Here it is 2009 already...just seems like a couple of weeks ago that 2008 was approaching.  I don't think I've ever been a party animal on New Year's Eve.  In the last decade, I think I've gone to bed at 8:00 PM or so every year.  I do remember that Kyle called some time in the last 10 years at midnight (Houston time) and woke me up.....actually his mother answered the phone and had to wake me up to let Kyle wish me a Happy New Year!  I'm sure I sounded like I was gargling with marbles and was probably totally incoherent.  I managed to stay up til 11:00 PM this year to see the ball drop in NYC.  I've never been impressed with that ball dropping.  I suppose it is relevant to the people in NYC though.

I used to play in bands in my youth on New Year's Eve every year.  I usually played bass or keyboard except for Auld Lang Syne, then I grabbed the sax.  We didn't play too many places on New Year's Eve with a young crowd....We would play for the Knights of Columbus, or a Country Club or other civic group of the older crowd.  I played in a band with 2 of my brothers,  
Roger and Ken in 1967 and 1968.  The name of the group was The Vernal Deceased  (young dead)....for some reason a lot of people started calling us the "VD's".  
 We were a 3 piece group.  Ken was on Drums, Roger on Guitar and I went back and forth from Bass to Keyboard to Sax.  We had trouble booking jobs with a three piece group.....so, we would tell the club owners we were a 4 piece group (guitar, bass, drums and sax).....When we showed up for the job and there were only three of us, we would tell the owner that the sax player had a National  Guard meeting that weekend and couldn't be there to play....we never got thrown out for not having a four piece group.  Mostly we played around Cherryvale, Chanute and Parsons, Kansas.  Roger and Ken lived in Cherryvale with Mom and I lived in Chanute at college. 


           I think it was in 1968 that we booked a bar outside of Parsons for New Year's Eve.  The owner didn't want to spend any money on advertising for the night, so he booked us for the door.....$1.00 / head to get in.  Usually the clubs would run an add in the paper a week or two before Christmas, giving their phone number and address  to make reservations and advertise the band, and festivities.  He did nothing and almost accomplished it.  We made a total of $9.00 that night.  After about a hour of playing the nine people left to try to find somewhere else to go with a little more festive atmosphere....not that we were not totally charming and exciting.  We offered to give them their money back, but they told us to keep it.
This picture was taken in the Cherryvale HS Gym in 1968. Our Uniform was black turtleneck shirts, black pants and boots. We were fairly nicely groomed people for the time.  Roger on his Firebird guitar, one of  Ken's tom-toms is visible to right of Roger.  The bass guitar in the left-hand side of the picture is in my roommates hand from college, the volume turned totally off....he couldn't play at all, he just danced around faking it all evening.  I'm playing the bass parts on my Vox organ.  This was another time where we booked a 4 piece group and actually show up with 4 pieces (only 3 of which played).  My roommate Don had a blast and attracted a couple of groupie high school girls to visit with him during the breaks we took. We usually took a 10 minute break every hour.  I was the lead singer in the group but Roger and Ken also sang to help fill up the slight sound 3 piece group.

In 1969 Roger and Ken started growing their hair and I lost mine when I went into the Military.  Got a personal invitation from Richard Nixon to give him a couple of years of my time.  Some little conflict going on....Vietnam I think it was called.  My Army experience is a story for another time..... so for now,

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL  and try to have a most prosperous 2009.