START THE YEAR: A MOMENT OF WISDOM FROM MY SON

Cooking pancakes for Nate this New Year's morning, and right after giving me 'pinch, punch first of the month', he asks me 'when we die, the world won't remember us, will they?' So I explain to him about the few people who might be, at least in the short term, remembered, and the fewer who will be remembered longer, not necessarily for good. Then I told him that we all have worlds we make around ourselves, where we will be remembered, even when the things, like books and poems and articles and show tapes and blogs, have disappeared. And in one of those places, someday, he will tell his children about their grandad they may have never met, and maybe tell them how he learned to make pancakes from me. And he said 'never mind, dad'....