FRUSTRATION SELF INDUCED

I was 95 percent finished with the rough draft of this week’s KONK Life column yesterday afternoon. Mommy, I’m Hungry. About Venezuela’s starving children. All of a sudden, the screen was blank.

I must have hit a wrong key. Went to retrieve the column. Good luck!
Nowhere to be found.

Called Sloan and had her search. No luck.

Frustrated I was. No question.

It took 3 hours to draft the material lost. It would take me another 3 hours to rewrite. Then edit. Another 1.5 hours. I already had 3 hours in. No way. I did not have it in me to do. I was already tired.

So…..There will be no KONK Life column this week. Mommy, I’m Hungry will appear the following week. My apologies.

I watched the Olympics off and on yesterday. Not long. I could not get into it.

Early evening drove to Walgreens. Out of my acid reflux pills. It was 6:10. Pharmacy closed. Now closes at 6 on saturdays and sundays.

Then to Hogfish. Sat at bar. Watched some Olympic basketball. Enjoyed fish and chips. Hogfish fish and chips.

The Hackley saga for today. Mrs. Hews can no longer breast feed the baby. She is drying up. Matilda cannot. The Havana goat was dry. What to do next? Starch. Hackley reported the baby was taking to it.

Starch mixed with water is what mothers are feeding their babies in Venezuela. Makes for a full stomach. Not healthy, however.

Think how lucky we are. How far we have come. If a mother cannot breast feed, there are all kinds of baby formulas on store shelves.

This weekend’s newspapers uniformly mentioned that the FDA had approved testing for Zika in the Florida keys. The whole world may be thrilled. I am not. My message: Stay out of my back yard!

I forgot all about Battle of the Bars.

Somewhere this weekend, I came across mention of John Keats. Poet supreme! He died at the age of 25 in 1821. In Rome.

Thirty five years ago, I accidentally came across his home/the place where he died. I was walking around Rome. In the area as the Spanish Steps. The first building on one side of the Steps had a small dated bronze sign. Home of John Keats. A two or three story building.

I went inside. Walked to the top floor. Saw Keats’ bedroom. The place where he died. The rest of the floor was a museum of sorts.

Among the observable items were a number of original Keats’ works. His poems handwritten on crumbled paper. Under glass, of course.

I found the experience exciting and moving.

Big talk on TV this morning re a third party candidate with Republican dissident backing. Morning Jo said it’s for real. He received two telephone calls. The announcement supposedly will be made at noon.

During these days in 1975, Vice President Spiro Agnew came under attack. It was claimed that he accepted kick backs from contractors while Maryland governor.

He subsequently resigned.

Agnew was a hard ass. I think that is why Nixon selected him to run as Vice President. These were the days of campus unrest. Agnew frequently spoke out against the demonstrations. In tough guy fashion.

I never liked Agnew. For two reasons.

He constantly used big words. His vocabulary excellent. Much better than mine. It was as if he was trying to impress people all the time.

The other reason is that out of law school he became an Allstate Insurance adjuster. Allstate was a rotten company back then. Despicable the manner in which they ran their claims department. No respect for anything or anyone.

To this day, I think of Agnew as an Allstate adjuster rather than Vice President or crook.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni had an interesting comment re Trump in a recent column. The thrust of the column was that the GOP was indulging Trump.

Bruni stated in his last paragraph that America “…..needs a grown-up who honors our values, not a brat who shreds them.”

Peggy Noonan wrote a column in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal re whether Trump was crazy. Her last paragraph introduced me to the word kakistocracy. Never had heard it before. From the Greek. Noonan said, “It means government by the worst persons, by the least qualified or most unprincipled.” Suggesting we might be on our way there if Trump were to be elected.

Enjoy your day!