Cagle World

I hope the document remains locked away unused for many years, but my brother and I finally got around to meeting with a lawyer and helping our mother make out her last will and testament.

I’m not going to knock it if you download a cheap do-it-yourself template from the internet, but don’t be surprised if your Hummel collection winds up in the hands of a Nigerian prince!

Yes, a professionally prepared will is the second-best way to make your explicit wishes known to your family, surpassed only by letting the Houston Astros pick up on your signals and relay them. (“Mom wants me to get the antique chest of drawers – or a curveball. Can’t quite make out the banging.”)

Dictating a will is one of many things that well-meaning folks procrastinate about. That’s why so many wills – after the kicking and screaming subsides – start out with “I leave to my eldest son my collection of batteries, which I never got around to putting into the smoke alarm. And his sister gets the closetful of pristine dental floss!”

People don’t relish slogging through all the minutiae and legalese of a will. Those who get their jollies discussing “appurtenances,” “codicils” and “testators” probably didn’t produce many heirs, anyway. Lots of restraining orders, but not many heirs.

Most of us live in denial of our own mortality, but it’s not just the person leaving an estate who slows down the process. No one looks forward to the headaches that go with being executor and paying “all my just debts.”

Creditors invariably crawl out of the woodwork before the ink on the obituary is dry. (“*Ahem* On its way to the out-of-network emergency room with the deceased, our ambulance did pass up three walk-in clinics, a faith-healing church and a Boy Scout feeling pretty darned confident about his fifth attempt at earning his first-aid merit badge.”)

Of course, a well-prepared will should include a clause about “being of sound mind and disposing memory.” Granted, this claim comes into doubt when the items bequeathed include “my collection of tin-foil hats and my autographed picture of the Yeti.”

Yes, people supposedly have their wits about them when they first make out a will; but revisions apparently kill brain cells, if all those murder-mystery shows are accurate. (“I thought you’d turned over a new leaf, but you’re still a total disappointment to me! I’m writing you out of my will! Here, hold this heavy blunt object. I’m going to descend the long, winding, grease-spattered staircase and drive the car – the one you adjusted the brakes on – to my attorney’s office!”)

A will is not a cure-all for quelling family animosity, but at least the state won’t come in and divvy up your property in ways you never imagined. (“Here is $75,000 from your great-aunt. While we’re at it, we’re going to seize your AR-15s and give you a voucher for a charter school.”)

We tried to be comprehensive with our mother’s paperwork. Besides the will, we also had the lawyer draw up documents for financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney and a living will.

Stop making excuses and get the paperwork done. You’ll derive priceless peace of mind from having all the bases covered.

Even if the Houston Astros know you have all the bases covered before YOU do.

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

“Middlebrow.”

I sit typing this column on the 20th anniversary of the massive heart attack that took the life of my father, and “middlebrow” is one of the words that pops into my mind when remembering Dad.

Except for learning the skills of a medic during his year in the United States Army and taking a Dale Carnegie “How To Win Friends and Influence People” course while in the insurance business, Dad had no formal education beyond being the salutatorian of the Marshall County (Tennessee) High School class of 1943. But he was a voracious reader (history, highbrow classic literature, newspapers, Bennett Cerf jokebooks, B.W. Johnson’s Notes on the New Testament, “Reader’s Digest”) his entire life and displayed a healthy balance between “book learnin’” and common sense.

Dad expressed no resentment for classmates and kinfolk who moved cross-country for employment. He made many newcomers feel welcome when he was selling real estate. But his own happiness involved a simple life of exhibiting his kindness, generosity and problem-solving skills in his hometown.

Dad was much more extroverted than I am, but he commanded attention without being needy and domineering. Dad was a character, but he also HAD character – a distinction that is lost on many attention-seekers.

Dad relished deep thoughts and marched to the beat of a different drummer. but it was a very natural, easy-going pace. It was not a deliberate effort to be a chip-on-the-shoulder cantankerous coot or “weird for the sake of being weird” hipster.

Dad believed in an honest day’s work (sometimes physical, sometimes cerebral) for an honest day’s pay. He would be appalled by the hordes of people who clamor for “something for nothing” – as well as by well-connected manipulators who exploit the masses through crony capitalism.

Dad practiced the Old School traits of plugging along and “doing the right thing,” as contrasted with the current trend toward narcissistic, no-skin-in-the-game “virtue signaling.”

Dad tried his best to be a peacemaker and treat everyone the same. He did not spend every waking moment trying to verbally nuke the enemy or conjure ever-narrower subgroups of aggrieved parties.

Perhaps it’s a blessing that Dad has been spared the past two decades of polarization. On one side is an overabundance of over-educated, smarmy, silver-spoon elitists who dictate how the commoners should live. On the other side is a growing underclass of “here, hold my beer” nitwits who wallow in their ignorance and their crassness and give renewed life to the worst stereotypes.

This great nation owes much of its prosperity to people infused with wanderlust, who made fame and fortune the driving force of their lives. But the glue that holds America together is good, decent people who stay informed and try on a modest scale to make their families, churches, neighborhoods and communities a little better. Middlebrow citizens.

There are many pundits, celebrities and movers-and-shakers who catch my attention. But I have never daydreamed, “What if HE had been my father?” On the contrary, it has been a priceless comfort over the years to have people ask me, “Who was your daddy?” and when I tell them, they gush, “He was a good man,” instead of murmuring “Oh” and abruptly changing the subject.
Edwin Lewis Tyree was one of a kind and irreplaceable.

And I hope future generations produce millions more people just like him!

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Spending a rainy Saturday afternoon reminiscing over congratulatory keepsakes stored in the attic. Clutching vintage Valentines purchased at an estate sale. Sorting through all those shoeboxes of yellowing mementoes in your late great-aunt Sadie’s House Where Time Stood Still.

(Mementoes as in “reminders that great-aunt Sadie spent all your inheritance on mothballs”!)

I’m afraid future generations will encounter fewer and fewer such heart-warming experiences.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal story, sales of paper greeting cards have declined 13 percent in the past five years. An increasing number of people in all age groups are relying on ephemeral texts and social media to commemorate major milestones such as births, weddings, anniversaries, promotions, graduations, achieving just the right lighting for this week’s selfie with the Egg McMuffin, etc.

Small greeting card companies are running scared, and even industry leader Hallmark is slashing costs and refocusing its attention on internet business.

Many of the independent owners of Hallmark brick-and-mortar locations are closing up shop, as Hallmark brainstorms opening retail outlets inside venues such as hospitals and hardware stores. (Surely there will be a joint-venture musical card that plays “If I had a hammer…I’d fix your porch before you break the OTHER leg, knucklehead.”)

To its credit, the company is also overhauling its phone app to make it easier to buy and send personalized paper cards. But considering recent news about software glitches, don’t be surprised if they wind up killing trees just to send out messages like “Congratulations on your bar mitzvah – or winning the Iowa Democratic caucus. One of those. I think. Runner-up mitzvah?”

People are busy and cost-conscious and dealing with commitment issues. In 1944 Hallmark launched the “When you care enough to send the very best” slogan. Nowadays, consumers are more like “When you care enough to tell your 13-year-old to tell Alexa to send your best friend from college whatever kind of emoji conveys ‘Losing all your children, pets and limbs in a house fire has gotta be a bummer, man.'”

Ergonomics has become an issue. No one has the patience to get writer’s cramp scrawling mushy sentiments for snail-mailing cross-country. Not when they can spill all their innermost thoughts (and their credit card number) to some potbellied, bearded chatroom “hottie” in Russia.

People have gotten hooked on free news apps instead of newspapers and magazines and free streaming media in place of CDs and DVDs. It’s only natural that greeting cards also suffer the movement away from physical objects. According to a trusted pediatric journal, the leading cause of constipation in the United States is people stubbornly holding out for the invention of virtual toilet paper.

I fear for the welfare of those greeting-card writers who had been making a living digging deep into their souls to express lofty sentiments. (Granted, lofty sentiments that are often drowned out by Junior screaming, “Grandma forgot to put the check in the card – AGAIN. Can’t we put her in a home?” – but lofty sentiments, nonetheless.)

*Sigh* I feel a little poorer because of the passing of the golden age of greeting cards, but we have bigger things to worry about.

Like those giant mutant silverfish that built up an immunity to great-aunt Sadie’s mothballs! Our only hope: if Lacey Chabert or Candace Cameron Bure can hitch them to a sleigh in a Hallmark Channel movie!

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Readers of fine newspapers may recall that last July I unleashed a tirade titled “Slow drivers: are they driving you insane?”

Several readers offered a “Yes, but…” response. They acknowledged the irritating nature of slowpokes but suggested I should devote equal (or greater) time to denouncing speed demons.

So, for the sake of fairness (and because my son is currently taking Driver’s Education and because I’ve started pondering how many of my clobbered pets would have died of natural causes if all motorists drove at safe speeds in residential areas), I’m making a U-turn and activating my blue light for those colorful scamps on the other extreme of the speed spectrum.

Perhaps the classic road hog is the joker who tailgates you, flashes his headlights, passes you on a double yellow line approaching a blind curve – and then makes a left turn 50 yards down the road! Here’s hoping that he doesn’t spill the potato salad in his valiant quest to arrive three seconds sooner for his Hot-headed Half-Wits reunion.

What makes people pull these scofflaw shenanigans? Poor time management is one cause of “lead foot syndrome.” Here’s an idea: maybe if you’d invest less in “rich Corinthian leather” and more in a decent alarm clock, you wouldn’t find yourself shaving or applying cosmetics while hurtling along foggy streets, just to have three extra minutes to whine about HOW YOU HATE EVERY STINKIN’ MINUTE AT YOUR JOB.

I know many speeders are rebels at heart and think their flouting of posted speed limits is Sticking It to the Man, but often it’s more like Wrapping It Around the Oak Tree in the Man’s Front Yard.

Yes, some adrenaline junkies simply don’t feel alive unless they’re “straightenin’ the curves, flattenin’ the hills.” Like the Dukes of Hazzard, they fancy themselves to be true modern-day Robin Hoods. Except they rob from their emergency fund and give to the collision-repair center!

I realize some drivers aspire to establish a LEGACY via their high-speed high jinks (their 15 Gallons of Fame, as it were), but they are essentially Proving Nothing to Nobody. (“You mean YOU don’t remember me squalling tires at 1:15 a.m. on November 14, 2014 either??? I’m hitching a U-Haul to my Mustang and gettin’ outta this burg! The whole town of Lower East Podunk has developed AMNESIA!”)

Some drivers are simply sociopaths who think the world owes them a living, their fun trumps everything else and the rest of humanity is just in their way. Forgive me if my obeying the speed limit makes them late for their job interview for a position HANDLING HIGH EXPLOSIVES.

One hopes that these charming individuals would at least honor school zones, but their reassurances are not encouraging. (“Of course, I’ll behave. I believe the children are our future. And I’m about to break the time barrier and find out for sure. Yee-haa!”)

My late father-in-law was always in denial about the danger he posed to himself and others by driving aggressively. Sadly, people who have been protected by guardian angels (UP TO THIS POINT) tend to be defensive and snarky about their continued safety.

I hope that doesn’t describe anyone in YOUR family.

If a guilty party does spring to mind, I hope they’ll get their head out of a certain bodily orifice before the coroner gets summoned to do it for them.

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Just because a mentor starts unconsciously humming Motown tunes during a heart-to-heart talk with you about temptations, that doesn’t mean his advice is irrelevant.

A church in Cottage Grove, Minnesota has made national headlines because of an audacious “In order to save the village, we had to destroy it” strategy to rebrand itself.
The church plans to close its doors in June and reboot itself in the fall, with a new focus on young families with children.

All well and good, except church leadership has been asking its older members to “take one for the team” and haul their intimidating old carcasses to some alternative congregation, out of sight of hoped-for newbies. A couple of years down the road, the outcasts can meekly beseech their former congregation to let them darken its doorway again.

The Bible tells us that God has the hairs of our heads numbered. And apparently church strategists maintain a database on their degree of GRAYNESS.

To think, theologians have debated the exact nature of the Mark of the Beast for nearly 2,000 years, and now we have it narrowed down to either DOUBLE CHINS or VARICOSE VEINS!

We are told that Christians are supposed to be a “new creature” when converted, but where in the scripture does it also say they must remain as CUTE as Baby Yoda?

The Minnesota church’s governing body supposedly AGONIZED over the decision to pander to youth. Not in the way older members might have agonized over rotting in a North Vietnamese P.O.W. camp or having a sibling with polio, but at least as much as someone agonizing over the public wi-fi flickering while they’re posting daredevil videos on TikTok.

This is undeniably one of those situations where decision-makers should humbly ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” My guess is that He would send patriarch Methuselah back to earth to share 969 years’ worth of folksy anecdotes with policy makers. (“Oy! Great-great-great-great-great grandmother Eve and her ill-fated #BelieveAllSerpents phase!”)

As someone who has spent nearly 40 years growing in knowledge and empathy by teaching an adult Bible class (with THREE GENERATIONS of one family sharing a pew in my current class), I hope this segregation mania doesn’t spread throughout the religious world.

You need a few seasoned worshippers who have learned reverence, patience and genuine remorse. Who wants to hear prayers filled with “My bad” and “So, there’s free one-hour delivery on that prayer request, right?”

Look for doctrine to continue being watered down in a youth-worshipping church. If young couples can’t stomach the smell of Old Spice cologne and home-baked cookies, they’re sure not going to tolerate fire and brimstone.

Will exporting the seniors be enough to make church attractive to twentysomethings? Or will the duty of ushers transform into helping members hook up to a zip line? Will communion wafers be replaced with Tide Pods? Will hymnals ditch “The Old Rugged Cross” for “The Revolutionary Moisturizing Cross”? Will the raising of Lazarus be truncated as “Lazarus was woke”?

Hiding the seniors supposedly helps churches grow, but just how evangelical will a congregation be if parishioners are afraid to knock on doors because of the level of decrepitude they may encounter? (“The crone who opened the door could write in cursive! And divine occult meaning from an analog clock! Forget a new auditorium Jumbotron – we need an EXORCIST on staff!”)

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

I don’t know much about wine (although my late classmate Tracy Holder gave a hilarious rendition of Richard Pryor’s “Wino Directing Traffic on a Sunday Morning” routine during a long-ago high school program), but I do know catchy headlines when I see them.

And lately I’ve seen lots of headlines with reporters blowing their cork over tough times in the wine industry.

The industry tracker International Wines and Spirits Record (IWSR) says Americans bought less wine last year, the first such drop in 25 years. (I wonder what precipitated that previous dip? Maybe a sudden realization like “Dang! The country is doing so well, I could be stuck in the White House with Hillary for another term! Time to break out the hard stuff!”)

I should point out that it’s the cheap (under $10) wines that are suffering the decline in sales volume. The premium stuff is still being snapped up by wine snobs with discriminating palates. (*Sigh* Yes, yes, that was when your grandfather got carried off by a tornado, your wife developed amnesia and the sinkhole swallowed the town’s only employer; but other than that, you have to admit it was a VERY GOOD YEAR.”)

Although baby boomers have done their share of cutting back on wine consumption recently (“NOT okay, boomer!” vineyard owners nationwide shout), most of the softening is attributed to millennials, who are opting for alternatives such as hard seltzers, cocktails, nonalcoholic beers and just drinking in all the free stuff Bernie will pull out of his magic bag. (“Okay, you don’t want wine – here’s a free Keurig coffee maker, made out of recycled paper.”)

Let’s face it: although wine has been popular for millennia (as evidenced by early tribes hunting, gathering and then trying to remember where they PUT all the stuff they hunted and gathered), for the past several decades, sales have been artificially propped up by hype about the alleged health benefits of the beverage. (“That Thuggee who had his heart ripped out in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’? His heart would still be beating today if he had just sipped a little Cabernet Sauvignon before the human sacrifice scene!”)

But recent medical research gives a much more tentative nod to the theoretical benefits of wine, while also raising concerns about the link between alcohol and cancer. Suddenly, all the “too good to be true” health guidelines we’ve depended on are being gutted. Stealing office supplies? No longer a sure thing for preventing Type 2 diabetes. Driving without using your turn signal? Proven mostly ineffective at battling plantar fasciitis by the Mayo Clinic.

Consumers’ nagging doubts about wine are bubbling to the surface. Some cultures and individuals have always accepted fermented grape juice as one of life’s little joys, but other people have always been defensive about their drinking. You’ll notice that the ones who are the first to invoke Jesus turning water into wine are the most adept at turning a PAYCHECK into an EVICTION NOTICE.

Still, wine may prove more resilient than the headlines imply. Increased online sales could compensate for recent downward trends. And industry experts are confident that millennials will eventually mimic past generations and drink more wine as they age.

Richard Pryor would have liked that kind of Sunday morning.

“Hey, fool! You kids better stop comin’ across my lawn like you crazy!”

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Did you realize that January 19 marks the 100th birthday of that indefatigable advocacy group the American Civil Liberties Union?

People have a visceral reaction to the inescapable headlines about the ACLU; you either love it or hate it. (As in “Yay! I’m being protected from racial profiling” versus “But I didn’t KNOW using the Lord’s name around a SCHOOL of fish was a violation of the separation of church and state!”)

For a full century, the group has worked tirelessly to defend the Constitution of the United States.  Of course, their courting of activist judges shows they view it as a “living document” (unless its mommy doesn’t want it living anymore).

The ACLU wants everyone to enjoy human dignity and breathe freely. (“If your breathing is a tad nonexistent, we can still file an injunction and get you a voter registration card.”)

The nonprofit organization undeniably leans to the left, but its role in society is much more nuanced than that.

Yes, the ACLU supports affirmative action, adoptions by LGBTQ parents, the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling and bans on school-sanctioned prayers. But it has also worked with the National Rifle Association to prevent creation of a national gun registry, supported the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC (which allowed corporations and unions more political speech rights) and opposes state censorship of Confederate flags.

Is there a single American who doesn’t owe at least a GRUDGING “thank you” to the ACLU, whether it be for the Miranda rights of the accused, more humane treatment of mental illness or attempts to apply the brakes to a government surveillance state?

No one should automatically think of the ACLU as “the enemy,” because we never know when we might have to go running to them for help. (Running – and hopping over the sidewalk piles of excrement left by transient ACLU clients, but running nonetheless.)

We’re not really a nation of ingrates. It’s just that, to some segments of society, the ACLU seems to be photo-bombing every single issue more serious than the color of the dog catcher’s badge. Besides volunteers, they employ nearly 300 staff lawyers. As the saying goes, “When your only tool is 300 lawyers, every job starts to look like 300 lawsuits.”

Citizens outside the groups most often catered to by the ACLU are glad the organization did the heavy lifting on certain labor laws or housing laws 10, 25, 50 years ago. But right now, they view them like a hazmat team that cleans up a nuclear power plant meltdown and then hangs around indefinitely to nitpick. (“You’re not going to leave that paper clip lying around at an OCD-triggering angle, are you, dude?”)

Sometimes the ACLU does get a little overzealous, as in its unbridled push for immigrant rights – bending over backward for the alien who harvests your lettuce, the alien who raises your kids, the alien who pops out of your chest… (“Don’t worry. We’ve gotten a restraining order against Sigourney Weaver!”)

But, seriously, folks – I’m glad the ACLU exists. It would be a scary world if any single viewpoint ran roughshod over everything else.

The ACLU has been part of the “give and take” of American life for a century, and I hope it’s still here in another hundred years. Maybe I’ll vote to give them a bicentennial grant. Twice.

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Coyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Note: This bonus column was first published in January 2010.

If you think the Baker Street Irregulars are a group of Ex-Lax test subjects, this may not be the column for you. But if the mention of the group brings a knowing smile, you probably join me in celebrating the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary detective Sherlock Holmes has been thrust back into the forefront of public awareness by the new Robert Downey Jr. movie.

Although Gene Wilder’s character Sigerson Holmes in the 1975 spoof “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother” referred to Sherlock as “Sheer Luck,” Holmes, of course, has been a tremendous influence on “CSI” and other programs featuring forensic science. You can see the influence in the use of fingerprints, the use of ballistics, the use of handwriting, the use of toxicology — but mostly in the fact that after eight years Holmes replaced Dr. Watson with Laurence Fishburne.

I admire Holmes’ eccentricities. In the first Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet,” Holmes revealed that he did not know whether the earth revolved around the sun or vice versa because the information was unimportant to his work, and the mind has a finite capacity for information storage. That certainly seems to be the case with today’s electorate. (“Mmm…government handouts good… of course someday someone will have to, um, do something or another… can’t remember what…. Mmm…government handouts good…”)

Conan Doyle’s successors have presented Holmes at different ages (as a boarding school student in “Young Sherlock Holmes”), in non-British locales (“Sherlock Holmes In New York”), even in futuristic eras (the animated TV series “Sherlock Holmes In The 22nd Century”). But I can’t imagine Holmes operating effectively in 2010. How long would he get to wear his distinctive deerstalker cap before PETA put a stop to it? (“I say, Watson, that miscreant’s bullet nearly creased my do-rag!”) He would assuredly be required to soothe the Hound of the Baskervilles with a doggie sweater and chew toy.

How long before a 2010 Holmes got busted for profiling suspects? (“I happen to be a member of the Furtive Characters with Distinctive Clay on The Heel of the Left Boot. We are a recognized minority group, and my lawyer will be talking to you in the morning.”)

Holmes aficionados are quick to point out that Holmes never uttered the familiar phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” in any of the canonical four books and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle. Non-aficionados are quick to point out, “Yes, thanks for sharing. But our Trivial Pursuit category happens to be ‘Sports,’ Mr. Observant! And what the heck is a Hail Moriarty pass?”

Conan Doyle allowed his hero to retire to Sussex Downs to take up beekeeping. That seemed to work better than his brief foray into being a standup comedian. (“J’ever notice the tiny scuff mark on the inside of a burglar’s right pinky finger? I mean, what’s up with that?”)

I’m proud to say that Holmes has inspired me to use logic and deduction in my own everyday life. For instance, I know that my paycheck has been directly deposited to my account. I also know that my 401(k) account is fully vested and that my son’s piggy bank is temptingly unguarded. Putting these facts together, I deduce that I can almost afford a jumbo popcorn and drink if I go to see the Sherlock Holmes movie!

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Copyright 2020 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

A recent “Wall Street Journal” article touted New Year’s as one of the optimal “clean slate” times to draft a financial plan. (“Ahem…unless that plan involves something foolhardy like cutting back on a newspaper that costs four dollars an issue. Just wing it. YOLO.”)

The Journal cited a survey from Fidelity Investments, showing that 67% of Americans are considering a New Year’s resolution that relates to their finances (especially saving for retirement).

Alas, half the people who made such resolutions for 2019 failed to keep them. (They’re currently drowning their sorrows with fellow resolvers who still can’t find the walking track or who wander around muttering, “Why didn’t they TELL me there’s more to learning Spanish than using Google Maps to figure out where Pepe’s house is???”)

Several “behavioral economists” contributed life-changing tips to the Journal article. Sure, we could all stand some financial tweaking (furthering our education, seeking a promotion at work, resisting impulse buys) and I’m not here to rain on anybody’s Financial Independence Day parade. But I do understand how daunting it can be to scrimp and save in a meaningful way.

Life comes at you fast – even when it hits all those POTHOLES your hefty property tax increase couldn’t quite fix.

It’s hard to get your financial HOUSE is order when you’re already living in a van down by the river.

I’ve had to devise so many BACKUP plans, I hear “beep beep beep” in my sleep.

Okay, my house is paid for and I have a decent sum in my 401(k) account. But in a world of tariffs, embargoes, union strikes and crop failures, chaos theory still keeps me looking over my shoulder. Time and again I’ve seen it impact the livelihoods of myself or my friends. (“Just got word that a butterfly flapped its wings in Indonesia. We’re going to have to eliminate all overtime and make employees pay for their own coffee creamer. Oh, metamorphosis, you cruel mistress!”)

Sure, the stock market is currently doing well, but it’s hard to get excited about traditional savings accounts. Remember when math teachers celebrated “The Magic of Compound Interest”? Now the only magic is watching inflation saw your hypothetical retirement condo in half!

Yes, we can ditch gas-guzzlers, turn off lights when we leave the room and buy generic canned goods; but some expenses are resistant to the tools of economizing. (“Aw, c’mon…are you sure this coupon code doesn’t work on alimony and child support?”)

We can draw up an optimistic budget at the beginning of the year; but so much lurks beyond rent, utilities and groceries. As we navigate the 366 days of 2020, there will always be someone with a hand out for a wedding gift, someone with a hand out for a graduation gift, someone with a hand out for charitable donation, someone with a hand out for a tip, someone with a hand out for an out-of-network medical bill. If we really want to fix the economy, we need to stop worrying about hands-free phones and hands-free cars and start developing hands-free HUMANS.

Just ignore me. SELF-CONFIDENCE can bulldoze many of the obstacles to thriftiness. Of course, the plan may get off track. (“I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. Hey, I need to hurry and buy a limited-edition train set for my man cave!”)

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Copyright 2019 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.

Do I owe someone an apology for not taking a more active role in the iconic cultural, technological and political developments of the 2010s?

I had good intentions of being a full participant in the decade; but other things kept coming up, and suddenly the 2010s are about to pass the torch to this century’s version of “The Roaring Twenties.”

Where has the time gone? (As the Romans said, “Tempus fugits – but not aboard a Boeing 737 Max, if it can help it!”)

It seems like only yesterday that a boss could playfully slap a subordinate on the buttocks and send her to try FLAGGING DOWN a cab so they could take a leisurely lunchtime tour of Confederate monuments. (“Oh, and let’s buy a new office dictionary while we’re out. This one has way more pronouns than we’ll ever need.”)

It seems like only yesterday that society got its lectures from old guys such as Al Gore and John McCain. Now we have a cottage industry of TEENAGERS lecturing us on gun control, climate change, menopause, Early Bird Specials, hip replacements, varicose veins, Lawrence Welk, etc.

It seems like only yesterday that “taking a knee” was fossil-hunter lingo and a “trigger warning” was something Ralphie’s father gave him in “A Christmas Story.”

It seems like only yesterday that TV was plugging along with its traditional level of unoriginality – blissfully unaware of the tidal wave of reboots, remakes and sequels that was coming. I understand that an updated 10-hour miniseries of Thomas Edison’s five-second 1894 silent movie “Fred Ott’s Sneeze” is in the works. (“Research & Development says, just be sure one of the nostrils is Asian and the other is Hispanic.”)

It seems like only yesterday that journalists were in a less defensive mode. (“According to multiple insider sources, Donald Trump conspired with Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Nicholas to invent the myth of ‘fake news.’”)

It seems like only yesterday that no one was proposing funeral homes be equipped with stationary bikes and Pilates mats in case the deceased IDENTIFIED as still living.

I can’t name a single significant 2010s trend in fashion, architecture or art. I got so wrapped up in daily survival that I never got around to using blockchain, occupying Wall Street, trolling strangers on social media, playing Fortnite, initiating a hashtag, binge-watching anything, listening to Bruno Mars or post-country Taylor Swift, watching the antics of Honey Boo Boo, taking sides in the NFL’S Tom Brady “deflategate” controversy or having anything to do with “50 Shades of Grey” (including whatever that gluten-free blob in the back corner of the refrigerator is).

But I’m sure my theoretical grandchildren will someday take it for granted that I did all those things, while hobnobbing with Elon Musk. Just like youngsters now think Ike Eisenhower sent the National Guard to make sure every single American used a coonskin cap and a Hula Hoop.

I have tried keeping a sense of humor, which I am assured is a bad thing. (“Inscriptions show that the ancient Mesopotamians engaged in “Yo’ momma is so idolatrous…” jokes. Therefore, humor is cultural appropriation and….”)

Yes, the 2010s have been a little unnerving for someone who came of age in the 70s. I keep juxtaposing the eras and suffer nightmares about Evel Knievel sustaining critical injuries while trying to jump a MAN BUN with his motorcycle!

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Copyright 2019 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.