12/31 - The Elyria Eagle's Club

Girls, I’m sure you already know this and even you boys will think it’s most obvious, but I figured it out from trial by fire – high healed dress sandals are not meant for hiking, they’re just meant to be used as an accessory for your feet while sitting.

And here’s how I learned that: When I got to the gig I parked next to the band van near the side door, figuring that would be the most logical place to park. It was for leaving the building, but not for entering. There was no door handle on the outside of that particular door. As I was making my way around the front of the building to the main door, which turned out to be at the opposite end of the building, not in the middle or even remotely close to the middle of the building, I happened upon yet another door with no handle.

I was not quite to the completely annoyed stages of my travels yet and my dogs were just starting to whine a wee bit when I finally arrived at the front door complete with handles! However, it was also locked. There was a nice hand written sign on the door informing me that the place was closed for a private party. Well yeah, that’s why I was there. It also instructed me to go to the back door.

I stood there for a moment weighing my options as to which would be the shortest route, assuming that the back door would be directly opposite the front door. So I made my way around the building to where the sidewalk ended (which was not nearly as much fun as Shel Silverstein’s version) only to come upon a fenced in area that was not meant for maneuvering around. I did have a flicker of hope when I saw another door on the side of the building just before the sidewalk ended, but oh guess what - no door handle. Yeah, I was just as shocked as you.

Then I realized that I would have to walk back up the side of the building, all the way across the front of the building, down the other side of the building, all the way across the back of the building to get to where I hoped would be a back door that was unlocked, complete with a handle.

My dogs progressed from a whine to a full-fledged bark about half way back across the front and I was quickly approaching the completely annoyed stage of my travels.

I finally made it to the back door and it did have a handle and it was unlocked. This door opened right into the main room where about 70 people had synchronized head turning to see who was entering. I was a little uncomfortable having all those eyes staring at me, but they quickly lost interest and looked away.

Apparently the way to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Elyria is by wearing your best football jersey and feasting on kielbasa and sauerkraut, canned green beans, corn and potatoes. Oops, almost forgot the roll and butter.

The best way to wash down that gourmet feast is with Elyria’s own special water, which needed a lot of lemon to make it drinkable. Other than the weird feeling it left my tongue with and Mud getting some of the water stuck in his teeth it was a most refreshing beverage.

Later that same day, some of the people were calling out “rock and roll!”, so we played Mony Mony and when it gets to the part you all know and love, C-Man and Anno yelled it out. Everyone just stared up at us like we had burst into flames and gone straight to Hell. Ya see, there was a really big sign at the side of the bar warning us that profanity would not be tolerated. Great. So, when it came around again on the guitar they changed it up to the PG version of “stay home, read a book”. We returned from the depths of Hell to our original forms. I was hoping for a new form for myself, but all I got was the same old one. Oh well, at least I wasn’t on fire anymore.

We did have some dancers, but it took them until about 11:00 to finally get out on the dance floor.

Bob & Rita celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary (twice).

Tom came up and sang Johnny Be Good.

Other than that, I got nothin’.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!