Dawn of a New Era

Happy New Year's, America!

How's everybody feeling today?  Like utter crap, right?

Word.

So Kris and I spent New Year's Eve up in Traverse City this year, sans kids of course (we dumped them off at my mom's, as 'kids' and 'New Year's Eve' never spells 'fun.')  My brother Chris and his new wife, Nicole, were hosting a mini-reception for their wedding up at her parents' house, foregoing the usual, full-blown reception. . . and consequently saving a butt-load of money in the process.

Nicole's folks' place in Traverse City

Still, they ended up forking out enough to treat their limited guest list with top-shelf booze, Qdoba catering, and free lodging, so we could hardly complain.

(Though that two-hour drive north definitely wasn't fun.)

All in all, there were about six couples there, a few randoms, and one kid.  So this basically meant that everyone had to eat and drink enough for seven or eight full-size adults.

Let's do this.

This was a pretty decent Imperial Brown from a local Michigan brewery.  Great way to kick off the evening.

Kris and Nicole had set up one of these. . . things. . . for people to take pictures in front of.  It would see a lot of use before the end of the night.

Kris and I ended up arriving after almost everyone else, but we still beat the Qdoba caterer by about a half an hour.  When she did show up, she brought so much food that it took her about twenty minutes to set everything up.  This was, literally, a feast for about fifty people.  The next morning, Chris and Nicole sent everyone home with a huge grocery bag FULL of Qdoba fixings.  Which, obviously, was awesome.

As a whiskey lover, the selection on hand was indeed much appreciated.  I typically gravitate towards Irish whiskeys; this one was pretty good.

That's a disgusting amount of queso.

After people took posed New Year's pics in front of that glittery backdrop (the one Kris is standing in front of), they uploaded the pic to an app connected to a blue-tooth Polaroid-ish printer.  They'd then hang the pics up on this string set-up for people to check out.

Borthers

Eventually, I decided to start printing random pictures of famous people to add to Chris and Nicole's growing collection (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc.)

Cleaning up the uneaten food and packaging it for people to take home.

Breaking into the good stuff. . .

I think this is the first 'couple picture' Kris and I have taken together in a few years.

There was some college football game on, but I didn't watch it.  Honestly, I don't really care for college football:  I don't get the point of watching a bunch of 19-year-old kids playing sports.

Hangin' out around the ol' 10 lb bucket of queso. . .

Locally-distilled whiskey.  You really don't think 'Traverse City' when you think of Bourbon, but it wasn't bad.

Check it out:  they randomly pulled this dude out of the netherworld to perform at Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve.  I had thought Jimmy was dead for the last six years or so.  You can imagine, then, my surprise upon learning that he's still belting out his classics today.  Inexplicably in Times Square for New Year's Eve.

The next morning, Kris and I got to drive all the way back from Grand Traverse Bay (not-quite-pictured here) to Midland in a  frickin' blizzard.  I can't begin to describe to you how shitty - and LONG - that was.

- Brian

The Diary of Marion (Heeb) Harte

You guys aren't going to believe this.

So the other day I was in a thrift store, browsing through old books.  I do this a lot, as I like books a great deal and have established a small library collection of my own over the last two years.  And, when not nabbing my books on such sites as Amazon, Ebay, or Half, I enjoy the thrill of the hunt in second-hand antique and thrift stores.  I've found all kinds of treasure there - hundred-year old books, autographed books, first editions, etc.  Sometimes you can get them in mint condition, too.

Diary of Marion Heeb

Yes, thrift stores are a treasure trove for fortune hunters likes Yours Truly.

Anyway, so the other day I was at a thrift store perusing through their hardcovers when I stumbled upon a vintage-looking book that had been tucked in the back.  It was stamped with the date '1945,' so that right there was reason enough for me to pick it up for closer examination (I'm a big World War II fan as well.)

That's when I opened it up and realized what I was looking at.  A woman's diary.  From 1945.

Doodles on the inside cover

Yes, readers - a hand-writtern, first-person account of 1945.  A young woman, living in New York City in 1945, describing her daily life during one of the most pivotal eras in modern history.  Her name was is Marion Heeb.


I've only read a couple pages, and flipped through here and there, but I've come to the conclusion that she was in love with a man named Edwin Harte, who was serving overseas in Europe during the War.  Eventually, this Edwin guy makes it back home to the States and proposes to her. . . so I'm assuming he survived the war. 


The craziest part about this diary is the first-hand, personal experience you get surrounding such important dates in human history.  I mean, this Marion woman talks casually about the fall of the Nazis and the end of the war in Europe.  Even crazier, three months later she talks about how her and a few friends make their way down to Manhattan and just so happen to attend the famous end-of-the-war victory celebration in Time Square that followed the Japanese surrender:

This book is like a frickin' time capsule, folks - it's mind-blowing how different day-to-day life was like seventy years ago.  This Marion chick talks about writing multiple letters per day to friends and family members.  No television, no computers, no iPads, no smartphones - lots of community events, lots of social gathering. . . people weren't so disconnected via technology back then.  It makes you pretty depressed when you stop and think about how dependent and untrusting we've come in such a short timespan.

So what am I going to do with this book, you might ask?  Well,  I thought about it, and the diary really doesn't belong to me.  How could it?  I think I'm going to try and decipher a few more clues and see if I can't find out if this woman is still alive (I'm assuming she would be).  I can then get her address, via cyberspace, and mail it to her.  I'm sure she'd want it back (I know I would).  Honestly, how her diary from such a tumultuous period in history ended up at a central Florida thrift store is beyond me.

I'll keep you posted with what else I uncover, folks - stay tuned. . .

- Brian