Cagle World

My Lab puppy, Thurber, makes me laugh out loud every day.

The writing life requires you to sit still for long periods of time, but those days are long gone.

As I write this column — attempt to write it, that is — my seven-and-a-half-month-old buddy keeps dropping his ball at my feet, hoping to get me to play with him.

Which makes me laugh out loud.

He usually doesn’t give up until I take him outside for a good run — or we go to the park, so he can greet strangers with enthusiastic joy.

I knew getting a dog would change my daily routine, but I had no idea how much he would change and brighten up my life.

I didn’t realize until after he arrived five and one-half months ago, but I used to go for days without laughing — certainly without laughing out loud.

Now Thurber’s antics make me laugh so hard and so often, I can only imagine how much public civility would be improved if everyone in our country could experience the daily joy he brings me.

Civility is “the foundational virtue of citizenship,”  developmental psychologist Marilyn Price-Mitchell wrote a decade ago in Psychology Today.

It’s behavior “that recognizes the humanity of others, allowing us to live peacefully together in neighborhoods and communities.”

She explained that the psychological elements of civility include awareness, respect, self-control and empathy — the very characteristics a professional dog trainer is currently helping me develop in Thurber.

Empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another — is certainly a skill we Americans are losing in our increasingly isolated, angry, social-media-driven world.

But pets like my best buddy Thurber can help bring us together and help us restore our argumentative nation to a civil, well-functioning republic.

Child development specialist Denise Daniels explains in The Washington Post that “emotional intelligence,” or EQ, is a measure of empathy.

She points to the findings of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, which researches EQ and teaches people how to improve it, and notes that a high EQ score is the best indicator of a child’s success — as well as an adult’s.

Which brings us back to the value of pets.

Daniels writes that a variety of research in the U.S. and U.K. has shown a correlation between attachment to a pet and higher empathy scores.
I know my buddy Thurber has certainly improved my empathy and EQ score.

I didn’t realize that my emotions for the little guy would run so deep, or that I would work so hard and do so many things to give him the happiest, healthiest life he can experience.

Plus, everywhere we go — and he loves few things more than jumping into the backseat of my truck — he makes total strangers smile, laugh and converse with me.

His simple presence can bring human strangers together.

He not only makes us forget the petty human world — for a little while, at least — but he reminds us that a simple but magnificent creature like him can turn the most hardened souls back into an empathic, laughing, happy children.

As I work hard to train Thurber to be a great dog who exhibits compassion, self-discipline, courtesy and empathy, he is training me right back to improve all of those very same skills.

I can no longer imagine what my world would be like without my lovable Labrador enriching it for me — and everyone else who meets him every day.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

August has long been the best month of the year to escape the daily grind and forget our worries.

It’s been a great month to hit the beach or take a long road trip and forget, for just a little while, the inanities of our increasingly angry and divided politics.

But not anymore.

The COVID bug, which for 18 months has decimated our economy and disrupted our daily lives, is making a “delta variant” comeback.

Just like the bad guy Jason in the “Friday the 13th” movies, the coronavirus simply will not die, keeping all of us in a state of worry, agitation and division.

Our separation into warring political tribes is being both driven and highlighted by the daggone variant, which WebMD.com reports is “now the dominant strain in the U.S.”

The delta variant is a COVID-19 mutation that isn’t as deadly as the original bug but it spreads much more quickly.

“The strain has mutations on the spike protein that make it easier for it to infect human cells,” says WebMD.com. “That means people may be more contagious if they contract the virus and more easily spread it to others.”

WebMD further reports that people who have not been vaccinated are more likely to be infected by this strain — that U.S. communities with low vaccination rates have seen a jump in cases.

But, in these wildly divisive times, the COVID vaccine has become another political football.

Crazy conspiracy theories abound.

A study by the YouGuv.com marketing company, reports the Insider, found that 20 percent of Americans believe that it is “definitely true” or “probably true” that there is a microchip implanted in the COVID-19 vaccines.

Wacky conspiracy theories are not the public’s only source of misinformation.

Our government leaders and public health experts have also sewn distrust with their “evolving” advice on masks, off-and-on-again lockdowns and the danger to school kids.

New York Times columnist Brett Stephens is critical of misinformation presented by immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci pertaining to herd immunity and other COVID truths.

“The impact of this misinformation on everyday life has been immense …” Stephens argued. “The credibility of public-health experts depends on the understanding that the job of informing the public means offering the whole truth, uncertainties included, rather than offering Noble Lies in the service of whatever they think the public needs to hear.”

As a result of this failure to communicate clearly and straightforwardly, 93 million Americans who are eligible to get the vaccine have not gotten it, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A lot of people say they are refusing to get the vaccine for reasons that have nothing to do with their politics or microchip implants, as the New York Times reports.

The top reasons, says the Times, were that they were worried about the vaccine’s side-effects. They are waiting to see if it is safe and didn’t trust vaccines or the government.

Alas, gone are the days when a tragic event or crisis brings us together.

Here to stay, I worry, is the incredible political polarization with which we now respond to all of our problems.

What our country could use this August is a long week relaxing at the beach, where we can try to restore our ability to calmly and intelligently work out our challenges.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

Maybe croquet could improve the ratings for the 2021 Summer Olympics?

Please allow me to explain.

The COVID-delayed 2020 Olympics are on track to be the lowest watched games of the 21st century, according to marketing research firm Zeta Global.

The company has found that “More than 60 percent of Americans were unable to express excitement or interest in the summer games, and at least 45 percent of Americans confirmed they are NOT looking forward to the Games in any capacity.”

That’s a shame, to be sure. Billions of yen have been spent by the Japanese to host the Games.

And the finest athletes in the world — gymnasts and sprinters to skateboarders — have been preparing their entire lives for these competitions. Their excellence and dedication alone should motivate us to tune in.

But a combination of COVID concerns and woke athletes using their platform for political protests has dampened enthusiasm for the Summer Games for the average American.

So why not bring back croquet?

Most people have played the game at a picnic or backyard barbecue. None of us were ever very good at it, and it gets pretty complicated if you want to play by the official rules.

But I bet many people would enjoy watching well-practiced pros play it in the Olympics.

Croquet, variations of which are played around the world, is not unprecedented as an Olympic sport. It was included in the 1900 games, but never made the Olympics schedule again.

I admit it’s not exactly an exciting contact sport, or much of a sport at all, but that makes it a perfect game for a modern-day Olympics.

For starters, croquet is as egalitarian as any sport can get and is so simple anyone can play it — young, old, male, female.

Imagine an octogenarian “striker” from Wales wearing black socks and sandals competing against a 10-year-old heiress from Beverly Hills or a sheik from Qatar.

If that doesn’t sound like compelling TV, I don’t know what does.

Seriously though, in these touchy political times when everyone is so easily offended by everything, maybe croquet could cool things down and bring us back to our senses.

If a striker in a televised croquet match were to take a knee to signal a political protest for the cameras, for instance, nobody would know.

Viewers might think she was merely tying her croquet shoes or eyeing up the best pathway to knock the wooden ball through a hoop with her mallet.

Croquet is a civilized game, but on an amateur level it can get intensely competitive, especially after a few beers.

Friendly matches have been known to cause heated disputes resulting in family members not talking to each other for months.

But most of the game’s best backyard moments involve some sort of comic relief.

I’ve seen unruly players, including my beer-bellied Uncle John, get so frustrated they eventually yell “fore!” and smack the ball into the weeds or a neighbor’s yard.

Though I joke about putting croquet on the Olympics schedule, watching a few hours of the laid-back game on TV would bring much needed levity and calm to a COVID-wracked world that is in dire need of both.

After all, in what other sport, during the heat of battle, is it possible to consume hot dogs and potato salad?

Plus, as far as I am concerned, any athletic event that has a legitimate reason for players to say “hold my beer” is one I’m going to enjoy.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

Car buyers are getting crushed by the rapid increase in the cost of new and used cars, but my dad’s old-school negotiating techniques might offer some relief.

Thanks to the rippling effects of the pandemic and the lockdowns, it’s harder to find a new car to buy in the first place.

As USA Today explains, our current car troubles started with a global shortage of the computer chips that power the magical products that connect, transport and entertain us.

As chip plants were shut down last year and demand for consumer-electronics products soared, the chip shortage got increasingly worse.

Now it’s so bad that USA Today says the auto industry has been forced to shut down its factories “because there aren’t enough chips to finish building vehicles that are starting to look like computers on wheels.”

Some dealers are using the shortage to charge far above sticker price for new cars — justifying the practice because, they say, they now have fewer new cars to generate the profits needed to cover their operating expenses.

In response to this sticker shock, more car shoppers have begun searching for used vehicles — causing their prices to jump too.

CNN reports that through May used car prices had shot up 30 percent in the previous 12 months — almost breaking the previous record one-year increase set in 1975.

More young people are using online car-buying services, such as Cars.com, Shift, Vroom and Carvana, to buy used cars.

I wonder if a non-economic trend is at work here that has some part in abetting the spike in car prices: that fewer Americans are willing to negotiate face-to-face with salespeople to get the best possible deals.

According to Newsweek, the pandemic pushed car dealers to step up online sales and eliminate “what millennials (and others) dreaded: showroom visits that averaged five hours, haggling, paperwork, and high-pressure pitches for add-on products like wheel and tire insurance.”

No haggling? No paperwork? No batting down the sneaky tactics some high-pressure dealers try to use on you?

That financial and psychological combat, as I learned from my dad, is the best part of buying a car!

I remember going with him to dealerships when he bought a new or used car.

He’d don his car-buying uniform — worn pants, paint-stained shoes and an old coat with rips in the elbows — and we’d visit four or five dealers.

As closing time neared, we’d find a dealer — tired of having the guy in the beat-up clothes in the show room — who’d give my dad a deal that was usually a few thousand bucks less than what they took the prior customer for.

Today, technology has definitely improved transparency in the car-buying process.

Savvy consumers can use lots of online tools and resources, such as Edmunds, to evaluate asking prices on specific models and determine if a dealer’s prices are high or low.

To be sure, I always use these new weapons when I purchase vehicles. But I prefer to blend them with the old-school techniques mastered by my father.

I bring my laptop computer and smartphone with me when I visit car dealerships.

I wear shabby clothes. I bring lunch. And I enjoy every moment of the haggling process to get the price of the car down as low as I can get it.

I’m afraid the art of car haggling — which is dying way too fast for me — is yet another victim of a pandemic that has changed too many other prized traditions forever.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

It’s an old dream of mine and I just may do it: Buy a travel trailer and live on the American road for weeks at a time.

Recreational vehicle living is a growing trend, particularly for younger people, who, post-Covid, prefer to work at home instead of commuting to their company’s office building.

Thanks to technology, your “home office” can now be in an RV parked next to a rushing creek in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve been critical of the downsides of digital innovation, which has given us social media tools that cause many of us to embrace narrower viewpoints and become intolerant of anyone who disagrees with us.

But here’s the big upside:

All anyone needs now to live on the road is an RV with a solar panel and a cell phone that can provide a WiFi signal.

That will allow anyone anywhere to access his company’s computer network, manage his finances and life online, and relax in the evening by watching hundreds of channels of television through streaming services.

Better yet, technology is also enabling many of us to make our livings in unconventional ways.

One family, reports CNBC, sold two houses, purchased an RV and is making a handsome living filing blog reports about its travels.
As a long-time provider of communications and cybersecurity services, I’ve been able to work remotely for years. So why not hit the road with my Labrador buddy, Thurber?

I’m searching daily for a modest RV that would meet my basic needs, which pretty much amounts to a small table where I can sit and write.

Why not visit family and friends scattered all over the country? I can park in their driveway as long as I want or return to my house anytime I want.

Why not take an extended trip to Alaska, a long-time dream, or to Nova Scotia, another place I’ve always wanted to explore?

At this moment, I’m really longing for a visit to the ocean. The sound of large waves splashing has always held a restorative power for me. Every time I visit the Atlantic Ocean, my blood pressure drops and a calm comes over me.

The biggest upside to the growing RVing trend, though, will benefit our testy society.

RV-ing will help open minds and hearts by enabling people to have conversations with other people face-to-face around a campground bonfire, rather than swapping snarky insults while hiding behind the safety of a computer screen.

Author Ken Stern, formerly president of National Public Radio, wrote a great road book in 2017 describing the year he spent outside of his politically “parochial” urban East Coast neighborhood.

He set out to meet people across the American Heartland who he had considered wrong-headed on a variety of issues — until he sat down and actually talked with them.

Stern discovered that Americans of all backgrounds have a much more nuanced understanding of their country and the world — and that our country would benefit from re-embracing the art of conversation.

I’m hankering to do just that.

I dream of parking my truck and travel trailer right on the beach at Assateague Island, MD. It only costs 30 bucks a night.

I’ll wake early to make a pot of fresh coffee. I’ll sip it from a mug as I walk along the beach with my dog as the sun rises.
As I think about making this my new reality, I can already feel my blood pressure dropping.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

Every night, just before bed, he’d thank his bride of 70 years for giving him another wonderful day on Earth.

That was the sweet-hearted nature of Jack Krieger, my family’s next-door neighbor for more than 30 years.

I first met him as a very young boy, shortly after my growing family moved to our brand new suburban house in 1964.

As I grew up, I knew him as the dad of five children, a good neighbor and an usher at our church.

Jack and his wife, Mary, would become lifelong friends with my parents, but I didn’t know the full story of his life until last week.

He was born in 1927, the youngest of four sons, to a homemaker mother and an accountant father.

Baby Jack’s future looked promising — until the economy collapsed and the Great Depression hit his family hard.

His father lost his accounting job at the now defunct Pittsburgh Stock Exchange, then the house, and then the family had to separate and move in with relatives. It took years of struggle before his family was reunited in its own home.

In 1939, when Jack turned 12, the nun who taught his seventh grade class at St. Canice elementary school changed his life when her seating arrangements paired each boy and girl in her class from the best students on down.

Jack was the second smartest boy in his class, so he was seated next to Mary Schertzinger, the second smartest girl.

Jack and Mary’s lifelong friendship commenced and in the 12th grade — after being prodded by the parish priest — Jack finally overcame his shyness and asked Mary on a date.

After high school, Jack entered the Army just as World War II was winding down. After serving two years, he used the GI Bill to pay for an accounting degree. He joined a large aluminum maker in Pittsburgh and he and Mary got married.

Richie arrived a year later, followed by Billy, Nancy, Donny and Linda.

To provide well for his family, Jack worked harder and harder at his job. At his peak he had more than 30 people reporting to him. Sick or not, in 30 years he never missed a day of work.

His parents had died young, as did all three of his older brothers, who died in their 60s. All suffered fatal heart attacks.

He and Mary lived frugally, which gave him the opportunity to retire at 53 and enjoy the rest of his life.

Jack and Mary spent time with family (10 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren), traveled, played cards, went bowling and golfing, and, almost every month, met old friends like my parents for lunch or dinner.

“He always had a smile on his face and brought joy everywhere he went,” my father told me. “He was one of the most decent men I ever met.”

Jack Krieger lived until a few days shy of his 94th birthday. He wasn’t famous or rich.

He was devoted to his surviving wife and his family, paid his bills on time, generously supported charities and his church, and never missed an opportunity to vote.

Our country has flourished because of giants like him — people whose sense of duty, selflessness and example make it possible for the rest of us to enjoy wonderful days on Earth.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

You can become an American citizen by being born in the U.S. or you can become one by getting “naturalized.”

Becoming naturalized is a heck of a lot harder.

It not only means having to meet all the legal and residency requirements Congress has established, it means passing a U.S. civics test that would stump a random cable-news talk show host.

Sadly, based on the results of the civics test they take, naturalized American immigrants understand the uniqueness of their adopted country better that many native-born Americans.

The civics test is an oral exam during which a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) officer asks test-takers 10 questions from a list of 100 possible questions. A passing score requires that six out of ten questions are answered correctly.

Typical questions include: “What does the U.S. Constitution do,” “Name one right or freedom of the First Amendment,” “How many representatives are in the U.S. House?” and so on.

Immigrants in the naturalization process routinely pass the test 91% of the time, demonstrating their strong understanding of our history, the functions of our government and the duties of being an American citizen.

Meanwhile, according to a recent Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation survey, only 40% of native born Americans can pass the same test — a worrisome finding for a representative republic that requires informed and engaged voters so it may thrive.

In 2020 the Trump administration made the U.S. civics test harder.

Test takers were asked 20 questions from a broadened list of 128 possible questions like “Name one of the many things Benjamin Franklin was famous for” and “Name an American innovation.”

Critics warned that the failure rate would increase, making the legal path to citizenship harder, but it didn’t.

The immigrants’ pass rate increased to upwards of 95 per cent. (The Biden administration has since repealed the 2020 test and reverted to the prior 10-question test.)

How can we make native-born Americans as passionate to learn and understand the basic workings of their government as newcomers?

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation believes that the traditional method of teaching American history — “memorization of dates, names and events” — is the crux of the problem.

To address the challenge, the foundation has created the American History Initiative that will use interactive, digital tools — games, videos and graphic novels — to make American history more engaging to young and old.

Such initiatives are to be applauded and we better hope they produce millions of well-informed young people who understand the uniqueness of a country founded upon the moral and political principles of the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate every July Fourth.

We are a country of individuals who are not to be divided by our differences but who should be unified by our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our government was designed to protect these basic human freedoms and our duty as citizens is to make sure our government doesn’t take our rights away.

It’s too bad so few native-born Americans are aware of this sacred duty to themselves and their children.

I think our Independence Day celebrations should start featuring the men and women who come from other countries to become Americans.

The passion of naturalized citizens for their new country will renew the desire of the rest of us to better understand and appreciate our many blessings and motivate us to become better Americans.

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

They called me “The Trail Blazer,” Good Buddy. 

That was my citizens band radio handle in the summer of 1977, when the hit movie “Smokey and the Bandit” created a CB craze and millions of kids like me dreamed of getting one. 

Much to my surprise, my father permitted me to do so — even though I needed to attach a large CB radio antenna to the roof of our house.  

He saw the CB radio as an opportunity for me to learn how to manage my own finances — how to open a bank account, plan ahead, get a job and save money to achieve my goal. 

Too young to work a retail job, I applied for and got the only work available to me: golf-ball picker at a local driving range.  

Until summer arrived, when I could start later in the day and work more hours, I woke at 5:30 a.m. every morning before school and rode my bike two miles to the range.

I was handed an aluminum tool that was as long as a golf club and the shape of a tennis-ball cannister. It had three springs on the bottom. By pressing the tool down onto a golf ball, the springs would retract and the ball would be captured.

I was assigned a section of dewy grass the size of a football field and had one hour to complete the job — for which I was paid one dollar (about $4 in today’s money).  

Needless to say, I was going to have to work many unpleasant mornings to save enough for a CB radio, which, if I remember correctly, was about $130 at the time.

This memory came back to me when I read in a Yahoo News report that, after last summer’s horrible scarcity of summer jobs, there are 1.2 million part-time jobs available — more than 2019’s pre-pandemic numbers.  

But fewer teens are willing to take such jobs.
 
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1978 about 7 in 10 teenagers like me took part-time jobs, but in recent years prior to the pandemic it was down to 4 in 10.

Why? 

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School said it’s because more teens are taking internships or volunteer work to strengthen their college applications. In a sense, that means colleges are punishing kids who choose to work. 

That’s regrettable because summer jobs offer a treasure trove of real-world learning opportunities: how to plan and execute projects, collaborate with different personalities and experience the satisfaction of exchanging your skills and labor for cold hard cash. 

When I got my first paycheck in 1977, I quickly learned that saving up for my CB radio would be even harder than I expected.  

I was introduced to my three silent partners — federal, state and local taxing authorities — who didn’t have to get their sneakers covered with dew to earn a chunk of my $1 hourly wage. 

By the end of the summer, however, I’d finally saved enough to buy my CB radio. It was one of the most rewarding purchases I ever made — because I built up my dignity one lousy golf-ball plunk at a time. 

In the long run, dignity is the biggest reward of a summer job. I highly recommend taking one, Young Buddies. 

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

Need to learn how to unclog a shower drain, jump-start a car, shave your face without bleeding to death or successfully address dozens of other practical adult daily activities?

Rob Kenney offers this kind of basic “dad advice” and millions are tuning into his YouTube channel “Dad, How Do I?” to hear it.

Kenney, who promises his subscribers he’ll do “my best to provide useful, practical content to many basic tasks that everyone should know how to do,” told Buzzfeed he began making YouTube videos after his 27-year-old daughter would call him “with countless ‘adulting’ questions.”

“Every day she was calling me and … I thought, ‘What do other people do when they don’t have that resource?’ ”

Kenny was painfully aware of what it was like to lack a fatherly resource. His parents divorced when he was a child and his father won custody of Kenny and his siblings.

But when his father walked out on the family in 1978, when Kenney was 14, he and his brothers and sisters had to learn “the ropes of adulthood” by themselves, reports the HuffPost.

Prodded by his daughter’s endless “how do I” questions, Kenney created a YouTube channel that teaches young adults the basic life-lessons he missed out on growing up without a father in the house.

Boy, did his video posts strike a chord.

In only a few weeks they went viral. Kenney currently has nearly 3.5 million YouTube subscribers, proving there’s clearly a hunger for the simple “dadvice” that he provides.

My father will be 88 soon and he still tells me about the hunger he has for his father, who died in 1937 when my dad was only three — a hunger I’m unfamiliar with because I am still blessed to have my dad in my life.

After his father died my dad’s mother had to work full time to afford their modest apartment and, unsupervised, my dad was getting into mischief until the football coach persuaded him to join the high school team.

The coach became my dad’s father figure and helped shape him into the solid, reliable dad he would one day become — as well as one heck of a great running back, who would later be inducted into his high school’s sports hall of fame.

My mother’s father also helped shape my father. Grandfather Hartner was a pattern maker and highly skilled with tools.

He understood everything about cars and houses — how to keep a car in tune, fix light switches, repair plumbing, etc. — and he taught my dad the useful skills he’d one day need to keep his busy, 8-person household running smoothly.

My father in turn passed those handyman skills down to me as he helped me to renovate my first house, a complete fixer-upper I was not afraid to buy because of the resourceful dad (and mom) I knew I could rely on.

My dad also taught me how to make sensible decisions managing and saving money and dealing with people — sometimes not very honest people — in business situations.

I feel bad for the kids who lose their dads early, as my dad lost his. I applaud Rob Kenney for helping such kids learn the basic daily skills they need as adults.

I’m eternally thankful for being blessed by my dad’s powerful presence and the practical knowledge he still gives me on how to navigate life’s challenges.

Dad, thanks for teaching me how!

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].

Texting is replacing talking as the preferred form of communication?

According to a recent survey by OpenMarket, 75 percent of millennials chose texting over talking when given the choice between being able only to text versus call on their mobile phone.

To be sure, the powerful digital devices almost everyone is carrying around these days have changed the art of human conversation and the way we relate to each other — and not for the better.

When I was in high school many years ago, my mother encouraged me to take a typewriting course, thinking it would benefit me in my working life — and, boy, did it benefit me as a writer!

I don’t know how many words I can type per minute, but I’m able to put my thoughts onto the screen rapidly by using almost all my fingers on the keyboard.

The arrangement of the keys on a computer keypad is a legacy of the typewriter, which was invented in the 1870s.

The typewriter eventually replaced messy quill pens and paper pads and greatly improved the efficiency of the businesspeople and writers who learned how to use it.

Now we are abandoning an 1870s invention to revert to text messages that we awkwardly compose with opposable thumbs.

Mark Twain used his typewriter to create long, eloquent sentences in his memoir “Life on the Mississippi,” but now humans use texting to bastardize the human language with abbreviated statements that would embarrass a Neanderthal.

“Thag no like text. LOL. :)”

Psychologists say texting can cause “infomania,” which  Dictionary.com. defines as “an obsessive need to constantly check emails, social media, online news, etc.”

Because it causes individuals to “lose concentration as their minds remain fixed in an almost permanent state of readiness to react to technology,” infomania can actually cause you to temporarily lose twice as many IQ points as smoking marijuana.

When I was growing up, the telephone that hung on our kitchen wall was the source of many long conversations.

When it rang everyone in the house was excited to pick it up to chat with whomever was calling.

Now, many people prefer to not answer their mobile phones because they don’t want to be burdened by conversing with another human being.

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco talks about how excited his family used to get 20 years ago when the doorbell rang, and how different our reaction is now.

Like Maniscalco’s family, my siblings and I loved the sound of the doorbell ringing as friends and neighbors dropped in.

Our mom would break out the coffee cake she saved for visitors. Our home took on a festive spirit as storytelling and laughter broke out.

Now what happens if someone has the gall to ring your doorbell, asks Maniscalco?

People turn off the lights, pull down the blinds and pretend they’re not home.

Before email and texting became the default modes of communicating, there were multiple opportunities to greet and converse with our fellow human beings face-to-face.

We’d cheerfully talk about the weather or sports or just “shoot the bull.” We’d use facial expressions and hand gestures to emphasize our points. The act of chatting in person was enriching.

Now the art of conversation is dying out because we’ve reduced it to a form of two-dimensional communication that only requires you to tap a dozen letters on your smartphone.

That’s a regrettable trend — or, if you prefer, nothing to “ROTFL” about.

For the text-averse, ROTFL means “roll on the floor laughing.”

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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at [email protected].