One New Year's Eve

A couple of minor incidents from around 1977 or 1978 have popped into my mind because of the holidays.

I had just moved to Revere, Massachusetts and spent a small fortune completely furnishing an apartment. Dee Dee and I were on the outs and I had no plans for New Year's Eve, so I decided to host a small family gathering.

Brother Billy was in the Navy and had returned to duty after Christmas, so the party consisted of my father and Carla, sister Kat and husband Peter, brother Ryan and wife Denise, and yours truly with Liz, a WAVE from the Portsmouth (NH) Navy Yard.

Everyone there smoked grass occasionally, so along with a fully stocked bar we were in the midst of a ton of snacks and a bag of grass, with rolling papers, a pipe, and a bong.

We had several hours of sitting around chatting, listening to music, having drinks, and having the occasional toke.

As midnight approached, someone suggested that we watch the Times Square ball being dropped and that *everyone* had to be stoned for that.

I turned the TV on and found the program, turned out the lights and lit some candles, and we passed the grass around. I had turned my father on the year before. To his dying day he insisted that marijuana had no effect on him. He probably believed it, but no one who had seen him smoke believed it. This night he agreed to try again, "Just to be sociable. It really doesn't do anything for me." Soon, however, he got his tang all tongueled up and was backing talkwards.

As the countdown at Times Square began, I ostentatiously looked at my watch and said "Now let's see if they're right."

Post-midnight everyone had the munchies again. WAVE Liz had baked and brought some oatmeal butterscotch cookies, and at some point brother Ryan bit into one.

Ryan: "Who made these?"

Liz: "I did. They're oatmeal butterscotch. Aren't they good?"

Ryan: "Gosh. Things with butterscotch sure are hard, aren't they?"

And Liz threw one at him.

*****
The "let's see if they're right" line above is one of the approaches I sometimes use to tease people, and I am reminded now that it is possible to overdo that.

Somewhere around that time my Assistant at work, David, and I went to Jacksonville, Florida on business. We stayed at the Hilton and met for breakfast. There were sugar shakers on the table and when coffee arrived I poured some sugar into mine. Setting the shaker down I said "Exactly two teaspoons."

David went berserk. "You don't know that! "You can't possibly know that that was exactly two teaspoons!"

Donnie: "David, I know that I can't be that precise. And I know that you know it. Why are you so upset that I said that?"

David: "It's not that you said that. It's the cumulative effect of all the things you have said before."