Happy 2-0-1-4!

My goodness, it's the New Year al- ready!

2014. The year my little brother enters high school, my cousin and two of my best friends pass on to the netherworld known as "col- lege", and that ancient can of hominy tucked in the back of our pantry finally goes bad.

It will be stamped on the prom invitations my class passes out this spring, and glitter-painted on the home- coming posters we plaster in the school hallways come fall. It will crouch in fifty- two weeks' worth of Times margins, over election re- sults and football victories and birth notices. And when I finally come face-to-face with...