As Christmas approaches and we await the new president, life continues quietly for me and those close to me. Our house is trimmed with Christmas cheer, in hopes that our grandson soon will be here! He's still not four, but it seems that Pam and I have had a lifetime of fun with him already! (At least I think so!)

Well, I have had another "banner" year writing my abstracts for Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. After reading and abstracting 515 articles in 2007, I have completed 457 articles in 2008, with maybe a few more to be done before New Year's Eve. Having done so many of them over the last 29 years, I always find it fun to be helping a library patron doing research for a project and actually pull up one of "my" abstracts. It convinces me that doing all this "work" really does pay off for real people.