Here are three good things that came out of 2020...at least for me

Tonight we say goodbye to 2020, and I don't know a single person who feels the least bit sad about that.

A global pandemic, social and political unrest, economic uncertainty, and those Australian wildfires that feel like they happened five years ago will do that.

On top of it all, my family endured the loss of both my mom and my mother-in-law within 18 days of one another this past summer.

I'm with you if you think 2020 can go suck eggs.

As always, though, there is both good and bad. These past 365 days haven't been all gloom and doom.

Here are three good things about 2020 from my life. I'm almost certain you can come up with three (or more) of your own.

(1) I got to work from home and (mostly) loved it

The circumstances necessitating that millions of us suddenly become telecommuters in March were obviously not great, but I quickly fell in love with the routine. True, I miss seeing my co-workers. I mean, I really miss seeing them. Occasional visits to a mostly empty office don't cut it. On the other hand, I've saved a whole lot of money on gas and car maintenance, so there's that. And I enjoy being around my family so much. I wouldn't mind if, even after we got back to normal, my company maintained a schedule where those who are able to alternate days between working from home and working in the office can do so.

(2) I finished my master's degree program

It was a good 25 or so years later than I had intended, but I finally got that elusive graduate degree. I used space in this blog to whine about the workload on several occasions, but I finished in July. I'm proud of that.

(3) I end the year with the same incredible family with which I started it

Never, ever take the people in your life for granted. Life is too amazingly short and fragile for that. No list of good things in my life would be complete if my wife and five kids weren't part of it. They are the best things about my existence. Thankfully, 2020 didn't change that.

I don't carry cash. I probably should.

I've carried a wallet since the age of 14. My first wallet was a Velcro job featuring a large logo of the 80s Australian band Men at Work.

As you might imagine, you couldn't keep the chicks off me.

If I had to guess the percentage of time over nearly four decades when there has been cash in my wallet, it would probably be something like 15% to 20%. Seriously, I seldom have actual currency in there.

Even in the mid-80s before I had a credit card, I rarely had cash on me. When I worked at Wendy's in 1986 and would get paid, I would almost immediately spend that money on Terry. It never lasted long.

(This was a great investment, by the way, seeing as how we've been together for nearly 35 years now. Rarely does a bet pay off so well.)

According to at least one website, however, my cash-less approach is not a good one.

The boys at ArtofManliness.com suggest five reasons why a guy should still carry cash in the 2020s. The reasons are pretty much what you would expect:

• To handle emergency situations that require cash
• To tip more generously (since credit card tips are subject to card company fees)
• To tip service providers who aren't directly involved in customer transactions
• To discipline your spending habits
• To protect your privacy

Still, I'm not running to the bank to grab cash any time soon.

For one thing, every time I have cash, my wife--the chief financial officer of our family--wants to know why I have it. I have to file a report whenever I want to get at my own money. (I'm kidding...sort of.)

Also, I find myself using Apple Pay and other electronic methods of payment more and more frequently.

So I'm good where I am. I should carry at least a little cash, admittedly, even if just for emergencies.

I'm definitely going to ask Terry if it's OK.

I still don't know which switches control which lights in my house

Nearly six years ago, I wrote a blog post lamenting the fact that I can't figure out the light switches in my house. You can either click that link to read it, or keep scrolling and I'll paste it below.

I am sad to report that there has been no change on this front since that 2015 post.

The other night my wife tested me on it. It was a two-question quiz and I got one right.

We were in the kitchen, so she asked me which switch turned on the light under the ceiling fan there. I had to think about it for a second, but I got it right.

Then she told me to turn off the light near the stairs in our living room. I knew this would be trouble.

Actually, I had a 50-50 shot at it and guessed wrong. I knew roughly where the correct switch was, I just happened to select the one next to it.

It shouldn't be that tough.

Anyway, here's what I wrote back in 2015:

*   *   *

I've been living in the same house for almost 12 years, but in some ways it still seems new to me (MODERN-DAY EDITOR'S NOTE: We've now been here 17 years.)

Like the smell of the basement bathroom, for instance. It's not used that often, and the door is generally closed, so it maintains a certain "new" smell.

And almost the entire upstairs area is relatively unfamiliar to me. All four bedrooms belong to various kids, so the only time I generally go up there is to put Jack to sleep for the night. It's like it's part of my house, but at the same time it isn't.

Then there are the light switches. Altogether, I would estimate we have 300 light switches in our house. Not really, of course, but it seems that way to me. And my wife knows exactly what all of them do.

You probably would, too, if you lived here, because you are at least of average intelligence. I, on the other hand, am quite clearly brain damaged. For more than a decade I've been using the light switches, yet I can't quite tell you which light is controlled by any given switch.

Is that bad? It is, isn't it? I'm thinking it's indicative of some sort of brain defect. I should know, after an entire decade-plus, what each light switch does. But I don't.

The consequence of this is that when it's time to turn out the lights in, say, the living room, I flip a dozen different switches up and down until I hit the right combination. I might manage to darken the room, but at the same time I've turned on every external light we have.

My wife is amused by this, and she understandably can't fathom why this confuses me so much.

Even the three switches in our master bedroom puzzle me sometimes. Terry will ask me to turn on the ceiling fan, and I flip the left-most of the three switches, which does not appear to do anything and could – for all I know – have turned on the neighbors' bathroom light.

(NOTE: I just walked over to the light switches here in our room and flipped that left switch. Turns out it controls a light in the ceiling just outside our bedroom door. Who knew?)

Someday, when I've lost my faculties and I spend my days talking to house plants, you'll all be saying to one another, "Yeah, it all started with the light switches..."

How intensely will we appreciate the most mundane things once "normal" returns?

Back in 2012, Hurricane Sandy blew far enough inland to affect Northeast Ohio, where I live.

It is the only time I ever remember a hurricane reaching us, even if it had significantly weakened by the time it got here. Trees were blown over, rain came down in buckets, and we lost power for something like five days.

We had never before (and haven't since) experienced a power outage anywhere near that long. It spanned Halloween and lasted until Nov. 2, the day Terry and I were scheduled to leave our kids at home and fly to San Francisco. Fortunately, the lights came on not long before we were supposed to leave for the airport.

At the time, I said I would never take electricity for granted again.

Within two weeks, I would say, I started taking electricity for granted again.

Which is understandable, right? We should always be grateful for the many blessings in our lives, but it's difficult to consciously think about everything on the list all of the time.

Which brings us to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the most disruptive event of our collective lives, right? Individuals undergo all sorts of trials and tribulations that are worse every day, but as a people, this has changed our lives as much as any other event since maybe World War II?

At some point we'll be able to go to stores without wearing a mask, visit our loved ones in nursing homes, and eat at restaurants like we used to.

When that day comes, I really want to make sure I appreciate every bit of it. The most inconsequential errands will be a joy...at least for a time.

The reality is, it won't be long before we all proceed with our lives as they were and actively try and forget about coronavirus. Again, this may not be that bad a thing. It's very human.

But can we at least make a point of thinking more often about how fortunate we are? I don't know that we need a "COVID Remembrance Day" every year, but rather just a small change in mindset.

It's that "attitude of gratitude" you sometimes hear about.

In the meantime, man, what I wouldn't give to be on the P.A. mic for a basketball game where the stands are packed with maskless people.

It's coming.

Getting emotional over a phone number

I have had the same cell phone number (as has my wife) since 2000. Number portability is a huge advantage that saves you the hassle of updating your entire network every time you switch wireless carriers.

Still, I can't say I have much of an emotional attachment to my cell number.

The same, however, cannot be said of our home phone number.

Yes, we still have a home phone number because we still have a land line. That is going to change soon, however, as we'll finally be dropping traditional cable and phone service. I realize we're a few years behind the times there, but this is probably a better-late-than-never type of situation.

We hardly ever receive any important calls on the home phone anymore, so it's kind of pointless to have it.

The only thing I'll regret is losing the number. Terry and I got married in 1992 and have had it as our home number ever since. But I actually owned the number for six years prior to that.

As I've mentioned before, I got online via my Commodore 64 in 1985. This involved tying up our home phone line every time I would call a local bulletin board system (BBS) and use my stolen 300 baud modem so that my computer could "talk" to a computer on the other end of the line.

That meant no one could call our house as long as I was online. You quickly learned how to disable your call waiting so that, if someone did call while you were surfing the pre-Internet digital world, you wouldn't have your connection broken.

After several months of this, I talked to my dad and he agreed we could get a separate phone line just for me that I could use for computer purposes. I paid the bill for the line myself, to the tune of $18 per month. It was money well spent, and for a time I even ran my own BBS on it.

Once Terry and I married and moved into our own house, the easiest thing to do was just to bring that existing line with me, so that it became "our" number instead of "my" number.

And now, once we cut the cord, it will be going away after 35 years in my/our possession. It's a silly thing to be sad over, but I associate a lot of great conversations and important memories with that phone number.

It also comes at a time when we're adjusting to having sold my mom's house recently, and for the first time in my life not being able to drive over there and just walk in.

These things happen to everybody, and they happen every day.

Time goes on, whether we like it or not.

But I guarantee that, no matter how old and senile I become, those seven digits will be absolutely seared into my brain forever.

Today is Boxing Day and you may have no idea what that means

If you're a reader of this blog who lives in (or originates from) a country within the British Commonwealth, you almost certainly know that today is Boxing Day, and you know specifically what that means. You may even celebrate it.

If, like me, you are an American, there's some chance you have heard the term "Boxing Day," but a much smaller chance you have any idea what it signifies.

I am an Anglophile, springing largely as I do from English, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish stock. There's German in me (my paternal grandmother's maiden name was Spitznogel, for crying out loud), but I consider myself to be of British descent.

So I have made a point of at least knowing what Boxing Day is, even if I have never technically celebrated it.

Actually, it's easier to start with what it isn't: It isn't about punching someone, and it isn't about throwing away the boxes from all of the gifts my Christian friends and I opened yesterday. 

I will rely on the good people at History.com to tell us what it is about:

One idea is that December 26 was the day centuries ago when lords of the manor and aristocrats typically distributed “Christmas boxes” often filled with small gifts, money and leftovers from Christmas dinner to their household servants and employees, who were required to work on December 25, in recognition of good service throughout the year. These boxes were, in essence, holiday bonuses. Another popular theory is that the Boxing Day moniker arose from the alms boxes that were placed in churches during the Advent season for the collection of monetary donations from parishioners. Clergy members distributed the contents of the boxes to the poor on December 26, which is also the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr and a figure known for acts of charity. (Ireland celebrates December 26 as St. Stephen’s Day.)

Either way, it's a holiday that seems to have good intentions.

Since it falls on a Saturday this year, apparently the countries that observe Boxing Day as federal holidays will officially observe it this Monday the 28th.

In Ireland and many other countries, they also consider today to be a holiday, but they refer to it as St. Stephen's Day.

I don't expect any of this to affect your life. At least not right now. But one day, when you find yourself on Jeopardy and the question comes up, you will answer correctly and have me to thank for it. A little tip of $5 or $10 for the assist would be appreciated.

This blog's shortest post ever

 Have a merry Christmas. You deserve it.