A Country Store: New Year's Eve Party

           

      The letdown after Christmas was modified by anticipation of the New Years Eve Party at the Wilgus store in High Woods.  Henry Wilgus had run a small general store in High Woods since 1922.  Year-by-year, he had increased the size of the store until there were gas pumps, a small garage for working on vehicles, and, at end of Prohibition, he sold beer. [i]

He built a dance hall with a carefully crafted maple floor.  Henry loved parties and hosted dancing on most Saturdays throughout the summer and fall featuring Percy Hill’s Orchestra for square sets.  In the winter, it proved too costly to heat the entire area, so the dance floor with its surrounding tables and chairs was closed off for the season.  New Year’s Eve was the sole exception.  The dance hall was opened, and two large stoves[ii] were lit warming the rooms to an acceptable temperature.   The maple dance floor was polished with kerosene and corn meal until the wood shone and the dimples caused by ladies dancing in high heels were diminished. 

  A wonderland of colorful balloons and twisted crepe paper ribbons was anticipated, so hundreds of long and round balloons were ordered.   The regulars[iii] would fill them with their lung-power and with help from the compressed air hose that operated the beer kegs. Children old enough to tie the balloon ends on their own were welcome to participate; otherwise they were warned to stay out of the way.          

Henry had acquired some thirty tables and a hundred or more kitchen and dining room chairs as he came across them in his journeys around Saugerties.  He painted them all a cheerful shade of Chinese Red, so, in a way, they matched.   The tables and chairs were wiped clean and put in order. 

There would be food available: hot dogs, sausages and sauerkraut boiled on the large black eight-burner kitchen stove[iv] and dished up on Bond Bread white rolls[v] and accompanied by coffee, soda and ice cream.[vi] Kegs of beer were kept in one of the two, always-cool cellars under the store.  The store was built on bedrock, and a spring ran in the cellar, keeping it at an even temperature all year round. This cellar was nick named “the cave”.   A clever system of pipes brought the beer from the keg in the cave to the kitchen area of the store.

            Henry was everywhere encouraging the volunteer decorators and keeping folks from drinking beer before noon.  Around 3 PM, he retired to the house to “take a sleep” as long as his daughter, May, or store clerk, Ernie Short, covered activities.   Eyes closed, face peacefully composed and faintly snoring, he nodded off in his extra-large easy chair.  He would wake automatically in an hour, but the short interlude of rest got him through his usual fourteen-hour workdays.

            Meanwhile, activity in the kitchen continued.  Glass beer pitchers had to be washed.  Ice cream dishes and the six-ounce beer glasses were washed separately since milk residue caused streaks and also diminished the head on a tumbler of beer.  It was a sight to behold:  sparkling beakers awaiting pitchers of suds to be shared by the Eve’s celebrants set upon cheerful Chinese Red tables; clusters of multicolored balloons both long and round held to the walls and ceiling with thumbtacks; red and green crepe paper ribbons in twisted swirls forming a canopy across the dance floor and the beautiful red and yellow Wurlitzer juke box all alight in the corner.

            People put on their best party clothes for New Year’s Eve. Men wore sports coats and ties, washed and combed their hair and smooth shaved their cheeks followed by a good splash of Old Spice or Bay Rum.  Women chose their outfits with great care.  There were stockings with seams that had to be straight, high heels some with open toes, upswept hair, wool jersey dresses highlighted with dazzling brooches and clip-on earrings, and a signature of Shalimar, Chanel Number Five or even Tabu.

            The joint started jumping around eight.  Cars were parked all across the back lawn and up and down Dutch Town Road.  People streamed into the little dance hall, pushed tables together in long lines, ordered beer and soda (some for the kids, some to mix with the whiskey many men carried in flasks in their jacket pockets).  “Yes, We Have No Bananas” blasted out of the jukebox, and the first brave couples fox-trotted around the floor.  There were local High Woods neighbors, Saugerties people and a healthy dose of fun-loving artists; some lived in High Woods[vii], some in Woodstock.[viii].

            At last, the first call for square sets would begin.  If Percy Hill was late, Henry played records.  His sound system consisted of two medium ceiling mounted speakers attached to a record player located in the store area.  There was also a microphone, and Henry would announce the dance.  “Let’s have three sets for ‘Paddle Your Own Canoe’[ix]”, and he urged people by name until the floor was filled with couples.  There was always one straggly set of confused but high-spirited dancers.  Children were often allowed in that set. 

            Excitement filled the hall as the New Year countdown approached.  At midnight, there was plenty of kissing among the adults.   Kids[x] tended to avoid the kissing and concentrated on throwing streamers and breaking balloons as the Auld Lang Syne record played.  It was beautiful mayhem, loud and raunchy with the mixed smell of perfume, beer and cigarettes[xi] and the spellbinding sight of affectionate adults.

            After the excitement died down a bit, Henry’s grandchildren, nieces and nephews were ordered to go to sleep in the upstairs bedrooms of the house. They waited silently in their exile for the sounds of the music and laughter to filter up, consoled only by the thought of the rewards waiting for them in the morning. There would always be money lying among the debris of the party because during the jumping and partner swinging, the laughter and song, while paying for pitchers of beer and hotdogs, people would drop pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. The lost change would be immediately forgotten in the midst of the celebration.  Under the fallen crepe paper were enough treasures for a year’s worth of candy and many rides at next summer’s Dutchess County Fair. 

When we heard the band play Good night ladies, we knew that the party was over.

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[i] These are the brands of beer that were on sale in the High Woods Store:  Schaefer, Rheingold, Knickerbocker, Ballentine Beer and Ale, Miller highlife in the clear bottle the rest had brown bottles, Schlitz.  Everything was in glass bottles which, when empty, had to be sorted into the correct containers.

[ii] Kerosene stoves

[iii] These are the names of people who may have been in the store the day before New Year’s Eve and who probably would have attended the New Year’s Eve party:  Chick and Flossie Snyder, Lillian Gunderud, Old Mr. Wrolsen who really looked like a Viking with his big mustache, Sophie and August Hansen, Billy and Bobby Dunn, Pat Wolven and Maggie, Tud and Bert and Invol (Ingie) Leighton Myers, Virginia Whitely and Aubrey, Bob Johnson, Bill and Elizabeth Ryan, Mr. Mac, Chris Rafferty and his brother. 

[iv] The kitchen had a large, eight burner gas stove. 

[v] The store sold Bond Bread.  The meat came from Forest’s Foremost. The Ice Cream was Sealtest

[vi] Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla were the flavors available in cones or dishes.

[vii] Harvey Fite, Barbara Fite, Tom and Elizabeth Penning, Bill Ryan.

[viii] Marianne Mecklem, Petra Cabot,

[ix] PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE

Chorus:  If I had a girl and she wouldn’t dance

                I’ll tell you what I’d do

                I’d hire a boat and set her afloat

                And paddle my own canoe

Dance:  The first two ladies cross over and by the gentlemen stand

                The second two ladies cross over and then all join hands

                Bow to the corner lady and honor your partners all

                Swing the corner lady and promenade the hall

Another dance I remember, but can’t identify the tune

Ladies in the middle back to back

Gents go around the outside track

Meet your partner pass her by

Swing the next girl on the fly

[x] Kids could have included Norman Boggs III, Diana Boggs, Christopher Evers, Georgette Cutler, Sarah Petito, The Hinchey Boys, Tad and John Richards, Pixie and Sallie Mecklem, Meed (AKA Gretchen) Wetterau.  Werner Polack, the Ryan kids.

[xi] There was a cigarette machine.  Camels, Pall Mall, Lucky Strike, Fatima and Kools in the regular size were available.  There were no king sized cigarettes.