When deciding on the lead-in to this article, I first thought of Dickens “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Then I thought of something a bit more contemporary, the Grateful Dead’s “What a long strange trip its been”. (I recognize that the reference to the Grateful Dead as “more contemporary” might date me. But compared to Dickens, I think it the Dead are relatively contemporary.)
But I decided that the only appropriate intro was from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
”There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good, she was very very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.