THE PEOPLE: This Side of Paradise

It would be the biggest, noisiest New Year's Eve in a long, long time. Manhattan's bars would stay open until dawn, U.S. roadhouses would be neon-lighted after dark years, and the stiff white shirt front would be back once more, a gleaming and irresistible target for females with an urge to write with lipstick. Between the last tick of 1945 and the first tock of 1946, U.S. citizens would consume enough alcohol to float a rinkful of ice, and the thin, happy bleat of paper horns would echo from time zone to time zone...

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