YANKEE JACK ALIVE AND KICKING

Last week someone asked what ever happened to Yankee  Jack? We were at Don’s Place. No one had seen Yankee in 1-2 years.

I saw Yankee yesterday.

I came around a corner in Publix. Coming down the aisle was Yankee Jack. Thinner. Looked healthy. Riding a motorized vehicle.

We were thrilled to see each other. Yankee was jovial! I told him we thought he had died. Yankee laughed.

This summer he was driving north to do his annual Saranac Lake gig and a few others along the way. Got sick. His kidneys failed. He got sick in a good place. Boston. Ended up for a month at Mass General. He was on dialysis the whole time. Saved him.

Since returning home, he has been composing new songs. He expects to return to the Bull soon.

He misses everyone at the golf course. Hopes to play again.

Went to do the anti-gravity treadmill yesterday. Had to wait. Power off. Probably a bird flew into something in Miami. Only down 15 minutes. Power failure a typical occurrence in the Keys.

Lunched at Harpoon Harry’s. Had a desire for ham and eggs. Harpoon Harry’s has the best eggs. I have said it for years. Sounds strange. Their eggs taste fresh!

Enjoyed a Hogfish sandwich for dinner at the bar at Hogfish last night. My motivation was the recent news that certain Hogfish fishing is to be limited for the balance of the year. Chatted with shrimp boat fishermen at the bar. Relics of another era.

My blog talk radio show tonight. At 9, my time. Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Join me. www.blogtalkradio.com/key-west-lou.

Interesting topics. Like the Louisiana police shooting, newly reported police screw ups, whole babies being sold by Planned Parenthood, French train shooting, cost of Afghan war, and more.

Danny has a girl friend. Erika. She is chasing him. Erika will never catch Danny. As a hurricane, he is dissipating. Erika growing. Too soon to know if she will be a problem

No question, the hurricane season has arrived.

Glad I have no money in the stock market. Dow was down 1,000 points yesterday morning. Think it ended the day 500 plus down.

China’s screwing around with money, mortgages, over construction, etc. has caught up with them. China has lived on the bubble for several years. Cannot be done. Eventually, everything catches up. Implodes at one time. In China’s case, affects world economy.

It has been reported that ISIS is destroying ancient Syrian temples. Reducing them to rubble. Has ISIS respect for anything? The destruction makes sense, however. If ISIS can behead people, why it can destroy temples.

I have seen, touched and walked amongst Grecian temples.  Greece’s structures of old are the heart and soul of the nation. I cannot conceive Greece without the Parthenon and Acropolis, as well as buildings of old everywhere.

Hadrian’s Library sits in the center of Athens. Thousands of years old. Turns me on. I can visualize white robed people sitting and reading.

Enjoy your day!

 

 

HURRICANE ANDREW

Twenty three years ago on this day in 1992 Hurricane Andrew demolished Homestead. A category 5 hurricane. They don’t come any worse.

Three weeks later, I drove through Homestead on my way to Key West. I had flown into Miami and intentionally opted to drive so I could see Homestead. What I saw was not nice.

Not a building standing. An occasional wall. Everything else ground rubble. Berlin looked better at the end of World War II.

Andrew has been described as the most fearsome and costliest storm.

I did not drive through Homestead streets. The elevated highway still stood. The same one we drive over today.

Danny is weakening. Good! Wind is fickle. Fortunately so in this instance.

A strange weekend for me. Sunday, monday and tuesday are hard working days. Writing the KONK column and getting ready for my tuesday night blog talk radio show. This weekend I am a day ahead. My column was done saturday instead of sunday. Monday is generally spent preparing for tuesday’s radio show. I did it yesterday. I have one hour of fine tuning which I will do tomorrow.

Which means, today a screw off day for me!

I was able to sneak some golf watching time in. Pleased for David Love III’s winning. He is 51. Unusual for a senior to come out on top.

Tiger Woods played the best he has in years. Came in tenth. Was in the run for the title till he took a triple bogey on 11 yesterday.

It was 7 by the time the golf tournament was over. My sunday nights usually include Roostica for spaghetti, meatballs and sausage. I decided to stay in and cook. Made rigatonis. No sauce. Some oil with salt, pepper and a few ground herbs. Delicious.

Watched Singing In The Rain on TV lat night. Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. An old time musical. The great dance and singing scene by Gene Kelly.

The rainy season is upon the Florida keys. It has been raining heavy at some point in the afternoon every day. Not for long.

I sent this week’s KONK Life column to the publisher yesterday morning. Legalization of Prostitution. The column is actually a combination of two. Two years ago, I wrote an article re the effects of Germany’s having legalized prostitution in 2002. I combined the two writings for this week’s column.

I did not cover the moral aspect. Except for a comment by St. Augustine. Something to the effect that prostitution was immoral, but a necessary evil.

Nor did I take a position on the legalization issue.

New Hartford, NY is next door to my home town of Utica. The two actually touch. Cross the street and move from one to the other.

A New Hartford resident made the sports news big time yesterday. His name, Derek Bard. Bard is a junior at the University of Virginia. He was in the finals of the US Amateur. He lost to Bryson De Chambeau, an SMU senior.

I do not know Derek. However, I congratulate him. There is always next year. And then the pros if he is so inclined.

Enjoy your day!

 

 

KEY WEST A RICH SMALL TOWN

I did my good deed for the year during the night. Maybe for the next ten years.

I received a telephone call at 4 this morning. A friend was in trouble, needed help.  It was out of bed, into clothes, and into town.

As a result, I am dead tired. Probably will be all day.

Duval at 4 in  the morning is strange. Almost no one on the street. It was like everyone had disappeared. Only the buildings remained. Eerie.

Bloomberg Business did a survey to determine the 20 richest small towns in America. Key West one of them. Came in 13th.

I question the survey result. The survey was based on real estate values and median salaries. Real estate values have  been out of whack in Key West for years. Whether buying or renting.  The mean salary based on the survey was in the low $50,000 area. Not many making that much. There must be an unusual number of millionaires residing in Key West to raise the average to that level.

So much for the study.

Yesterday was the anti-gravity treadmill in the morning, lunch at Roostica and the Galleon’s Sunset Tiki Bar at cocktail time.

I thought I would run into Jean, Sheila and David at the bar. Generally their friday haunt. Found out Jean left town two days ago, and Sheila and David were no where to be found.

Someone put their arms around me from the back. It was Pati. We spent a couple of pleasant hours together.

JJ bartending. He previously worked the Chart Room. A great personality. He was thin. Obviously lost weight. Told me 20 pounds. How, I asked. He is building something outside. He is at it from 7 in the morning. The humidity a killer. A lot of sweating. The pounds just fell off.

I asked him for a job.

I was on my way home when I decided I was hungry. Stopped at Outback. Glad I did. Enjoyed great conversation with two guys sitting next to me at the bar.

Both in their thirties. One a government worker, the other out of work. Both extremely knowledgeable. We talked of our country, politicians, Trump, and life in general. The life we credit/blame on our political leaders.

Both would like to leave the U.S. and move to another country. One has property in Mexico on the Pacific coast.

We agreed as we left, it had been a good evening.

My KONK Life column Black Lives Matter / Play Tough is being correctly run in this morning’s E-Blast. You may want to read it.

Danny is fickle. First a nothing storm. Then a category 2 yesterday which turned out to be a category 3. We are told Danny will die after Puerto Rico. We shall see.

Market down 530 points friday. Monday will tell if the market was adjusting or we are at the start of another recession. China the culprit. All has to do with oil.

Trump announced 36 thousand for last night’s rally. He had to get a stadium to hold all the people. Turns out the stadium was only half full. Twenty thousand. Still a good number. In fact, an excellent one.

Will the Trump mania run its course and burn out?

Watched Jimmy Carter on TV yesterday announcing his medical problem. The man is a class act.

Enjoy your day!

 

 

DANNY

It’s time again! Talk on the street last night….. Is a hurricane coming?

Danny is its name. It is presently nothing way out in the Atlantic. We will not know till next week if it will be a Florida keys problem. Probably not. But you never know! Wind is fickle.

Some thing screwy yesterday morning. My phone. I was on it from 7-11. Business. Made me late for my 11 o’clock appointment at Body Owners where the anti-gravity treadmill awaited.

Took my sweaty body over to Roostica for lunch afterwards. Bobby Mongelli moving around. An outstanding business person!

Another business person of note arrived for lunch. Joe Liszka. Joe and his partner Frank Romano started Key West Aloe around 1970. Became a gold mine. They sold about 15 years ago.

Frank is now gone.

I met Joe when I was going to WeBeFit. Joe is older than me. I admired what he was able to physically do. Better than me. While there, Joe invited me to a party at his home. An excellent host. He lives in Key Haven also.

Stopped at Don’s Place at 5. Stayed a couple of hours. Visited with Don, David, Nate, and Toni. Actually spent quite a while chatting with Toni. A charming lady. Good company.

I had a choice at that point. Go out to eat or go home and watch Donald Trump. I am ashamed to say I went home. I am a political junkie.

I am not a Trump supporter. His business success is admirable. Such in and of itself does not make a President.

Our country continues to be in difficulty. The 1/99 percent thing does not go away. Listening to Trump, I suspect his actions would be those favoring the 1 percent. This morning he said on Morning Joe that he was against raising the minimum wage. He believes it would make us less competitive against foreign manufacturers.

Strange. The guys at the top of the American companies continue to make millions of dollars annually for themselves. They have their 3-4 homes world wide and private jets. The wealth is not shared. Notice Trump has his jet and homes. Even a helicopter. Trump would have the 99 percent continue to suffer to keep the rich in their exorbitant toys.

This thing about no longer considering a child born in the U.S. of parents illegitimately here not citizens not right. Trump is crazy! It has always been and will ever continue to be that a person born in th U.S. is an American citizen.

Trump says the scholars tell him the law/Constitution in this regard can be changed. What scholars? If he wishes to pursue the issue legally, he will find lawyers to support him. If a fee is available, there is unquestionably a cause to be pursued.

Those Spanish galleons carrying all sorts of wealth that sunk off the Florida coast some 400 years ago present the opportunity for some today to strike gold. Literally!

It recently was disclosed that 4 crew men from the A/V Capitana discovered gold to the tune of $4.5 million three weeks ago somewhere off Florida’s east coast.

My column in this week’s KONK Life is Black Lives Matter / Play Tough. The article was linked this morning to my Key West Lou website. keywestlou.com.

Bocce tonight! The best!

Enjoy your day!