RJ REPORTING FROM HAWAII

NBC Radio correspondent Ron Jacobs, 1955

As everything in America does, "time and date" come first to Guam, where "America's Day Begins" It is already 2011 there, as I write this in Hawaii, where the New Year rings in in ten minutes, at 7 p.m. HST.

Folks here who wish to watch fireworks, dropping balls, flashing neon lights spelling out the event, network co-anchors (chosen from one of the strangest talent pools in the business), man-in-the-street observations about the impact of it all, resolutions (serious or satirical, political or philosphpohical, spoken or spelled out in gitzy, graphics)--these are the people who remain inside, watching their new century, new decade, new year roll in on wide screen TV.

Here in Hawaii, any one of them might open a window and toss/hurl out some kind of exploding device into the neighborhood. We are warming up for the Greenwich Mean Time New Year, now coming in four minutes to Times Square and the patch of Earth that inhabits its same time zone, relation to the sun and moon.

Soon comes the closest thing to pyrotechnic shock and awe as anywhere in the U.S. The Aloha State, still the wonderful Melting Pot of the Pacific, and its large Asian population, pops off the loudest. A typical Chinese wedding can sound like Fourth of July on the Mall, minus the philharmonics and cannon. Your correspondent now hearing booms as loud as those that sometimes emanate from Marine Corps Base Hawaii. President Obama is nearby it at this moment, I figure. I am 16 miles away.

Old school, NBC News, c. 1955. Dateline: KANEOHE, HI. No time left to type. What comes next?

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6:59:59.