For those of you who have not yet been born as of 2019, man, you missed a doozy.

As far as news goes, it was the equivalent of being awakened every day with a fire hose.

The best way in which to characterize 2019 might be this: the most popular song of the year was a country tune written by a gay, black, couch-surfer prone to Day-Glo cowboy outfits who made enough money from his one hit to buy Miley Cyrus’ dad a Ferrari.

From quid pro quo to 25-below, 2019 was a wild, exhausting, unpredictable carnival ride; a loop-de-loop of a year during which Notre Dame burned, governing was done by tweeting and antics, and “hold my beer” was set on continuous loop.

Any precedent that could be shattered in 2019 was - from a first-term president of the United States getting himself impeached to a black American actress producing an heir to the British crown.

Barbecue Becky
It was the year that protests made a comeback. In Hong Kong, students fought for their lives and democracy.

Across the world, teens and young adults followed a 16-year-old environmental prophet and embraced the Extinction Rebellion. They elbowed aside adults who shrugged at the increasing ferocity of storms and shirked from taking measures to save an ailing planet.

It was a year when hate was emboldened, as extremists came out of the closet and hate crimes saw a 16-year jump.
From “Barbecue Becky” to “Permit Patty,” people who made frivolous police calls on minorities (swimming in your own pool while black) saw themselves immortalized as social media memes.

Because there were so many, the news reports about mass shootings in places such as El Paso, Dayton, Pearl Harbor and too many school campuses to list were left with a shorter shelf life than milk.

There was some good news. American women won the FIFA World Cup in soccer, the Cleveland Browns didn’t go 0-16 and no one even blinked at the sight of six women running for president.

We honored and remembered those who fought and died 75 years ago on the shores of Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge; men who enabled America not only to survive but also to become the envy of the world.

One for the books
The year was not kind to journalism. Some 9,000 men and women lost their lives in the pursuit of truth.

In Northeast Ohio, we lost the Vindicator, a daily newspaper that had served the Youngstown community for 150 years. As fact came under fire, an estimated 8,000 journalists across the country lost jobs. Lest some of you might be tempted to think that’s a good start, keep in mind there’s no such thing as freedom without a free press.

As if Youngstown hadn’t suffered enough, one of the Vindicator’s last major stories was its coverage of the closing of the Chevrolet plant in nearby Lordstown.

In 2019, Lordstown became a byword, a reminder of how the working class has been decimated to this nation’s detriment.

There was a time when I’d write year-end columns welcoming the coming year, but I was cured of that habit, as each new year seemed to be getting progressively more chaotic.

But 2019? One for the books.

Think Old Man New Year going the wrong way on I-77 in a stolen truck while chugging beers and shooting an AR-15 with his toupee on fire.

Yet, all signs indicate 2020 will make 2019 seem like a preschool dance recital.

You probably should be glad you weren’t here to see it.
