Next lesson learned > Be careful when updating your theme as it could affect other areas of your blog. I knew that visitors could not leave post comments. I went into the customize theme section and added the Meta widget which includes the Register and Login links. These are required for interacting with the blog. I saved and published the changes. When I visited the site I discovered the menu was missing. WTH. Thankfully in this instance I only had to re-create the menu. I need to get in the habit of using the Preview option when working on the blog.
Recommendation > Back up your blog and I mean everything. Changes are great but having to start all over is not fun. I will make a future post when I learn more about backing up blogs.