I learned to drop the comma before the word “and” while in college journalism courses. Of course, this was contrary to my previous writing education that used the Oxford serial rule so it was a hard convention to break. Later, in graduate school, I had to re-learn the serial comma when using APA style for writing course papers. My right middle finger gets twitchy now when typing any serial list.
I never used, nor do I use now, a comma before the "and".
For instance, I write, "I love oranges, apples and pears.".....or..... "Bill O'Reilly is a socialist, liberal, progressive, populist and statist gas bag."
Many moons ago I borrowed exclamation points from freeper Pete Kessler, and though I have used them profusely, abundantly and frequently over the years I still have many left. I LUV exclamation points! Thanks, Pete!
Punctuation marks, like paragraphs, are our friends!!!
Leni !