As we age, our immune system tends to become less focused. It can overreact to small threats, overcompensating in way that create health problems of their own. The most typical is known as “chronic inflammation.” This can lead to problems like arthritis, heart disease and more.

So, how do we fight chronic inflammation and keep our immune system as sharp as possible? Exprts say the best and easiest ways is to cut out sugar. Now, many food companies here in America will sneak all kinds of added sugar into a wide variety of products, even some they tout as having “health benefits.”

Fortunately, the FDA has recently mandated a change in the Nutrition Facts label you see on all the processed food your buy. They are now required to disclose the amount of sugar they’ve added to whatever is inside that package.

So, to maintain your best health, make sure you check out that label before you buy!

We all remember Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly, founding fathers of rock who wrote and sang their own material. But one founding father has been almost totally forgotten.

He wrote and sang early rock rave-ups like “Bony Maronie” and “Short Fat Fannie,” but was dead and gone before the age of forty-five. If not for one kid from Liverpool, his contributions to rock & roll might be as forgotten as he is.

The man is Larry Williams and the kid from Liverpool who helped keep his music alive is John Lennon.

Williams was born in New Orleans in 1935. Twenty years later, he met and became friends with Little Richard, who was recording for Specialty Records in NOLA at the time. When Richard left the rock scene to become of minister in 1957, Specialty’s front man, Richard Blackwell quickly recruited Williams and started grooming him to be Richard’s replacement.

Williams’ first two singles for Specialty (the aforementioned “Bony” and “Fannie”) both hit the Top 20 on Billboard’s singles chart, each becoming a million-seller. But his subsequent singles failed to chart in the U.S. The situation was different over in the UK, particularly the northern part of the UK where he developed a strong following with the young teddy boys who were leaving skiffle music behind and catching up on American Rock & Roll.

Young John Lennon was quite taken with Williams’ music and so, worked quite a few of his numbers into the sets Lennon performed with his bands the Quarrymen and a little combo eventually named the Beatles. When it came time to record, the Beatles’ early albums are filled with Larry Williams covers, including “Bad Boy,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” and “Slowdown.” Lennon covered “Just Because” on one of his solo albums and many other artists have covered “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.”

Sadly, Williams had trouble with drug addiction that hampered his career as he moved into the 1960s. Eventually, he became part of Little Richard's band (after Richard dropped the ministry and went back to rock), even producing some of Richard’s albums for Okeh Records.

Williams was found dead of a gunshot wound in 1980. Officially ruled a suicide, there are those who claim the death resulted from his involvement with drug dealers and prostitution. If you love that old-time rock & roll, Williams’ greatest hits album is still in print and well worth a download or purchase.

Inflation has dominated the news for the past year. These are a few of things that will cost more in 2024:

Frozen Veggies – An actual labor shortage in that field (perhaps triggered by our obsession with finding and deporting illegal immigrants) has led to higher wages for those who ick our crops. That, in turn, has led to higher prices at the grocery checkout.

Admission to Live Events – Higher salaries for sports stars as well as strong demand for tickets (not to mention a virtual monopoly on ticket-selling) have all contributed to a steep rise in the prices for admission to sporting events and concerts.

Food from Vending Machines – Never a bargain, increased labor costs have led these already pricey items (compared to buying at the grocery store) to move even higher.

There are some bright spots, however. Here are a few of the things that are cheaper this year:

Eggs – Down over 22% from last year’s high. The avian flu that created egg scarcity is over and prices have come back down on this food staple.

Health Insurance – This one is a bit tricky. While premiums are up, insurers are also paying out more on health claims. The result is most of us are getting more bang for our buck. With our out-of-pocket expenses for health going down, it’s an overall win in the health insurance market.

Smartphones – Another tricky statistics. Overall, the sticker price of phones has ticked up slightly, but those phones do more and more service providers are also offering specials on the phones when you subscribe to their service, so the end result is that you should end up paying less for your phone.

Believe it or not, one of the most healthy thing you can do for your heart is to eat banana. According to a study done in 2020, people who ate bananas regularly had a 24% lower risk for coronary heart disease. Don’t like bananas? There’s evidence that eating more fruit and vegetables in general can lower your risk.

No matter how old we get, our credit score remains important. If affects the rate you get on your car loan, whether you can get additional credit cards and more.

Here are some things to keep in mind to keep your credit score up.

1.) Your age actually works in your favor – all other factors being equal, your credit score automatically rises as you get older.

2.) Make sure you’re making at least the minimum monthly payments on your credit cards – Your score goes down for every payment you miss. Even if your balance is only $5, you get penalized the same amount on your credit score as if you missed a payment for several hundred dollars. Even better, pay off the entire balance on your cards every month.

3.) Adding additional cards may actually help your score – Part of your score is determined by how much of your total credit limit you aren’t using. Adding more cards can mean increasing the total amount of credit available to you.

4.) The above tactic only works if you haven’t maxed out the rest of your cards.

As some of us are veteran Christmas Eve shoppers, we learned a few tricks on how to save big as the big day approaches.

1.) Smartphones – When a new generation of a phone is introduced, retailers begin discounting the previous generation. So, by staying on the trailing edge, you can save big bucks. Right now, both Apple & Google have introduced new versions of their smartphones, meaning you should be able to find bargains on the older version.

2.) Video Games – Believe it or not, video game consoles and the games themselves become cheaper the closer we get to Christmas. Beware, though, because this also means the particular model or game you want may be sold out or in short supply.

3.) Extended Warranties – Do we even have to remind you not to purchase an extended warranty on appliances and electronics? Often times, you already have an extended warranty by using a credit card (check your cards benefits) and most appliances and electronics are built to way out last any extended warranty.

William Frawley is best remembered for playing Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy and Bub on My Three Sons, but in 1951, he was he first one to sing what has since become a classic holiday song.

The movie was The Lemon Drop Kid, a Bob Hope comedy based on a Damon Runyon story. And the song was “Silver Bells,” written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans especially for the movie. The plot concerns Hope’s character (the aforementioned Kid) organizing a bunch of Broadway ne’er-do-wells to collect money he owes a gangster by posing as street corner Santas, collecting for charity.

Frawley is one of those phony Kris Kringles and he starts singing “Silver Bells” as a way to attract contributions to his pot. He is soon joined by Hope and leading lady, Marilyn Maxwell, both much better singers than Frawley. That duo continues the tune as it evolves into a big production number. If you listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll see it’s about those little bells the sidewalk Santas use to attract donors.

In fact, the film was shot in the summer of 1950 and the first recorded version of the tune was cut by Bing Crosby and released in the fall of the same year, six months before the film hit the theaters. As the song became a big hit for Christmas 1950, the movie cast was called back to the studio to film a much bigger production number than originally planned.

BTW – if you’re looking for an often overlooked Christmas film, The Lemon Drop Kid is worth a look.

With online payments, credit & debit cards, we’re becoming an increasingly cashless society. Yet, experts still say you should have around $1,000 (in $20 dollar bills) somewhere at home should you ever have to leave your house in a sudden emergency.

According to them, $1,000 should get you through almost anything until you can access your bank account or find somewhere you can use your plastic.

We’ve all read that chocolate can be healthy, but most of the ways we consume the stuff are loaded with sugar. So, how do you get the health benefits without the downside?

The benefits come in the form of flavanols and antioxidants. That good stuff is found in cacao. If you find a chocolate bar that’s, say, 85% cacao, that leaves much less room for sugar. Do we even have to say that you’ll find that sort of proportion in dark, not milk, chocolate?