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(Leap Year Wall)
The picture above only represents 9 birthdays, 36 years, but I remember the others, 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 one of the pictures you will see a 5 tier carrot cake! Made the front page
society section of the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper. It 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, 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, 2011 I celebrated 30 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!