This is about the time that you look at that old 2006 calendar and try counting on your fingers from December 31 to calculate today’s date. Clearly, you forgot to pick up your free Newtown Bee calendar. You don’t need to be embarrassed about your procrastination. We’ve put them on the front counter in the lobby of our offices here at 5 Church Hill Road. You can sneak in the front door, grab one and venture forth into 2007 without anyone noticing.

Town Historian Dan Cruson, who eschews ’07 calendars (unless they are 1907, or 1807) has jumped both feet first into the new year. Dan was at the library on January 2 to take a peek at a roll of microfilm containing the complete records of the Newtown Baptist Church that he has recently acquired. The church once stood on what is now part of Zoar Cemetery and the records, Dan hopes, will help round out the story of Newtown of long ago. Last year Dan unearthed an historical tidbit concerning slavery in Newtown; who knows what he’ll find in these records?

By the way, the Newtown Historical Society is hosting a lecture by Dan on “The Slaves of Central Fairfield County,” on Monday, January 8. The lecture will be presented in the community room of C.H. Booth Library, and will begin at 7:30 pm. Admission is free. His talk will touch on the Cato Freedom House, which coincidently, will make another appearance this month on cable TV.

If you missed it the first time it aired in October on House and Garden Television’s If Walls Could Talk show, Mike and Pam Davis’ Sherman Street home in Sandy Hook will be featured once again on HGTV, Monday, January 15, at 7 pm. The Davis’ 1783 home, built and first occupied by the former slave Cato Freedom, has turned up mysterious spirit marks and a “concealment shoe” tucked away in the crawl space of the basement. Since I must have snoozed through the October shows, I’m going to be sure to tune in this month to find out more about this curious little bit of Newtown history.

Somehow we managed to miss one wonderful group of kids in Newtown when we were compiling last week’s year-in-review story about notable youth. The youth group of Newtown United Methodist Church not only raised quite a pretty sum of money through pumpkin sales and car washes last year, but in December they decided what to do with those dollars. The youth group members decided to donate their money — $1,000 — to Heifer International, Habitat for Humanity, and FAITH Food Pantry. That’s a lot of pumpkin seeds and dirty cars.

Tuesday felt like Old Home-Good News Day here at The Bee. In an email waiting when we came back to work that morning, we learned that former production department employee Colleen Gibbons became engaged over the holidays. Then during the afternoon we heard a familiar voice around the building. And it turned out that Newtown native and longtime Bee receptionist Lori (“Zee!”) Zemo was indeed visiting her former hometown and took time to visit the office. She had planned to make a ten-minute stop, but it’s hard to work your way through a three-story building with nearly 50 employees in it in such a small window of time.

In case you were wondering, the flag on Main Street will be at half-staff for 30 days, honoring the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford. The flag won’t go back up to its full 100-foot height until January 26.

Currently the police department has three officers in field training and two men undergoing training at the municipal police academy. In field training are Officers Douglass Poole, Kenneth Jacovino, and Todd Dingee. Studying at the police academy are John McCluskey and Steven Borges. Police Chief Michael Kehoe this week updated Police Commission members on the five men’s training progress. Newtown seems like a sleepy town to those just passing through, and we’re counting on a highly trained police department to keep it that way.

In fact, they make me feel so safe, I’m getting a little sleepy myself. But I’ll be back after a short winter’s nap, so be sure to…

Read me again.