My earliest memory of New Year’s Eve is sleeping on my couch waiting for the clock to turn midnight. My mother promised to wake me beforehand so we can watch the countdown. My grandmother was over and also falling asleep while we waited for Dick Clark to tell us when that ball will drop. I think my father was working overnight shifts then because I don’t remember him there. My brother wasn’t born yet so this makes me about three or four years old. I can even remember the blue nightgown I had on. As I grew older, there would be other New Year’s where neighbors would come over and we would yell and holler out on our stoops and bang pots and pans. Brooklyn was always great growing up for New Years and the Fourth of July for big celebrations. When we finally got classy enough to buy noisemakers I loved getting to be the one who took them out of the plastic bag every year and hand them out before midnight. Between elementary school and high school there were th...