I'm a list maker. So, when it comes to making my New Year's resolutions, out come the 3 X 5 cards. Several authors, however, suggested an alternative to the ubiquitous list, something that feels a little less like a vulture circling overhead, and more like, well, a walk in the park...have a listen here and check into the new year with a new kind of resolve.

Last week I began a story set in Ketchum, Idaho, where several of my buddies and I had taken a leave of absence from college, cowboy hats and all. Living out west was a culture shock but working at the ski resort was no vacation. As Christmas day moved quietly towards us, homesickness crept in. We found ourselves on a desolate hike home after a night of broom ball, isolated, cold and acutely aware that we were being watched, and stalked by wild dogs.

We didn't want college. We wanted adventure. An Idaho ski resort sounded like the ticket for one semester, but as tourists flew in to party for Christmas, we scrapped by as maids at a ski resort, and looked over our shoulders for another more serious threat.

The holiday season is creeping up on us like the second hand in a scary movie. No one hears the ticking sound until the camera zeroes in on the gothic clock on the wall and the last few seconds tick off in slow motion. Will we make it out of the holiday Twilight Zone before the clock strikes twelve? We may, but it will take some strategic maneuvering at the grocery store this year. 

A sleuth figure slips through the night, and all evidence points to a return of Mr. Pumpkin, the vigilante gourd representing Pumpkin Nation. Math and science seem to support the sudden flip-up in last week's podcast of the author's pumpkin pie at a local diner, but you can crunch the numbers yourself. Hostilities have been stirred again, and Mr. Pumpkin, one spicy character, wants a piece of the action. 

The neutrality of pumpkins, long thought to be associated with their lack of taste and character, reveals itself as an immutable law of both nature and eating pumpkin pie. Equilibrium, when upset, can have an inverse effect on pie wedges, and our ability to stay mentally stable.

Want to know how to live to be 100 years old? My father's legacy isn't his longevity, but his ability to appreciate the freedoms that avail us all as Americans, to honor them by serving and ultimately to be willing to sacrifice when up against adversity.