Uncle Ken's holidays

In my youth it it was de rigor to get drunk as hell on New Year's Eve.  Well the less said about that the better.  Anymore I just take myself somewhere out to dinner around seven, maybe do a bar or two, no more than a couple drinks at each one.  I have friends on the 53rd floor and if they have a party, just a few old folks sitting around flapping their jaws, I'll go there.  The year before last at eleven I didn't want to wait another hour and went to bed then, probably the only time in my life that that has happened, but last year I stayed up for the beautiful fireworks.

I kind of like groundhog day, just for its silliness and it's kind of like that rundown gas station in death valley, nothing for a hundred miles before it, and nothing for a hundred miles afterwards. 

Memorial Day I used to visit a friend in St Louis, and then we would drive to the middle of Missouri to visit some other friends where the guy is a home brewer and we just sat at this little round table in the middle of their huge garden and, as a friend used to say, eat and drink our asses off.  We did that for maybe thirty years and last year the guy in St Louis suddenly died.  Shit,  I may take a long Amtrak out there this spring.  We'll see.

Easter is my annual Eggstravaganza in the building.  I hard boil ten dozen eggs and buy a bunch of dye stuff and candy (the building reimburses me) and people just come by and dye eggs and eat candy.  I love little kids.  I didn't realize that until I subbed my first Kindergarten class.  K's and 1's, the natural aristocracy of any elementary school.  Not many kids in the building but people bring their grandkids or whatever, lots of kids.

July 4th I always go down to Champaign to see my old beer drinking buddies.  The party gets smaller every year.

Labor Day I used to also go to the middle of Missouri, don't know what I'll do this year.

Halloween is my annual Punkin Palooza.  I make a deal with one of the guys at the farmer's market for forty punkins.  Early in the morning I go out to where they are setting up and help guide the truck through the labyrinth beneath the street level of the building to the loading dock, and then me and one or two of my confederates haul them up to the twentieth floor where the party is held.  Again little kids, carving, candy, costumes a few beers towards the end.  The big adventure however is bringing in the pumpkins, it's a daring mission in the predawn hours and a feeling or real accomplishment to see those forty punkins lined up on the wall of the twentieth floor.

The best Thanksgivings were down in Champaign when all my friends were living in crumby apartments and the bars would be closed so we put together some ramshackle meal and a lot of beer and it was a good time,.

I think it's five, maybe six, years ago when I had decided not to bother trimming my beard anymore, and then when my sister's husband dropped me off in front of my building there was a Santa hat lying on State Street.  I put it on and with my full white beard when I looked at my reflection in a storefront I was the real deal.  So I wear the hat from Thanksgiving (never before!) to a day or two after Christmas.  Kids smile, people call out Hey Santa, sometimes they take photos with me.  I carry around a pocketful of red and green Hershey's kisses to hand out.  It's the most wonderful time of the year.

One of the first things I learned when I got my fat state job was that I would be getting Columbus Day off, and after that Casimer Pulaski Day, and both Presidents, and MLK.  Oh it was wonderful.  Anymore all those decidedly lower level holidays are just days when there is no mail.