A New London New Year

How do you decide when the new year begins? In New London, New Year's Day is just a prelude to Hygienic Night, which is the last Satruday in January. New Year's Eve passes like a whimper until the end of January blossoms with fresh enthusiasm from New London's artist castes. New Year's Eve is little different from any other New London evening. Hygienic Weekend is when Connecticut's Whaling City blooms with creativity and heart-felt resolutions.

Every year in every way, New London gets better at earning the respect it deserves. Every day, the Devil fiddles with the details and works his tempting magic to make the best possible deal. Do you have a soul? It belongs in New London, Conn., if the city will have you.

Happy New Year to all and sundry! Happy Tomorrow! Happy Today! The clock ticks while time stands still in New London. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. A year in New London is not a prison sentence, it is a kick in the pants to get moving while staying in place. Like a rat on a wheel, like an exercise junkie on a treadmill, like a hamburger on a conveyor belt, New London produces the same product over and over. Why mess with perfection?

We are lucky to be New Londoners. Every day is freshly minted, speared in place by a rusty harpoon that has seen more useful times. Every eve presents even odds for success or failure. Nothing ever ends in failure in New London. When the city stumbles, it marches towards its destiny. Every year in every way, New London only gets better at what it does best.

Whalehead King wishes everyone a hearty Mare Liberum!!

Sweet and Tart

Do you know you can buy a roll of Sweettarts in Spauling Oklahoma for 25 cents, a fraction of the Connecticut cost? Your correspondent purchased a roll for 26 cents with tax and had to ask twice to make sure the price was right. The poor clerk thought he was dealing with a European, with the Yankee accent and the unfamiliarity with local currency. Your correspondent shared the Sweettarts with his travelling companion as they drove the straight, dirt roads that crisscross Seminole and Hughes County. They admired the views of grazing beef cattle while they savored the taste of sugar and citric acid packed into colored powder.

Oklahoma must receive the rejects from the Sweettart plant. The whole roll, fifty candies in all, consisted of alternating yellow and purple Sweettarts. The two comapanions remarked on this. The man ate the yellow ones and the woman ate the purple ones. It is hard to tell what flavor they were meant to represent, but they decided bananna and grape came closest.

This reporter bought a roll of Sweettarts at the convenience store on the corner of Evergreen and Ocean Avenues in New London this morning. This food is not a staple of his diet, but out of nostalgia for his recent vacation in the Sooner State, he wanted a little sweet combined with a little tart. There was one pink candy in the mix. The rest were yellow and purple. Amazing.

Equally amazing, this reporter spotted a dazed yellowjacket on the sidewalk when he entered Parade News on a tobacco and newsprint related errand. The insect was logey, a bit dazed in December's upper 40 degree weather, and at a loss to do something on the cement that lines State Street. What does this have to do with Sweettarts? The yellowjacket must have been malnourished. Its stripes were pastel yellow and purple in a pattern found in that fateful roll purchased in Spaulding, OK. Sometimes it is hard to determine between an omen and a coincidence. Time will tell if this has any meaning.

Low Key Adventure

It is good to be in New London, Conn. after spending time in Wewoka, Okla. Your intrepid reporter spent time in the great, oilfield cities of Holdenville and Seminole as well as Wewoka. He visited Okemah, Wetumka, McAleister, Shawnee, Lima, Bowlegs, and New Lima. None rivaled Wewoka for grandeur, but nowhere in Oklahoma rivaled Connecticut's very own Whaling City for energy, entertainment, entrepreneurship, vitality, and vim.

People unhappy with New London, should visit Oklahoma to appreciate what they have. New London is a place beyond compare. The shores of Lake Wewoka and Lake Holdenville and Eufala Lake pale beside the majesty of Connecticut's Thames River and the expanse of Long Island Sound. The land in Oklahoma stretches as far as the eye can see past the hazy horizon. This is one Nutmeg Yankee that prefers to see lumber ships, ferries, lobster trawlers and submarines rather than beef cattle populating the view. There is nothing wrong with Oklahoma, quite the reverse. It is just that Connecticut is more pleasing to the eye.

Santa Loves New London

Even when New London is bad, it is very, very nice. Santa Claus loves New London so much he keeps a satellite headquarters in the abandoned pickle factory on Mountain Avenue. He shares space with a few local ne'er do wells, but overall, he enjoys the accomodations. There is no company like New London company.

Santa Claus comes to New London every year during the tree lighting ceremony in early December, but he is always out and about, in disguise throughout the year. You will sometimes see him sauntering about enjoying his pipe. His years of toy-making have made him an able carpenter, and he assists in rehabilitating some of the city's older houses.

The Xmas spirit is New London's spirit. No wonder Santa Claus feels at home in Connecticut's Whaling City. Your correspondent saw Saint Nick himself at The Broken Yolk this morning enjoying a little dish of baked beans for breakfast. The conversation swirled in the steam off the grill, as it usually does, but the venerable gentleman kept his own company. He nodded hello to this correspondent but focussed on his meal. Santa Clause, like me, was reading the comics section of the Hartford Courant. We both laughed at the same time at 'Mutts.' The cat was dreaming of a white Xmas. So were we.

A Discrepancy Explained

There has been some confusion recently about how, on Dec. 10, New London was described as being colder than a witch's teat and a few days later it was described as Nutmeg Hawai'i. Those who have questions have obviously never been to Connecticut's Whaling City, a place so compact and yet so vast it can contain contradictions.

Your humble narrator lives on Post Hill in New London, a summit on which the sun always shines. The waterfront is buffetted by the breezes of the unbridled Atlantic, and thus its climate is more chilly than that enjoyed in the rest of the city. New Londoners despise plagarism. There was once a movement afoot after Coleridge published a famous poem, to rename Post Hill, Xanadu. Sane heads prevailed and the traditional name was retained.

There is a story that the top of Post Hill is the historical location of the Garden of Eden and that the famous apple tree grew where the statue of Nathan Hale now stands. There is only purely anecdotal evidence to lead to this conclusion, but it is true that to the people who live there, Post Hill is a kind of paradise.