Where have all the flowers gone

The last couple of days have been hard. It began with a water heater malfunction that has destroyed the nice Pergo flooring I was so proud of after installing many years ago. My son has performed admirably during all this, pulling up all the wet flooring before mold could set in, but now the warm feel of wood has been replaced by the coldness of concrete throughout my kitchen and dining room.

But the immediate need was the replacement of the water heater which took too long, in my opinion to install. It finally happened yesterday, again under the more-than-capable supervision of my son, which led to my first hot showers in more than 72 hours. But that was not the end of the story.

During the installation process I was informed that the entire wiring in my townhouse is outdated and needs to be replaced at an astronomical cost. All this hits at the same time that I learned about the deaths of Rufus and Lynn Flint Shaw. I did not know Rufus well and did not know his wife at all. But I worked with Rufus on some political campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s and admired his tireless efforts. Although I didn't agree with him 100 percent of the time, I respected Rufus as a writer, first for his "Real Deal" column in the Elite News and then on Dallasblog. And like everyone else, I wondered what kind of events could lead someone to end it all like he did.

Then this morning comes the story about the woman who threw her two children off the Jim Miller overpass onto I-30. What level of frustration leads someone to do something so horrible, especially to innocent children?

The governor of New York resigns, Southwest Airlines grounds dozens of planes in its fleet, Pilgrim's Pride announces cutting eleven hundred jobs and the price of oil keeps going up and up and up.

Then there's the water heater, the wiring and all the rest that makes me remember the song lyric that asks "When will it ever end, when will it ever end?"