I have been on this earth since 1951 and have to say that 2020 was the worst year I ever experienced. Not personally; being retired and a misanthrope with a loving wife made the lockdown fairly easy. I got covid but it was a mild case. So compared to others, I had it easy.

But I cannot think of a worse year than 2020 for most other people. I remember the polio epidemic of the 1950s, but I also remember competent public health officials who kept it under control.

I remember the Kennedy assassination and the awful year of 1968 when we lost Bobby and Dr. King, and the cities burned. (I lived not far from Newark and grew up in Detroit.) But those events left no serious, lasting scars on society. Neither did Watergate in 1974.

Probably the most personally painful events of my adulthood were the gas lines of the 1970s. But at least they didn't kill anyone, just caused a lot of inconvenience. The years since the 1970s were mostly okay as far as the nation and society were concerned except for 9/11,

which tuned out to be more of triumph over adversity than a tragedy. I could not have imagined that less than 20 years later we would kill as many as died on that day every day and the president would do absolutely nothing about it. Even more shockingly,