Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun

(Hemingway’s Restaurant & Bar Karpaz Gate Marina)

Happy New Year from North Cyprus

For those of you who don’t know, this is the famous Roanoke, VA traveling fruitcake. It began its travels in 1999 when John Edwards and his family brought it to a gift exchange where it became the property of Jane and Peter Field. Jane, who works part-time in the Reference Department brought it to a Roanoke County Public Library Holiday Party and over the years various staff selected it as their surprise gift. (The gifts are always wrapped so no one knows what they are picking and eventually someone would go home with this fruitcake.) As a retirement gift to the Library from me, I chose the fruitcake at the last party Randal and I attended, and promised to drop it into the South China Sea so it would never shop up, wrapped in paper and bows at a Library Holiday Party Gift Exchange. But the fruitcake is still here and the South China Sea is far behind us. We could drop it into the Mediterranean, but we’ll probably just carry it around the world with us and one day, when no one is expecting it, it will turn up, once again, all wrapped up in paper and bows as a gift at a Roanoke County Library Holiday Party.

Happy New Year to all of you from Randal, DoraMac and me