Happy New Year! I was at K-Mart in Metairie yesterday, and when I got back to the car, an elderly gentleman was waiting in between his car and mine for his family to come out of the store. I told him good morning, and he replied by saying "Happy New Year." I thanked him, wished him the same, and said "It can only get better than the one we're leaving." He replied "God willing, I'm sure you're right."
We're determined to make 2006 a better year for this newsletter as well, by expanding our coverage and presentation from Canal Street to all streetcars in the city, past and present. The name of the website and newsletter will stay the same, but we're going green as well as red now.
In addition to expanding the website's coverage, we're starting to add more photos to the website during the week. Since CanalStreetCar (dot com) was converted to using the Movable Type publishing platform, it's easier to add new articles. Over the last couple of years, we've collected a number of image files of streetcars that were either too small for print publication or for presentation as weekly features. We're going to start adding these to the website, so check there for some interesting streetcar stuff.
Trains! Since this newsletter and our website deal with the city's street railways, we decided to re-activate the website that started it all for us, Virtually New Orleans, to present images and stories that go beyond the scope of the streetcars (this site) or the cemeteries. (www.citiesofthedead.net). The site is www.vno.us. The regular weekly feature on VNO is "Train Thursday," where we're presenting images of New Orleans-related train stuff. The first two articles in this series were on the Crescent Limited and Panama Limited passenger trains.
Yats! My younger son, Kevin, has become quite the fan of Benny Grunch. He insisted we buy him Benny's new CD (which features the new song "A Tale of Two Cities,") and he's driving us all crazy singing "O Little Town of Destrehan." Well, last week, while recovering from Christmas dinner, I put together two posts for the first two "days of Christmas." They were so well-received on various forums that I've kept it up. Today is the 7th Yat of Christmas, which is the "17th Street Canal" in Benny's song. If you want to see the first seven and follow along until Twelfth Night, check out YatCuisine, my food blog for the "12 Yats of Christmas."
