Why not celebrate a 27th anniversary? Who says official celebrations have to come only on “significant” years divisible by 5?
Why, a New Year is a celebration on its own, no matter what, I was thinking while I dug around around in the files, looking for a New Year’s picture for the Yesterday series on Saturday’s editorial page.
And I found not one, but two.
There was Madison Hoover, the long-time and dearly beloved retired custodian at First Presbyterian Church smiling his biggest, happiest smile for the New Year — and his delight at making that bell ring again in the old church tower.
And another of people crowded around, one person at least with an umbrella, virtually everyone bundled in hats and scarves, and all waiting to cheer the arrival of 1975 at the Bell Tower.
The evening was making news.
The old First Presbyterian Church at the corner of West Innes and South Jackson streets had been torn down to make way for parking for First Union, now First Bank, and a new church had been built a block west, at the corner of West Innes and South Fulton.
But tear down the old tower — now, that was a different story.
Protest erupted.
Ed Clement, president of the Historic Salisbury Foundation, announced a committee had been formed dedicated to preserving the unique brick tower that had been the front entrance of the church built in 1898 as part of a Richardsonian Romanesque church structure in honor of the pastor, Dr. Jethro Rumple.
And things happened.
Questions were asked. Studies were done. Agreement was reached. Repairs would be made. The tower would stay.
And Barbara Jackson, who’d been one of the preservationists leading the save-the-tower effort suggested a New Year’s Eve celebration at our tower just like they have in Times Square in New York.
By New Year’s Eve ’74, no one worried about what the weatherman had to say, and just the thought of a celebration was nice because the year going out hadn’t been.
Matter of fact, a front page headline on an Associated Press round-up story on New Year’s Day proclaimed, “New Year’s Activities Subdued.”
“It seemed as though many Americans, fearing the New Year would be a replay of 1974, had to be dragged into 1975,” the reporter wrote, adding that they faced a bleak economic outlook — and rain.
Not that either kept people from watching that ball drop in Times Square or fire works in Cleveland or a 39-year-old evangelist in Charlotte promise to deliver a five-hour-non-stop sermon.
“We need to be reassured of God’s redemptive plan for us,” he said before he started. “I hope somebody will be there when I finish.”
Whether or not they were is lost in time.
The jurors in the Watergate cover-up trial resumed deliberations on the first after spending a quiet non-alcoholic New Year’s Eve in their Washington hotel.
To get Americans to reduce their fuel consumption, President Gerald Ford was considering levying a tariff that would force up gasoline prices by 7 1/2 cents a gallon. And the Food and Drug Administration had seized 25 million birth control pills because of misleading advertising.
But none of that stopped Salisbury’s party.
Or the parties to come.
Some years the celebration included a party hat contest — with prizes. At others, Kent Bernhardt of WSTP broadcast live. One included a moment of silence and remembrance for former Salisbury Mayor Don Weinhold Jr., who was killed in a plane crash during the Christmas week just past. Another year ice on the tower steps stopped the ringing of the bell — but not the party. One year the bell was silent. Organizers couldn’t get food or entertainment.
But not this year.
And Randy Hemann, director of sponsoring Downtown Salisbury, Inc., invites everyone to come to the Bell Tower for the 27th annual welcoming party for a New Year — 2002 — and ring the bell!
“We’ll do a drawing to see who’s going to ring it first,” he says, “and then everybody’s going to ring the bell. And the bell is fixed — as of last year. For the first time last year, the rope didn’t fall off the track. The rope usually falls off the round pulley and stops ringing.
“For several years, I had to climb up and re-hang it before the event, and it would go about 10 or 15 minutes, and then it would jump off if somebody pulled it real hard and then let up fast. And that was it for the New Year. Matt Flint tried to fix it. And George Kluttz. A lot of people tried different things.
“Finally, we put some radiator hose clamps on it and that kept it from jumping out of the track, and we added a cotton rope which is a lot more pliable than a nylon rope. In frigid temperatures a nylon rope gets pretty hard.”
So the rope is ready.
And so is young Doc Young — that’s Dr. Clyde Young, retired dentist, who will never retire from his trumpet — and friends who will start making music about 11:15 or 11:20.
He calls them “friends” instead of the “Music Makers” when everyone can’t be there. Tonight, Tom Smith, Pfeiffer College music director, and Ken Carroll, who’s retired from the Hefner VA Medical Center, and Doc’s wife, Libby, will be there.
“It takes pretty good friends,” Doc says, “to say they’ll come out with the potential of 32 degrees, but you just have to let your lips hang out and play what you can with gloves on. It’s going to be cold.
“We’ll have the PA system and do some patriotic music and a little Dixieland and maybe even ‘Hello, Dolly,’ a la Satchmo. It’s going to be cold, but we’re going to give it a community effort.”
The Frostbites will warm people up with hot chocolate, Salisbury City Councilman Bill Burgin will do the countdown — and you can pull that bell rope yourself.
Like 1974, the year the Bell Tower was saved, 2001 hasn’t been the greatest.
“But it’s just good to be here,” Randy Hemann says.
And what could be a better reason to celebrate a New Year and a 27th anniversary?
Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4245 or rpost@salisburypost.com
.
Today's News
