(Leap Year Wall)

The
picture above only represents 9 birthdays, 36 years, but I remember all
18 of them! I consider myself very lucky  that I am a Leap Year Baby,
having a birthday only once every 4 years, and I have always taken
advantage of that fact. Of all my birthdays I 'remember'* (more about
that later) the 10th for many reasons including that I was at the zenith
of my career, looks, finances and life and I had someone to share it
all with me.


Feb.
29, 1976 My 10th (40th) birthday--I rented the Memphis Hilton Hotel
Ballroom and 2 banquet rooms--invited 350 of my closest friends--had a
jazz cocktail party with Southern themed appetizers to start, then a sit
down prime ribs with Yorkshire pudding and  Caesar salad dinner, with a
band to play music while we dined, followed by a dessert, liqueur and
dancing ending. In  the pictures near the bottom you will see a 5 tier carrot cake!
Made the front page society section of the Memphis Commercial Appeal
newspaper. The party cost me $14,000--remember these are 1976 dollars!
:o)

I
was thrilled that Dick Hershey and Mary Culleton (she was the clerk at
the first Weight Watchers meeting I ever attended) flew down from New
York, Cleo, (my Dad's mistress, but that's another blog LOL) from Kansas
City. Dr. Robert and Ginny Pozos (she died a few years ago from
cancer--I loved her dearly and for some reason, well for many reasons,
Maria reminds me of her!) came in from Duluth, Minnesota, but I was
disappointed that quite a few people didn't come like Bernie, my ex,
Clara and a few others from Weight Watchers, Gene, my father, my brother
and sister-in-law and my beloved Flo.

(The article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal with the sketch made by the paper's artist.)


That's
me in the light brown tux in each picture and in the picture on the
bottom right, standing on the left, was at that time my partner Johnny
who now lives in Texas.

The dancing fool is me! I'll talk about the other folks very soon--it is a mystery!


On
the lower left from left to right are Cleo, the mistress LOL, Barbara
and Margie who left WW to come with me to open Our Weigh--by the way I
was so drunk I was SINGING! And I don't even carry a tune--let's talk
about that being drunk.
On January 21, 2012 I will
celebrate 31 years of sobriety. Unfortunately that wasn't the case on
February 29, 1976 when I vaguely remember(ed) the cocktail party and am
not able to tell you a thing that happened during and after dinner. I,
literally, have hundreds of pictures taken that evening but just in the
pictures above I can only name 6 of the people. Who are, where are, the
350 people who came to that party? Looking over all the pictures I can,
maybe, name a dozen but I only know where one is today!
Do you recognize anyone from 35 years ago? maybe I should put a slew of pictures on Facebook and see if anyone responds!?!
Strange to have memories of something you don't remember but I do know it was a highlight of my life--figure that one out!
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THE CARROT CAKE

      


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