At inaugurations history turns a page. Think of mobs overrunning the White House exuberantly honoring Andrew Jackson; of Franklin Roosevelt rallying Americans to fight “fear itself”; of celebrating our first black president. And then there was 1921.

Like millions of kids nationwide, my seven-year-old son glues his ear to the nearest speaker whenever he hears the soundtrack of the Broadway hip-hop smash hit Hamilton .

I love the live transmissions from the Metropolitan Opera. Usually, it’s the music and spectacle that carries the story, which – face it – can be pretty far fetched. But recently, these operatic stories are reminding me of current U.S. politics.

While awaiting the inauguration of a new president who admits he’s never read a presidential biography and hasn’t the time or interest to read anything more complex than popular magazines, I’ve been feeling anxious about what this might signal about the future of reading - historically one of America’s favorite pastimes.

My wife and I were returning home from Florida on Delta Airlines when something happened that pales in comparison with events like the baggage claim shootings in Fort Lauderdale - but still I find myself thinking about it.

You didn’t hear a lot from me in 2016.

Most people probably don’t remember George Lincoln Rockwell, who after World War II was the founder of the American Nazi Party. He used to strut and preen in a Nazi uniform, and in the mid-’60s, he spoke at the university where I was a student. He praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and promised that if he became president, he’d execute Jews he considered traitors.

The thing I worried most about before my son was born was how a man without a father could become a caregiver to an infant.

Every year, between December 1st and the end of February, if winter storms in the North Pacific send really big waves on to the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, then an invitational big wave surfing competition may happen. But only if the waves are at least thirty and forty feet high when measured from the bottom of the trough in front of the wave to the wave’s peak.

I was looking for a hopeful story to start the New Year, when I stumbled across a program called Health Care Shares at a community meeting at the UVM Medical Center. The program itself has been around for a while, but recently, it’s taken its mission to help Vermonters eat and live healthier up a notch.