This is not about my recent kayaking adventures.

My Exclusive Texas-Oregon Book Discussion Group of Two is presently reading Robert Caro’s fourth volume of his exhaustive LBJ biography. I started it late one night without a pencil in hand, which is very unusual, when I came across an egregious grammar error. I thought I could go back and find it the next morning, but alas. My friend in Corpus Christi does his reading on his Kindle, so I felt pretty sure he could search for the offensive verb. He could. He did. Half the boat did not “sunk.”  It SANK, for heaven’s sake. In my copy it’s on page 37. I have now marked it with my big red pen. You never really get over being an English teacher. My friend says it is the same with old CPA’s and sloppy bookkeeping. I went to Caro’s Facebook page and posted him the following. I’m sure it will break his heart.

“Did you actually write, on page 37 of The Passage of Power, “One half of the boat SUNK immediately . . .”? Seriously? This is your old English teacher writing: sink; sank; have, has, or had sunk. It SANK! Jeeze! I hope this is just a typo. There is an actual typo on page 129, last paragraph, eight lines from the bottom. Typos happen. Grammar matters.”

I wish I could call his parents in for a little conference.  However, Caro’s books are exhaustively researched and documented.   I don’t believe the dear boy ever plagiarized a single word or thought.  His “Debts, Sources, and Notes Index” is one hundred three pages long.    I highly recommend the book,