New Beginnings or Beginning Anew?

Last night in a ceremony I always enjoy even when I may not like the outcome it confirms, Norwich's elected municipal leadership changed. The office of Mayor is now in the hands of Deberey Hinchey, joined on the City Council by some familiar faces, Mark Bettencourt, Pete Desaulniers and Sofee Noblick, a pair of new faces, Bill Eyberse and Terell Wilson and the return of Bill Nash.

Seven people whose shoulders must be very broad to carry the hopes and expectations of so many of us who say we want better days for the city which we all share. Seven people whose backs must be strong to carry many of us in directions we say we want to explore but, in reality, have absolutely no appetite for the adventure such exploration would require.

As they and we already know from encounters with one another across the city in both formal and informal settings, we are all very eager to go to heaven but not especially keen on dying to get there.

I'm not the only one who believes in shared sacrifice, as long as you (whoever you are are) goes first. Then, and only then (and after a decent interval) will I entertain ideas on how I should compromise so we can all get along and go along.

Welcome to the human condition, population: us. I love the pageantry of 'regime change' if you absolutely have to have a term. The three preceding Mayors escort the new Mayor to her place at the Council as friends and family of all the members crowd the chambers and digitally capture every moment forever.

We make history every day in this city but sometimes we do so it more (self) consciously than other days. I smiled realizing that in our four elections since a return to Mayoral governance, we have yet to re-elect any of our Mayors.

I'm not intimating anything in terms of events four years from now, but am putting a mental stopwatch to how quickly we go from calling upon our newly sworn-in alderpersons to calling them out for all manner of failings, sometimes real but  far more often imaginary.

People campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose that has its price and comes with costs, seen, unseen and obscene. One of the laws of physics is that the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound which may be why sometimes people look good until we hear them speak. And by the same token, sometimes the things they do speak so loudly we can't hear what they're saying.

Here's what I thought about last night, aside from elevating one another's blood pressure through unending argument what are we hoping to accomplish in Norwich to (better) grow our commercial tax base which in turn will enhance our community quality of life? While we agree 'we need to do something,' what that something is often is the hardest part.

I could be wrong, and certainly hope I am, but it seems to me the most reticent and reluctant of us to formulate and implement a strategy are frequently the first to loudly point out the shortcomings and weaknesses of those elected to address the very challenges we are complaining about.

Our Mayor and City Council can do anything, but they can’t do everything. Only together with each of us can they, and we, succeed.
-bill kenny

More like Must Flee TV

I missed it last night, and I'm thinking I'm not sorry I did. The Learning Channel which has brought so much knowledge to so many for so long has, in my opinion (perhaps only), declined precipitously in terms of stimulating the grey matter.

Remember when Republicans used to use them as the example for why the government could cut PBS loose from taxpayers' dollars? Misty, water-colored memories. Quite frankly, I'm not sure they're even trying anymore.

After all it's TLC who are the goobers with the TV show, Toddlers and Tiaras, about child beauty pageant contestants which is a vaguely oxymoronic description in the first place (who doesn't think her/his child is beautiful? Can you imagine the size of the 'Lost & Found' at the hospitals around the world if we let parents leave ugly babies behind before heading home?).

But just around the time the Algonquin Roundtable was overcoming its mute shock at that piece of video verite, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (that's what it's called) who/which is something even I, in a fever dream, could not have imagined.

But if you don't keep moving ahead, you fall behind-be it in the arts, sciences, pro wrestling or schlock TV business (and I thought chiller was just about the dopiest of all the cable channels; silly me) and TLC stands for nothing else these days if not Opposed To Stasis (the initials don't line up but their viewers don't care) as last night, possibly in an attempt to keep me up past my bedtime (but not on a school night!) they unveiled Best Funeral Ever.

I don't think it's possible to do gooder than this and I'm very sure 'gooder' is a word that's supposed to be used in this context for just this proposition. In one of the most judiciously worded critiques of a program you will read anywhere, the critic at Media Life Magazine, whose existence is predicated on the dollars broadcasters and cable operators like TLC spend for on-line advertising, pulls every punch with the heaviest weight gloves possible and you can still read between the lines.

You know the folks who invented TiVo are hanging themselves even as DVR units across the country are being set to record this because words fail. I am already looking forward to TLC having enough episodes in the larder to have a holiday marathon though I'm not sure Dia de Muertos is yet on the Hallmark horizon.

Imagine what the ratings could look like if one of the former denizens of Jersey Shore or the Real Housewives of Anyplace were to be interred. Of course, it would cost a fortune in soundproofing to muffle the screams from the casket, but only until they run out of air.
-bill kenny

All Others Pay Cash

Sort of a disheartening story in most newspapers yesterday on the erosion of trust in each other we have here in the Land of the Free. You know it's getting serious when our first question after reading the headline isn't 'oh yeah, says who?'

I'm a relentless pragmatist and certainly no Pollyanna (do people still name their children that and then perhaps offer a chorus of this. I did not know that Morgan Freeman played the banjo) and I hate to say it but it makes sense to me.

When you're a pessimist, you can only be surprised and never disappointed and all you have to do is look at the mess and morass that we have created of our national government in Dodge City to realize we've got some fundamental changes to make or you can put a fork in us now because we're done.

It's okay to blame 'those folks in the Capital' except we, you and me, sent them there with instructions to take no prisoners and they're doing what we told them to do. I hope I don't offend you but some of the people you chose are awful.

Actually, I'm lying in the sense of I don't care if I offend you because each of us has made some terrible choices and while blaming one another is very therapeutic, it's not going to get our ship of state off the rocks we've run it into.

Here's the scary part: the only people who can help us heal is us. Yeah, I was really hoping that would read a lot better than that but it is what it is. We have to relearn how to give one another the benefit of the doubt and to not only assume but also believe that people mean to do well, even if they sometimes don't.

We need a return to the era of the open hand because it's easier to shake and to loan to someone in need of it, and we need to look in the mirror and realize we have one mouth and two ears for a reason and behave accordingly. Trust or bust.
-bill kenny

Headlong Into the Holidays!

Welcome to the last month of 2013. It doesn't seem that long ago we were standing on the cusp of 2013 and speculating as to what it held and here we are, at the intersection of Thank God and Greyhound You're Gone, already pinning hopes and dreams beyond measure on the year that hasn't yet arrived.

When the new month begins on a weekend, it feels like you're cheating a little bit but only just a little. We've had crisp and clear weather since Thanksgiving which meant yesterday afternoon we had a chance to celebrate one another and the season as part of our annual Winter Fest.

Remember the more fun it looks like the more hard work all kinds of volunteers behind the scenes had to get done. And, yes, we did have fun and I'd hope your holidays got off to as grand a start as ours did.
-bill kenny

This Time Tomorrow

There's a sense of acceleration if not exhilaration in the air these days. Maybe it's the Christmas spirit, maybe it's the anticipation of however you celebrate the holidays, maybe it's the ending of yet another year and the closing of the age.

Between us, I'm not sure what it is and as the years of my life have sped by I spend less and less time regretting their passing since I cannot stop it, nor, try as I might, can I alter anything that has yet to be.

All I can control is the here and now. And not really all of the now just the split second each of us has before the next moment arrives. But that's okay. As challenging as some times in the past have been, they are in the past and what's to come is unknown and will arrive and unfold whether I worry about it or not.

Had a nice moment last night with my wife (I usually say 'my long-suffering wife' so I should this time as well) Sigrid as we enjoyed the annual Lighting of City Hall at One Union Street in the city in which we live.

We also, as is our tradition, purchased the Christmas ornament produced every year to mark the season. I think Sigrid has one for every year of the celebration and at mid day today I hope we have the time to enjoy the Winterfest Parade that's always a lot of fun as we line Broadway to celebrate ourselves.

You should try it, especially this time of year. It does a body good, and it only takes a moment and then that moment is gone, joining the previous one in unending chain of life on a small planet.

-bill kenny

Back in Black? Ack!

If you're reading this on a handheld device while standing in a line outside a big box store to snag a once-in-a-lifetime-deal that isn't on a television, a new cell phone, a refrigerator-freezer or gaming console, please go home now.

All of us who have the capabilities to read this blather have all the physical possessions we shall ever need-anything you're standing in line for now, or elbowing folks out of the way to get to later in the day as Black Friday accelerates, is sheer and absolute greed.

Thanksgiving, and this is still Thanksgiving my friend, is to celebrate with friends, old and new and not acquire more things to put in the basement or attic with the other things we already own and don't use.

Many years ago in Germany I had an acquaintance who explained Americans as "people who buy things they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like." I really disliked him for that characterization but I always think about what he said when Black Friday rolls around and know I cannot argue with his point.

Where I live, Norwich, Connecticut, a town of about 45,000, if I were to add up all the square footage of all the shops in our downtown, occupied buildings or otherwise, I suspect it's less than the floor space in the average Super Box Store.

I smile realizing tomorrow is Small Business Saturday because, assuming you're not tuckered out from that super deal you got on the 1932 hand-carved mahogany Terraplane at MaxBucks MegaStore, you could support one or more of the local shops where you live, all of whom help make your city or town an even better place to come home to.

Perhaps to help you keep that same small town in each of us, you have where you live a semi-official start of the season such as ours here. Tonight, technically speaking this afternoon at 4:30, starting at City Hall and culminating at 6:00 PM with the arrival of the Jolly Old Elf himself (no, not Will Farrell or Bob Newhart) and the lighting of City Hall, Norwich, once again, establishes its bonafides as Connecticut's Christmas City.

We've given each other some hard knocks lately, and I'd suspect/expect a few more before the New Year arrives but we do this Christmas kick-off stuff really great and will have a terrific parade tomorrow starting at noon at Chelsea Parade. We always have room for more so if you're waiting for an invitation, this is it. And though it's been said many times, many ways.....
-bill kenny

Happy Thanksgivukkah

Some teachable moments are more so than others, I suppose and today has more than its share of both.

As a child, I can remember drawing those turkeys from the silhouette of my hand and bringing them home to my Mom to put on the refrigerator. Considering the size of their tribe, in later years I found it amazing that my parents didn't have a fridge the size of Long Beach Island (whose whereabouts, by the way, I'd never even heard of growing up in Jersey).

No matter how many paper turkeys are adorning various appliances in your kitchen, I hope you have a marvelous Thanksgiving. And if you observe Hanukkah, here's a terrific article I found last week from Long Island's Newsday newspaper that offers a lot of history but even more insight that I think makes it worth the price of admission for those within and without its tradition.

This is as ridiculously appropriate a day as any other to be grateful for everything we have rather than mourn for what we lack. I hope however you choose to celebrate whatever holiday you do choose, it's filled with family and friends and that the afterglow lights the rest of your day and helps brighten our world.
-bill kenny