There is no better time of year than this for important life lessons, and I believe we all can learn a little something this week from a man in New Bedford, Mass.

Stanley Dudek recently went through a few items belonging to his mother, who died about 10 years ago. He discovered a library book that was due May 10, 1910.

He decided to return the book.

When he turned it in, the book had accrued a fine of $361.35 during its almost century-long absence from the library. The staff took the book and waived the fee, planning to use the volume in the library's special collection.

The lesson? Turn your library books in on time. If you have an overdue book and a century to kill, however, you might just avoid a fine altogether.

Patience is a virtue, after all.

What is normally a happy event for me turned sad in a hurry this week as the Golden Globe nominees were announced.

Ten nominees were named in two Best Picture categories, with most of the 10 likely to be Oscar nominees in the coming months.

The number of nominated films I've seen? One. My wife? Zero.

And as much as I enjoyed it, I don't really think of "The Hangover" as Oscar material.

Have I mentioned lately that our moviegoing habits have faltered a bit?

What's that? You think the perfect holiday surprise for a hardworking editor guy would be some movie theater gift cards? Interesting. You might be on to something there.

Do they make babysitting gift cards?

Another friendly reminder: We will be driving around town and taking photos of this year's best Christmas light displays in the coming days, so be sure to pull out all the stops. If you know of a friend or a neighbor whose display merits our attention, please pass along the address to jcorley@vanalstyneleader.com.

Yes, for those of you who have asked, the Heisman ceremony Saturday night did bother me, but probably not for the reasons you would assume.

My only issue could have been corrected by simply flipping the second- and fourth-place finishers. That would have left Mark Ingram as the winner, Ndamukong Suh second, Colt McCoy third, Toby Gerhart fourth and Tim Tebow fifth.

As great a season as Gerhart has had, most of his stats came against Pac-10 defenses. He deserved the trip to New York, but he had no business in the top two.

Suh, meanwhile, put up the most dominant season by an interior lineman in recent memory, and he definitely earned a spot somewhere in the top three along with Ingram and McCoy.

One more brief college football note: The Big 10 announced plans this week to consider expansion, with Notre Dame as the most obvious target.

Could there possibly be a more direct way to put a lot of mediocre football on two dedicated TV channels than by adding Notre Dame to the Big 10?

And would that conference be guaranteed two BCS spots, one for the league winner and one for Notre Dame with eight or fewer losses?

"Through zeal, knowledge is gotten; through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost."

Buddha

Jeremy A. Corley is the managing editor of the Van Alstyne Leader and The Anna-Melissa Tribune.