COLUMBUS _ ``Happy Old Year,'' I said, as Uncle Chet and Alice came in with their snowy boots on.
``Happy old year,'' said Alice, setting down a blue gift bag.
``You missed a few spots on the driveway,'' Uncle Chet chided.
``More snow coming tonight,'' I said.
``So I heard,'' he said as the kids came stomping downstairs for hugs and hellos.
``Are you going to make eggnog?'' asked our instant messenger, who's an inch taller than her mother, and rising.
``It's in the refrigerator,'' I said and she spun off in that direction.
``What's in the bag?'' little Buddy asked Alice.
``Potatoes,'' teased his sister, for this is his least favorite food.
``It's not potatoes, is it?'' he asked Alice.
``No,'' said Alice. ``Presents.''
``This looks good; can I have some?'' said the girl from the refrigerator.
``I don't understand the question,'' I replied, hanging up the coats.
``May-I-have-some?'' she asked impatiently.
``You may,'' I said, ``but I'll do the pouring. That's 18 yokes and a quart of organic cream.''
``Heart attack special,'' said Uncle Chet, who was warming his backside by the fire. ``You'd better cut mine with a little rum.''
``Just so happens, we have a little rum,'' I said as I retrieved a bottle from a seldom-used cabinet over the stove.
``That looks like the same bottle as last year,'' he said, as Hon emerged from the office, where she'd been negotiating with online venders, trying to exchange Christmas presents.
``Happy New Year,'' she said on her way to check the lasagna in the oven.
``Happy New Year; smells delicious,'' said Alice.
``Eggnog, Dad,'' the restless ninth-grader persisted.
``It's pretty early and I'm not making more,'' I cautioned.
``We want it now,'' she said. ``Don't we?''
``Now,'' said Buddy, and to his mother, he added, ``Alice brought presents!''
I got out six tumblers, poured a finger of rum into two, two fingers of rum into two more, then filled them all with viscous yellow cream that looked like the eggshell paint I'd used on the living room walls.
``Well, this is 28 years in a row that we've gotten together on New Year's Eve,'' said Uncle Chet, latching onto his glass.
``Sounds right,'' I said.
``We've been with different wives, different children, different friends, but somehow we always manage to get together on the last night of the year,'' he said.
``What's the tie that binds?'' asked Alice.
``Politics,'' said Uncle Chet. ``When we first got together, we were down on Jimmy Carter as a no-good pseudo-liberal.''
``We were working for Teddy and universal health care,'' I said.
``We thought Reagan was a joke; thought it was impossible the country could sink so low,'' he recalled.
``Then came eight years of going backward, the beginning of the end of the middle class,'' I said.
``In '88, we tried to stop Papa Bush, the honorary Saudi Arabian,'' said Uncle Chet.
``Lotta good that did,'' I said.
``And Slick Willie was our least favorite Democrat in '92,'' he said.
``We wanted Jerry Brown, but naturally he lost,'' I said.
``And the rest you know,'' said Uncle Chet. ``We worked for Gore in 2000, but by then, the country was so beaten down, they didn't even count all the votes.''
``So we got stuck with W., and for the good of the country, let's hope he's our worst president ever,'' I said.
``Don't even say that; remember there's Giuliani,'' said Hon.
``Well, who are we going to toast this year?'' asked Alice and glasses were raised.
``John Edwards, for guts,'' said Uncle Chet. ``He may not mean every word of it, but at least he's making all the right noises.''
``To John Edwards. May he end the 28-year curse,'' I said, and the name ``Edwards'' resounded as we clinked glasses all around.
___
Cooperstown News Bureau reporter Tom Grace is traveling with his Uncle Chet, who he says is imaginary. Grace's column appears twice monthly.
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