So it goes...

It is a warm August evening in 1989 and my girlfriend and I are sitting at the bar of Wolski's Tavern on the lower East side of Milwaukee. We are awaiting our friend, Bill, for a couple of drinks and maybe a game of darts, the real steel-tipped kind with chalkboard scoring. The music system, complete with octagonal shaped speakers that hang from the ceiling, belts out hits of the day by REM, New Order and The Cure. Flags of foreign countries and other places cover the ceiling in parachute fashion and the cash register is the old fashioned kind whose keys requires a two handed forceful push, followed by the drawer opening and a ca-ching. Everything about the place has an old Milwaukee feel to it and it is a recent favorite haunt of mine since I moved to the East Side. I am drinking a Point Beer because it's cheap and a nice change from Miller products. Donna is on her second or third Gin and Tonic and is getting that dreamy look in her eyes. She has a bit of a grin on her face...

Another New Years Eve is upon us. It is not one of my favorite holidays, but I can't really tell you why. It's just kind of vanilla; kind of cheeseburger. There aren't many New Years' that stand out as exceptional when I try and recall them. There are several that I recall as being just OK, but few that rival say some of the Christmases or Fourth of July's of the past. There was the New Years that ended up with me at Perkins with my friend and his sister. I remember it being so cold out and my 1968 Cutlass wouldn't start, so I had to pop the hood, take off the air cleaner and open the carburetor butterfly valve. It finally started, thank goodness, so I guess you could call that a good "start" to the New Year (1978-'79). And there was the one where Donna and I had a New Year's party and it fizzled and popped because we tried to mingle 3 groups of friends and family and the mixing never quite happened. Throw on top of that starting it to...