One day, a teenage Benjamin Franklin entered the Boston home of the renowned Reverend Cotton Mather. After their lengthy discussion, he walked Franklin through a tight doorway on the way out with a low beam as Mather told him, “Stoop, stoop!”. Not paying attention, Franklin bumped his head on the beam. The older, wiser Mather found a teachable moment:  “You are young and have the world before you. Stoop as you go through it and you will miss many hard thumps”.

All his life, Franklin never forgot Mather’s immortal words.

2019 has produced many good things, and yet, it has been one of my worst years.

Can I be brutally honest, since you are my friends? I have taken quite a lot of shots this year, and am a bit beaten from the beams. Frankly I, like several others I have spoken to, am soooo ready for a new year! Now, this is NOT one of those downer letters that you read and feel sad after reading it.

The good news is yet to...