Across the country, cities and towns are preparing to drop all kinds of objects at midnight to mark the first moments of the New Year. In Lebanon, Pennsylvania, it is a giant balloon attached to a disco ball. And that might be a good pairing with Mount Olive, North Carolina. Member station WFAE's Nick de la Canal takes us there as they prepare for tonight's big moment.
Nick de la Canal: OK, so I'm standing in the Pickle Parlor of downtown Mount Olive, North Carolina, about to see the town's most famous object, the New Year's Eve pickle.
I'm so excited. Shall we go check it out?
Lynn Williams: Sure.
De la Canal: Lynn Williams is showing me around the pickle-themed gift shop. She's a spokesperson for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company. There are pickle hats, T-shirts, rows of pickle jars and, in the back, resting on a wide shelf. It is the big, green plastic pickle the town lowers into a jar every New Year's Eve.
Williams: It's about 3 1/2 feet. It's maybe 6 or 8 pounds. It is a sweet petite.
De la Canal: Now, this pickle is being retired because the company is commissioning a new, bigger one for its 100th anniversary this year. And if you're wondering why a town would drop a pickle on New Year's Eve, the answer is baked — or maybe brined — into Mount Olive's history.
Williams: In the early 1900s, this was a small little village, a commercial center for a big agricultural area.
De la Canal: Farmers could grow lots of cucumbers, but there wasn't much demand.
Williams: So the businesspeople thought, if you could create a new market for farmers, the whole town would benefit.
De la Canal: Thus, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company was born in 1926. It grew into one of the town's largest employers and a major source of local pride. In 1999, company executives thought it'd be funny to drop a pickle on New Year's Eve as a marketing stunt. But to locals, it quickly became a really big dill (ph).
Williams: And we thought, what a hoot. All these people had the same amount of weird sense of humor that we did, and from then, it's just grown.
De la Canal: Across the country, many towns and cities drop objects on New Year's Eve tied to local identity. They include a potato in Boise, Idaho, a cheese wedge in Plymouth, Wisconsin, a moon pie in Mobile, Alabama, even a drag queen in a shoe in Key West.
Amy Grossman: They often reflect regional economies. They point to local labor histories, but they also can celebrate what helped a community survive or thrive.
De la Canal: Amy Grossmann is with the North Carolina Folklife Society. She says, just look at the orange drop in Miami, representing the state's citrus industry. And then there are seafood drops, like a shrimp in coastal Georgia and a lobster drop in Maine.
Grossman: They can be a way of saying to people, this is what made us.
De la Canal: Some drops have even stirred controversy, like in Brasstown, North Carolina, where residents dropped a live possum until pushback from animal rights activists ended the practice in 2019. Tallapoosa, Georgia, still drops a stuffed possum each year. Back in the Mt. Olive Pickle Parlor, shopper Stephen Edwards says he's excited for this year's centennial drop.
Stephen Edwards: If there's one thing that defines this town, it's definitely pickles.
De la Canal: Beside him, his 9-year-old niece, Ella Edwards, has her own ideas for the centennial pickle.
Ella Edwards: Maybe they cut it open, and there's pickles inside.
De la Canal: Oh, like a pickle piñata.
Ella: Yeah.
De la Canal: For the Mount Olive Chamber of Commerce, this year's drop is a can't-miss event, says its president, Julie Beck.
Julie Beck: If you come out that night, you'll have a dill-lightful (ph) time, and you'll try some dill-icious (ph) food, and it's a big dill.
De la Canal: And she hopes the pickle will usher in a new year that's more sweet than sour.
For NPR News, I'm Nick de la Canal in Mount Olive, North Carolina.
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