The Key West Citizen daily runs on page 3 its Citizen of the Day. Photo and biographical sketch.

Today’s honoree is Edward Henry.

I do not know him personally, yet feel I do know him personally. Edward works in the pharmacy department at Walgreens on the Boulevard. Always a smile, always helpful. Sometimes difficult I am sure. Prescription purchasers are not always happy campers.

Edward is a big guy. Reminds me of Shaquille O’Neal. Carries himself with the same humility.

Congratulations, Edward! You are much deserving of the recognition.

Spent my day time yesterday writing thus week’s KONK Life column. An American Revolutionary War Hero Who Lost His Head. The Joseph Warren story. Interesting. More revealing, the treatment of the colonists by the British during the war. The column hits the stands wednesday.

Intended to have dinner at Tavern ‘n Town. Thought the bar would be empty on a sunday night. Not so. No room.

Went to La Trattoria Oceanside. No room at the bar. However, I was able to get a well located table with a magnificent view of the water. Enjoyed spaghetti and oil. A dish I have not had in ages.

My waiter was CJ. I did not recall him. He did me. He worked years ago at La Trattoria on Duval when I was a regular customer. He recalled me by name.

His step mother is Erin. She was bartender at La Trattoria on Duval for years. Now bartends at Smokin’ Tuna.

CJ is getting married in November. He is all excited! Good luck to him and his bride.

I mentioned Berlin’s yesterday. I had been there friday evening. New singer, I thought. Was not sure of her name. An excellent entertainer.

A comment to the column corrected me. Devin. I thank him. Brie her name. Brie not new to Key West or singing. She has been here 10 years.

I have  mentioned a couple of times this past week that Helen Mirren was in Key West making a movie. Together with co-star Donald Sunderland. Shooting was taking place at Higgs Beach and the Hemingway House.

The movie is titled The Leisure Seeker. It is the story of an elderly couple. The wife a cancer patient. Her husband entering into Alzheimer’s. They decide to take a road trip to Key West in a Winnebago.

The weekend bombings. What can I say? What can we say? Eventually, the problem will be resolved. Could take a number of years. In the meantime, vigilance the key.

The problem will not be resolved here. It will be in the Middle East by the total destruction of ISIS.

President James Garfield died this date in 1881. An assassin’s bullet on July 2 started the sequence of events leading to Garfield’s death.

I wrote a lengthy KONK Life column on the subject five years ago.

Garfield was shot at the Washington Railroad Station. One bullet in his arm. The other on the right side of his back behind the pancreas.

Garfield laying on the filthy railroad station floor. Robert Todd Lincoln was with him. Lincoln called a Dr. D. Willard Bliss to care for the President. Bliss turned out to be an arrogant individual impressed with his own perceived self-importance. He cared for Garfield till his death some two and a half months later.

During that time, roughly 80 physicians also were called in. Bliss always in charge, however.

The problem was no one could find the bullet in the President’s back. Fingers and instruments prodded the hole searching for it. Dirty fingers and instruments. This was before the medical profession realized there were germs. Bacteria.

Infection set in. The President’s body became accessed big time internally.

The bullet had to be found and extracted. Bliss called in Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. Bell had invented a metal detector that was supposed to locate bullets in the body. It had been successfully tested on Civil War veterans.

The detector did not work on the President. A scratchy buzzing sound was constantly heard. Something was wrong.

Garfield lay on a mattress which lay on a metal coil bed spring. The metal bed spring had recently been invented. A patent pending. Not yet on the market for sale. One had been given Garfield for publicity purposes.

The metal bed spring mattress screwed up the metal detector. No one realized it at the time.

An autopsy showed that the prodding by fingers and instruments had moved the bullet from the President’s right side to his left. The bullet could not be located because it was not where it was supposed to be.

Charles Guiteau went on trial for the murder of the President. His defense was that medical malpractice had killed Garfield, not his shooting. The jury did not agree. He was found guilty and hung.

Guiteau made his own closing argument to the jury. “Yes, I shot him, but his doctors killed him.”

Enjoy your day!