Farewell, Waterford

It has been a great two-and-a-half years.

In September of 2010, I was hired to launch Waterford Patch. At that time, I didn’t know anyone in Waterford. Nobody. Not a person. All I knew was that Waterford was the spot of land between East Lyme and New London that had all the chain stores.

Now, that’s all changed. I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of people in town, I’ve made dozens of new friends and gained an appreciation for the 33 square miles that surrounds New London. 

When I first started, I thought Waterford had little sense of community because there was no real downtown like a Niantic or a Stonington. I was wrong. Dead wrong.

I’ve seen countless examples of this community coming together, from all the stuff that happened for Madeline Guarraia to all the charity and prayers for Kate Seidel and her three children to just the outpouring to support Cowlick’s Creamery – which was created by two Waterford women – just this past week. Waterford really is a great community, a community that cares about each other and a community that steps up to a plate (yes, the baseball/softball reference was intentional) whenever something needs to be done.

And for the past two-and-a-half years, I really have felt welcomed by that community. There have been so many great people I’ve met, from Pat Fedor to Marc Balestracci to all the secretaries in all the town offices that I spent entirely too much time bothering (the Joyce Cummings and Kathy Petersons of the world) to Mary, Janet and Bob at the town clerk’s office to my most devoted follower, Kerry Sullivan, to the hundreds upon hundreds of townspeople I’ve interviewed or videotaped or photographed or have contacted in some way.

And now it's over. Starting today, I - Paul Petrone, editor of the Waterford Patch - have taken a new job within Patch, and I no longer will be covering Waterford anymore (or Montville, which I was doing for the past month). No more seeing Bob, Mary and Janet every day. No more interviewing Dan Steward. No more being bored at Board of Finance meetings and staring at the photos of past Waterford first selectmen. No more staying up to midnight, editing a story about the Board of Education that I hope someone might actually read.

So I’ll miss it, I’ll miss it a lot. I love Waterford, I really do. And I’d love to thank all of you – the readers, the commenters (I’m looking at you R Lee Balderdash), the sources. All of you made Waterford Patch Waterford Patch, as without you, it would be nothing.

So goodbye, at least for now. Your new editor will be the talented Jayne Keedle, who lives in Waterford and has covered Waterford before. Her email is jayne.keedle@patch.com, feel free to contact her anytime.

Thank you Waterford. I love you and will miss you and I’ll never forget you.

Paul