By Holly Fesperman LeeSalisbury Post
Harry Garwood is looking to win the lottery in the new year.
“It’s about time,” he said Monday night, as he took ticket money for the Rocking New Year’s Eve Dance at the Harold B. Jarret American Legion Post.
The party was co-sponsored by Post 342 and local radio station 1280 WSAT.
“We heard that nobody else was having a dance. … It’s for the old folks,” Garwood joked.
The dance featured a live band, DC and the Chosen Few, along with an open bar and light hors d’oeuvres.
Gene and Becky Auten came to the New Year’s Eve party because “My wife wanted to come so bad,” Gene said.
The two have ushered in a lot of new years together; they’ve been married 51 years.
Becky said she never makes resolutions “because you make ’em to break ’em.” As far as her health is concerned, however, she was expecting a good year.
Gene thought for a minute, then said he didn’t have a resolution.
“I don’t know of anything I did bad last year that I want to change,” he said.
With three great children and four grandchildren, “I couldn’t have it any better,” he said.
Becky and Gene said they celebrated their most memorable new year in 1956. They were married days before, on Dec. 23.
Another Salisbury New Year’s Eve celebration got underway around 11:30 p.m. at the historic Bell Tower at West Innes and South Jackson streets.
Linda Moldin is hosting family from Florida and decided to bring them to the party.
Her niece, Diane Landowski, said she’s been a few times before but “This is the coldest ever.”
Diane announced that she had on three shirts, two pairs of socks and a coat.
Her daughter-in-law, Rhian, added that she had on two pairs of socks and two pairs of jeans.
“If it’s below 70, they’re freezing,” Moldin said.
Moldin said her most memorable New Year’s Eve was in the mid-1980s, when she and her husband were living in Germany.
He was in the military and the two lived in a German village.
“Instead of firing fireworks, they fired old weapons,” she said.
Ann Shaver said she’s been coming to the Bell Tower for New Year’s Eve since the event started. She brings her family every year.
“It’s a wonderful event. You can really feel the old year leaving and the new year coming in out here,” she said. “This is the only place I’ve ever been that you can just feel that.”
What keeps her coming back?
“It’s tradition!” Shaver said.
Shaver had her niece, Claudia Mauldin, with her this year.
Mauldin said she’s been to the celebration in the past, but Monday marked the first time in a long time.
She didn’t waste her time. Mauldin won a $25 gift certificate in downtown dollars.
“I’ve never won anything,” Mauldin told family members when she got her certificate.
A few minutes later, another member of Shaver’s family got a special treat.
Her husband, Dave, was chosen to ring in the new year.
Every year, event organizers draw the name of one person to ring the bell in the Bell Tower at the stroke of midnight. After that, anybody who wants to can ring the bell.
Dave Shaver said he was telling his great-grandchildren earlier in the day about the Bell Tower tradition and how one person would ring the bell first, but he certainly didn’t think it would be him.
As soon as Shaver and his family rang the bell, others lined up to take their turn.
Contact Holly Lee at 704-797-7683 or hlee@salisburypost.com.