| By Bob Weaver
2001 - At the Weaver household, unlike years past, we have no company, just Dianne
and myself watching TV and drinking from a wassail bowl of Thera-Flu, feeding
those colds that keep on coming, or just don't go away.
I took my symptoms with me on a trip to Bucyrus, Gallion and Mansfield, Ohio, these past
three days in hopes it would stay in that fine state, but it returned to Hur to be plied
with more pills, sprays, syrups and a cardboard box of over-the-counters.
I'm sure some of my neighbors will load their shotguns at midnight and run outside
to shoot them into the air or strike the last of the Fourth of July fireworks.
We have experienced memorable New Years Eves in other places, from our
teenage neighbor girl delivering a newborn in the bathtub to traveling to
Pocahontas County during a snowstorm that dropped nearly two feet of snow.
When I was a practicing alcoholic I dreaded New Year's Eve, because all the amateurs
came out and created chaos.
Tonight, returning from Ohio, I thought about the grand celebration we had at the
Hur Millennium Party - January, 2000, as a cozy group came together and hovered
close to a giant bonfire on East Hur Hill.
There was an ample supply of potato soup, chip 'n' dip, sub sandwiches, dozens of
specialty dishes, great fizzy drinks and hot tea.
The climax however was the fireworks display, delivered by my son, Eric Weaver,
who has now returned to Alaska with Vickie and his family, and my almost
son, Rich Kurnik of Wake Forest, North Carolina, assisted by
Joker resident Kenny Starcher, who these years later is has been off to America's wars.
Lots of oohs and aahs over the aerial display that lasted nearly 40 minutes, the
likes of which Hur has never seen.
My dad, Gifford Weaver, who was 86 at the time, took it all in. He delighted
crossing into the new millennium and being with his family, standing most of the
time on the front porch watching the fireworks.
He died ten months later to join his
sister Gladys Weaver Stump, who would have certainly graced the event.
We dashed into the house at midnight to "watch the ball drop" and see if the
computer crashed ie Y2K. The date did adjust on my computer to 1984, maybe an Orwellian
prediction.
The most pleasant part may have been to sit around the fire, watching my son Jon
and his friends just talking until the early morning hours.
It was a fine start on the newest thousand years, but we're well into the endeavor
now.
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