My turn to reveal where I stand.

The late former Sentinel columnist Charley Reese started a tradition that current columnist Scott Maxwell has kept alive. So if this column bores you, please email my friend Scott.

Both of those popular writers liked to begin the year by disclosing who they are, what they stand for and what is the source of their personal finances. This one is my first, but it’s an excellent idea, considering that you’re stuck listening to my point of view all year long. You might as well know its origins.

I’m a 60-year-old woman who is the mother of one daughter, Eleanor, 25. I was married for 20 years but did my time and was released without parole. Eleanor, a willowy 6-foot blonde with brains to match the beauty, has turned out to be rather a force of nature with her mother’s generally skeptical attitude. She graduated from Stetson University and started a career in journalism, then realized this business isn’t what she thought and bailed out. Now she works for a winery in Virginia.

I am the grateful recipient of an excellent education from a private prep school called Sewickley Academy in Pennsylvania, which I attended on a scholarship. My daughter went to Lake County’s public schools mostly because I couldn’t find a private prep school that I thought was all that much better than the public one. I hold a bachelor of science degree in journalism from Northwestern University, just north of Chicago.

My main source of income is — and has been since 1979 — my salary from a newspaper. Today, 11 percent of my revenue is from a pension that I became eligible to draw when the Tribune Company split up several years ago. Expenditures? Well, California cabernets tend to be near the top.

I own two homes next to one another in rural Lake Jem in Lake County, and I rent one out. Well, I try. Being a landlady is not the easiest role. The most recent renter vanished, leaving a sink full of dishes smeared with congealed grease and a drawer full of his underwear. Sometimes, it seems that I have an actual income from this venture, other times, not so much.

My view of the world was shaped by my upbringing near Pittsburgh which was not opulent. Until I went to college — more loans, scholarships — my parents didn’t even have a checking account and my mother made nearly all my clothes. Once when my steelworker-father was on strike, he walked to work at my grandparents’ orchards a couple of miles away to save gas. Nobody went hungry, but eating out, including fast food, was a rare treat. No money? Then don’t buy it.

Today, I owe nothing on credit cards. My paid-for, stick-shift car is 7 years old and has 103,000 miles on it. My only debt is my house — I have a mortgage I could pay off tomorrow from savings if I had to. This explains Columnist revealed: The good, the bad, all the truth

why my sympathy for people who deliberately live above their means is slim.

I’m a reluctant Republican who is thoroughly disgusted with her party. I’m also fed up with Democrats. If there were a party of Common Sense, I’d sign up. I’m a conservative when it comes to fiscal matters, a Teddy Roosevelt Republican when it comes to the environment and a bit of a Libertarian when it comes to social matters.

I don’t care which bathroom anyone uses or who they have sex with in the privacy of their home. Life is too short to judge. I leave that to the religious right.

I was raised Presbyterian, and I have the perfect attendance medals to prove it. I like Presbyterians — they believe deeply, as I do, that it is society’s responsibility to care for those who can’t look after themselves, such as abused or neglected children, the elderly and the mentally disabled. I

This is not to say that my opinions are made up or based on something the president likes to call “alternative facts.” There is no such thing. There is only truth, and I tell it.

think Florida does a particularly lousy job of it, along with providing a remarkably poor public education.

I own a gun, and you will have a heck of a time taking it off me. It’s a .357 Magnum, and I will cheerfully blast the face off anyone who breaks into my house — unless my evil herding dog Lola gets the intruder first. She has dibs. However, I think that the National Rifle Association is a despicable organization whose extreme right-wing goals are bizarre and that its ownership of legislators is sickening.

I am particularly annoyed by people who are unable to think critically. Stop reading trash on the internet that is written by uneducated idiots who are untrained in research and unable to evaluate the veracity of what they’re told. Engage! Be a critical reader and a savvy voter. Democracy won’t last if you shirk your responsibility.

You’ll hear me express these opinions all year long — that’s my job. Please don’t email to say that I should leave out the opinion. Stories without opinion are called “news.” Read the news pages to get those. My columns are labeled “Commentary” for a reason.

This is not to say that my opinions are made up or based on something the president likes to call “alternative facts.” There is no such thing. There is only truth, and I tell it.