I stood out on my front porch this evening, smoking a Montecristo cigar and listening to the fast-falling drizzle. I'd been at a friend's party earlier playing nickel poker. They were setting up a diesel air-horn from a train to set off in his apartment complex at midnight. I couldn't stay at the party but I knew that I'd be able to hear it from home. So I stood and waited.
Some of my neighbors partied, the elderly couple next door sending their friends home at 11.30 while the teenagers at the end of the cul-de-sac running around and screaming.
The cigar burned unevenly and I had to keep re-lighting it. A solitary figure down the street walked his dog in the rain, and I could already hear sirens screaming in the distance. Five minutes before midnight the fireworks started; dull thumping and sharp crackles pierced the night air. My tongue prickled and swelled from the smoke, and I was feeling a bit light-headed.
Suddenly the fire sirens blared, and the thumps became a rolling cacophonous thunder. At the stroke of midnight an air-horn blared across the valley, several short blasts before a single massive bleat.
I laughed for several more minutes as the cigar died down and I went in to have a glass of cognac to finish off the night.
2006 was a good year for me, for us. I hope that 2007 is at least as good if not better. And I hope the same for you.
Happy New Year!
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