So what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a new reporter at a small newspaper in Connecticut covering the towns of Durham and Middlefield. These were small communities with a mix of working farms and large homes that served as a bedroom community for the larger cities in the region.
But they were fun and the people were largely nice and they were good communities in wihc to learn how to cover town halls.
Well, one Christmas, the Elks Lodge was doing its annual Christmas Letters to Santa gig. They took letters from the kids in town and offered to deliver them to Santa. So I covered it, but I decided to not just cover it, but write a story about the Elks actually delivering the letters to Santa. It was a fun little story, writing up an interview with Saint Nick like a reporter would and it got a lot of positive feedback.
Well, I moved on to covering City Hall in the next town before the next Christmas and while I could have probably written another story about heading to the North Pole again, I thought the story should stick with the Middlefield/Durham beat and my colleague and friend, John Christie took over the story, quite ably I thought for a couple of years.
Anyway, as we head into this Christmas I wanted to revive this tradition and I’m working on a story about heading back up there. I hope to get it done before Christmas Eve. So far, I can tell you it’s sort of a combination of Kidnapped and Star Trek, the original series of course. But we’ll just have to see where it goes.
Anyway, keep on reading, keep on writing and keep on running.
Chalk Creek Writing Outfit and Running Club 