatever it was, they loved it and it was the highlight of the night.

Since I was so young, it was just thrilling to get to stay up so late and be a part of it. It seems weird now since, I think, in this day and age having a 6 year old up past midnight in a bar would be frowned upon. But then it was what we did. We knew everyone who came in there. They were at our birthday parties, and some of our weddings. They came to pay their respects when my Dad passed away. We went to pay ours when they passed away. We were a family of a sort.

The bar no longer exists but those times there are the most vivid in my memory. In fact, the time I spent in that old neighborhood is burned in pictures in my brain. I wish we still had that old bar. I would love to own it now and run it like my Dad did. It was a great place.