After Hazel and my New Orleans honeymoon, we settled into a little home in Lennon, her home town.
I don’t recall the date, but it would have been a Saturday night in November 1949. We had just gotten to sleep when Hazel’s friends decided to drop in.
Actually they didn’t just drop in.
They sort of surrounded our house, and gently wakened us from all directions with shotguns, fire-crackers banging on all doors and windows, and whoops and hollers.
I’ll say this for them, they didn’t enter our house until we opened the door. And, we were properly attired at the time.
It was 1 a.m., and we had been sleeping. That calls for pajamas.
As some encouraged us to put on some warm clothes, others (we found our later) put corn flakes in our bed, Oxydol in the clothes closet and otherwise, ‘fixed? things.
Once clothed, Hazel and I were ushered outside where a bob sled was waiting. A tractor out front whirled us up and down the few streets in Lennon and pulled to a stop in front of the Genesee County Pub, just before closing time.
I should explain. Lennon is on a county line and at that time had two bars. One in Shiawassee County the other in Genesee. Beer tastes the same in both and the prices were are equal, too.
The doors were locked and our private party got underway. Of course, we had to be initiated into a club Hazel’s friends had invented for the night.
Separately, Hazel and I were led blindfolded out a door, along side the bistro, to a window heading to the kitchen Outside was a horse that we had to pet for atmosphere.
We were to put our hand through the open window in the kitchen, where upon some warm gooey mess met our chilled paw. Too, there was a tasty liquid they insisted we drink to instill the moment in our minds.
Like all initiations, the gooey mess wasn’t what they described it to be. It was a hotdog bun soaked in warm water pickle juice and vinegar, not what they had implied.
Oh, what a grand group. All of whom will be rejected at the Pearly Gates.
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Quote from 1957: “I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20.”