New Years Celebration

To celebrate the New Year we used to ring out the old year and ring in the new. We attended a one-room school in a small village. Our teacher, on the evening of December 31, either left the door unlocked, or someone would make certain that one of the side windows was unlocked. The local church door was very seldom locked, thus the church bell and the school bell would start ringing about eleven o'clock and continue to ring out their vibrations to the countryside that the old year was going and the new year approaching until after twelve o'clock. Generally the school clock on the wall kept us posted on the time. Once in a while our fathers would permit us to take their old shotguns plus a handful of black powder shells. At the stroke of midnight we would fire these weapons into the air to announce the New Year. No, no one was ever shot. We kids, born in the country, knew how to handle firearms because we cut our teeth on them. Our fathers taught us the dangers, yes, the right and wrong way to handle a gun, whether it be the old 22 or the black powder shotgun. So with the old hammer—charcoal burners we shot in the New Year.