New Year’s Eve 1920

In hotels, no serving, only looking the other way. In other establishments, a different approach.

[“Sober Crowds Jam Streets of City on New Year’s Eve: Bigger Celebration Than for Several Years, but Alcoholic Revelry Is Subdued.” The New York Times, January 1, 1921.]

You can hear the wheels turning as the reporter tries out elegant (or inelegant) variations: “a peg of whisky,” “a pony of pure fire.”

May 2021 be a better year than the year that ends tonight. I want to borrow from D.H. Lawrence and say, Look! We have come through! But so many have not.