Happy New Year!
In the spirit of the season, “06880” offers up a few resolutions.
In 2014, I promise to…
Run only a few photos of selfish, entitled drivers taking up 3 spaces, parking almost on the jetty at Compo Beach, and using the sidewalk in front of Silver’s to enter and exit the Post Road. And I will make snarky comments about them only if they really, truly deserve it.
Try my best to find a story that highlights how great it is that a family with no ties to Westport buys a handsome, well-maintained, 200-year-old home; promises the owner to keep it and love it; then levels it and constructs a 12,000-square foot behemoth filled with rooms that don’t even have names, after chopping down more trees than George Washington ever dreamed of. I know you guys are out there — I can’t wait to tell your inspiring tales!
Limit my trips down memory lane. After all, how many times can I mention the Remarkable Book Shop, Clam Box, and a time shrouded in nostalgia when a 5-year-old could walk from home all the way downtown, spend a day shooting baskets (or billiards) at the Y, then wander along Main Street while shopkeepers came outside, greeted him by name, fed and clothed him, and put the bill on the back of a paper bag for the parents to settle, hey, whenever they wanted.
Like any New Year’s resolutions, I’ll do my best to stick to these as long as I can. I figure at least through Saturday.
(Have your own resolutions? Click “Comments” to share — and please, use your full name!)
Happy New Year to you Dan. The best part of those first of the year resolutions…no one expects you to really keep it for more than a day or two. You’re good for even trying.
I don’t log in every morning only to read about a town filled with perfect people, wait, what? Of course we do, and then you report on the great, the inspired and the entitled and we help you prove it over and over again. Happy 2014.
I love those snarky stories and also the ones that are really inspirational. I love being connected to the town I grew up in. Thank you and Happy New Year.
How about resolving to limiting the use of the “wallpaper” snowflakes to those days when flurries are NOT in the forecast? Seriously, thank you for doing such a consistently excellent job of presenting your views and observations.
Happy New Year to you, Dan! Keep all those stories coming.
Thanks, Dan for all of your posts and for having Westport’s “back”.
You have kept me entertained for a long time…Thanks Dan 🙂 Have a wonderful 2014 filled with lots of snarky stories 🙂 I love them! You and Chou Chou ( You Know You are From Westport If :)are the best!
Notice how those cars near the Remarkable Book Shoppe are parked legally. Nobody parking on sidewalk. Nobody wearing Gucci. Those were the good old days indeed. Happy New Year Dan!
How about some stories on those great and under-reported kids at Staples???
Keep up the good work, Dan. We like you just the way you are.
Jo Ann Davidson
Happy New Year! Keep writing about the good ole days in Westport sometimes. Those were great years and can’t deny that. I remember being in kindergarten and first grade — 5 and 6 years old — at Bedford Elementary and walking home from school all the way down Main Street to the Merritt Superette! Waiting outside the Y on those concrete pillars at night for a ride home from swimming and parents not concerned if they were late. Westport epitomized a great, small, caring town with sophistication and values. I personally love the parking/driving stories– hilarious!
Happy New Year, Dan. Thanks for all you do. Don’t change a thing – I think you’ve found the the perfect combination of snark and adoration that helps us love this town despite the things we hate about it.
Snarkle-Farkle. 🙂
Happy New Year, Dan. You are such an asset.
THANKS, Holly. And often I am called not an “asset,” but a word beginning with those first 3 letters!
Happy healthy New Year Dan and thank you for this. Really gave me a chuckle and also so true which is really pathetic Hope it will be a wonderful year for you and all!!!
See you soon!!!!!
Happy new year Dan. Thanks for giving me a way to stay connected to Westport!
Dan, one Wm Shakespeare himself might recommend that these resolutions of yours are worthy only if honored in the breach.
Hamlet (Act I, scene iv)
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance.
Observance of these custom resolutions … be gone! By Saturday, if Dan wills it! We have tales of a snow storm to cover, after all.
thank you Dan for keeping me in the loop of what is going on in Westport. The good & the bad Westport will always be my home town even though I have lived elsewhere for sometime. She’s in my bones
Dan, keep doing exactly what you have been since you began this journey! I personally love the reminiscing about the “old days” whether referring to our time as kids in town or the time of my parents when they were young people of Westport. “Keep keepin’ on” as we remember from the ’60s! I look forward to reading your blog every day!
Looks like it’s unanimous…don’t change a thing. Happy New Year Dan!
I’ve heard it said we snark because we love. Thanks Dan!