You’re “best,” and you can’t be better than that. You have achieved at the highest levels of human potential in friendship, integrity and decency.

For most of us, our mark is not made on the broad public consciousness. The Mozarts are few and far between, but there can be no symphony without the unremarked players in the back chairs.

So, trust me once again my friend, you have done well by the many of us whose lives you have touched. We couldn’t ask for more from anyone.

Also, I should like to point out that your missus would not settle for a slacker.

Best wishes for the coming year.

When we accept gamesmanship as enough, it is the cats who are teaching us to press the clicker. The end we sought is lost.

Here’s hoping we are masters of ourselves enough to aim higher once again.

Oh, and please proudly continue to yearn to be a nonconformist — it’s good for us to have you around.

I myself was raised up from “a pound” where I had been left (I do not consider that I was “abandoned” there, but rather was saved in the most desperate motherly way).

So, for the love of life, please everyone do whatever you can whenever you can. Every once in a while, you can see in some other creature’s very breath that the effort is worth it, even if we fear it is never enough.