It’s New Year’s Eve and one thing invariably comes to mind…Uncle Louie ringing the bell at the stroke of midnight. Not a doorbell. Not a toy bell or a small, hand-held bell. We’re talking if Quasimodo had a to-go bell for the road, then it would be this bell.
Before I get to the actual tolling, New Year’s Eve growing up was another basement-hosted tradition at my Uncle’s house. For the life of me I can’t recall anything we ate – neither ingredient nor course. I remember the sparkling gold and magenta, green, or blue colored “happy new year” cardboard hats rolled into a point on top. A cheap, thread-thin gray rubber band stapled on two sides. It always pinched my chin. I loved it. And the streamers were unadulterated joy – if you nabbed the good one. The ultimate coup was getting one of the loud noise makers you twirled around by an attached knob to emit the most annoying of sounds. Gears grinding over and over. Again, I loved it.
My mom would say the same thing every year. “Whatever you do on New Year’s Eve, you’ll do the rest of the year.” I realize now that she always said that because she didn’t want anyone to cry. She didn’t want to cry. Fortunately, with all the champagne and other libations pouring from the golden, built-in bar, there was only time for laughing.
Apparently, on December 31, 1965, I was dressed up as the baby new year, comprised of a clean diaper and sash adorning the number 1966. My cousin, Anthony, was dressed as the old year replete with a clean diaper of his own. I was only a month old. Anthony was a high school student. I’m not sure where he found his diaper.
Once the new year counted down to 12 o’clock, the champagne bottles were strategically positioned with corks under hand, ready to pop at a second’s notice. Nothing uniquely Italian about this practice, except perhaps, the Asti Spumanti that stood in for real champagne. What was unique? The mad scramble of my Uncle to get his bell as the TV counted down from midnight at the 15 second mark that was singularly and indelibly part of mi famiglia.
“Look, your Uncle is going for the bell.” I’m not sure who said this first or if everyone exclaimed it in unison. It was a chorus of concurrent one liners:
“Where, where?”
“Hurry up!”
“Oh madone, again with the bell?
“Come on, let’s go.”
“It’s too cold. You go.” To this particular directive, why didn’t anyone every think to respond, “Thanks. It’s too cold outside, but I’ll go. Thanks for thinking of me. Happy Fucking New Year to you too…” It was in the spirit of “I think this went bad. You taste it….”
Uncle Louie absconded from the table before he was barely noticed. He always seemed to be suave about the process, barely noticed as he was off and running. There were always at least 2 dozen family and friends happily crowded around the table and across couches and easy chairs, although by this point in the evening, we were all standing and pointing, “come on, he’s going outside.”
With paper hats on heads and noisemakers well in hand, we ran outside behind my Uncle. Typically, the first to follow were those either too drunk to feel the cold outside or, like me, wouldn’t miss the ringing of the bell, ever.
It was a feat of strength. Uncle Louie paused to step into a closet in the boiler room before sprinting up the basement stairs to the backyard. He had a large, silver bell that he carried with both hands. Standing at only five foot two inches, the bell appeared to measure almost half Uncle Louie’s size. My perspective was further skewed looking up at him from my under-4 foot stature. The reality was that the bell was heavy and huge. It must have measured at least 12’’ by 20” at a minimum for the silver coated cast-iron structure. By any standard, it was really freakin’ heavy.
Uncle Louie raced down the driveway. It reminded me of how Caesar would prance back to the house with his leash in mouth. Pride and dignity imbued on 64th street. When my Uncle got to the head of the driveway, he turned right a few feet, positioned in the front of the house. He began swinging the solid metal bell from a holding bar across its top that took all his strength to maintain a momentum. Swinging it up and down – clang, clang, dong, ding. It was midnight. Uncle Louie was ringing the bell!
He always rang it directly in front of the jockey – a three foot tall statue of a horse jockey carrying a lantern. He didn’t have ‘Mary in a half-shell’ or any other such religious adornment in front of the house. He had a wonderfully, politically-incorrect jockey. When my Uncle had it repainted one year, the face paint was a few shades darker than intended. Effectively, we had a mulignan in front of the house. Eventually, its face was repainted. The jockey was Caucasian, again. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Can you imagine if that happened now? But in the 1970s, nobody messed with Louis Catapano or his African-American jockey.
When I was older and no longer attended this family festivity, no matter where I was celebrating the New Year – that bell resonated. It was all I could see and hear at midnight, wherever I was. The only time it wasn’t rung was when Uncle Louie simply wasn’t here to do so. I wonder what happened to that bell…and that jockey.
