And so 2021 is at its end, a 12-month set that contained 365 days, or 8,760 hours, or 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds. 
Or, in only 750 words?
We’ve been keeping track...
Of death and taxes, a third was added to life’s inevitables — Dr. Fauci being  interviewed on TV.
The word “Rivian” truly went electric.
On of all the days, Jan. 6 — the Epiphany, when religious history suggests the Wise Men met and commemorated the baby Jesus — protestors and rioters launched a watershed moment in American history by storming the U.S. Capitol.
Jeff Bezos, having made $188.4 billion at his first job, opted to step down as CEO at Amazon and move on to something else.
We said goodbye to Alex Trebek, naturally also in the form of a question: “What is, `We Loved You, Alex?’ ”
Trying to drive to a TV filming event — not the next green — Tiger Woods had an awful car accident.
A new kind of “arms” race developed. Americans got a COVID-19 vaccine and then a booster.
Baseball developed labor pains, again.
In an interview with Oprah, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed the royal family is just as dysfunctional as all the rest of ours.
The NFL negotiated a $113 billion deal with the TV networks. If only the NFL ran America, we’d be out of debt by a week from Thursday.
The world’s foremost alphabet-soup couple — J-Lo and A-Rod, also known as J-Rod — split, thus becoming A&J-No-Mo.
Found guilty of the George Floyd ordeal, ex-officer Derek Chauvin became a resident for the next 22 years of the same system he once led others.
First, Jeff Bezos and his wife divorced, then Bill Gates and his wife, too, as life proves again that endless money doesn’t necessarily bring happily ever-after.
In a year of amazingly successful “old” men in sports — 43-year-old Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl and 50-year-old Phil Mickelson winning the PGA and Helio Castroneves, at 46, won the Indy 500.
A half-century after a U.S. vs. Russian space race, now it was Branson vs. Bezos in the battle of the space billionaires.
The “2020 Summer Olympics” set an odd new record...it was staged a full seven months after 2020.
In Chicago, Jussie Smollett was found guilty of being a really bad actor.
June busted out all over in Illinois — tornadoes in Naperville, 10 inches of rain in two days in Bloomington, a mild earthquake downstate. In August, Gibson City flooded over as well.
In a guarded age of anti-racism and political correctness, the longtime Cleveland Indians became the Guardians instead.
For the first ever, which identity to use for one’s sexual self — male, female, other — became an issue.
As the St. Louis Cardinals won 17 straight late in the season to make the playoffs, the Cubs gave all-new meaning to “Go Cubs Go!” as they traded off the core remainder of their 2016 World Series champions, to begin building its next chapter.
There was a new spelling of chaos: Afghanistan.
Devastating late-season tornadoes put Mayfield, Ky., on the map, even if the storm horrifically also wiped almost all of it off the map.
One-hundred fifty years after losing to the North in the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee was dismantled in Richmond, Va., too.
An anti-vaxxer, in Green Bay he became Aaron Dodger.
A day after England’s Prince Andrew was sued on allegations he sexually abused a woman while at a Jeffrey Epstein party, another Andrew — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — resigned amid his own sexual harassment charges.
During the shooting of an Alec Baldwin movie, a tragic on-set shooting of a different sort launched an all-new series of gun-related questions.
A never-before-heard term — “supply-chain disruptions” — took over Page One, Main Street and delivery of your Christmas stuff.
After 1.2 trillion tries, Congress finally passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Joe Biden apologized for momentarily falling asleep at a world climate summit in Sweden, assuring at least no one will ever accuse him of being Woke.
After two marriages and swearing she’d never do it again, at age 40 Britney Spears got separated from her dad, too.
America was found guilty of still being clearly polarized and split on issues, as a not-guilty-of-all-charges verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse brought the latest example.
Finally, 22 months after COVID-19 became the lead story on the news, it sadly still was.
Because of it all, tired of face masks and the endless COVID warnings, ‘21 was a good year to be a little grouchy, with the hope that ‘22 brings fewer variants and a little less Fauci.
As always, stay tuned...

Bill Flick is at flick@a5.com