Some Mushy Stuff

Today is our son's birthday. This is from a decade ago and was called: 

So Much Like a Man I Just Had to Say

Our son, Patrick, is forty-four years old today. 

The evening we (my wife and I) found out she was pregnant, and the ultrasound indicated the sex of the child Sigrid was carrying, I was a goner. I got the goofiest grin on my face, and when I think about what I looked like when the doctor told us, I smile in that same manner to this day.

Patrick was, and remains to this day, a low-maintenance fellow traveler on the Big Blue Marble, together with the love of his life, Jena, with whom he celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary on Independence Day. 

If he has ever experienced disappointment or distress, and I know that he has, he has never let anyone else feel it. There have been times in our lives when I have hurt, knowing that he was hurting and there was nothing I could do about it. 

I remember the briefing at Dad College where all of this was covered. The curriculum hasn't changed in a long time; ask anyone who is a father, and you'll see what I mean. All of our teachers stressed the importance of understanding the words of Reinhold Niebuhr.

I realize I've learned more from my children than I ever taught them, and no one has tested me more often than my son on what I've learned, or should have. His smile that lights up a room, his ready wit, his unfailing courtesy, and grace (no matter the chaos and catastrophe surrounding him) are traits he has from his mother, as he could have never gotten them from me. He has no idea how fortunate he is that it worked out that way.

I hope he has a wonderful day. Happy Birthday, my darling boy! 

-bill kenny

Matthew 26:11 Vs. Deuteronomy 15:11

We have a situation here in the Rose of New England, Norwich, Connecticut. Many years ago, one of the city's nearly-native sons, John Manuel Andriote, repurposed the 'America is a great melting pot' metaphor to create one closer to home, "Norwich is a saucepan." 

He was right then, and he's right now. You can find the same hopes and hates here that you have all across our nation. We are America in miniature, with opportunities and challenges.

We're currently engaged in a serious discussion about siting a homeless warming shelter in a former church in the middle of a historic residential neighborhood. It would be for winter-time use only, from mid-November to mid-April (advocates estimate that there are about 80 homeless people within our city limits). 

The discussion is just getting started, but there are, as you can imagine, very strong feelings on the issue, from across the city as well as across the street. I don't believe there's a right or wrong answer, but I think we're arguing about a band-aid for a situation requiring major surgery.

I'm struck by "If approved, the new shelter would operate from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. nightly from around Nov. 15 to April 15, Kelly has said." Where do/can homeless people go at any time, day or night, for the other seven months of the year? And why don't we concern ourselves with that?

Meanwhile, we entertain proposals for warming shelters rather than invest in permanent, affordable housing. "A lot of the people who are ...using the shelter have jobs, have cars...Kelly said."

I'm old enough to remember LBJ's War on Poverty, but now we're waging war on poor people. We need to stop chasing temporary fixes and create lasting and equitable solutions. We must cure the ACTUAL illness rather than treat the symptoms. -bill kenny

Uber, Under, Sideways, Down

I recently underwent a procedure (not an operation because it happened in the doctor's office (I think)) involving steroid injections in my spine to relieve my arthritis, which has, as with so much else in my life, only worsened.

Actually, the needle was intended to get as close to certain nerves at the base of the spine as possible. It did get so close on the left side that my leg kicked out uncontrollably while the injection was being administered. The doctor consulted an X-ray screen operated by a technician to see where he was placing the needle; it's not like I was a dart board (I hope).

I mention all of this because the injections and their aftermath meant I couldn't drive myself home. As I keep myself to myself, I don't have anyone, even after thirty-four years of living where I do, that I consider a friend and would impose on to give me a ride to and from the physician's office.

Rather than take a taxi to and from the office, I downloaded the Uber app, which I have never used (I lead a very sheltered life), and was able to use it to get to and from the procedure using what Nathan, the driver, called 'a fifteen-minute friend.' I think he's right. The car was neat and comfortable, and he was a considerate driver and a terrific conversationalist. A fifteen-minute friend. I like that.

Coming home, Ray, a different driver in an obviously different vehicle, was just as delightful as he explained he had a studio apartment practically on the beach in the shore community of Niantic. He drives just to meet people and share experiences.

Terrific time all in all, and I'm no longer afraid to consider ride-sharing if that's what we're still calling this. And perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not, a few days late, I came across this article, making me grateful that I departed and arrived with all the stuff that makes me, me. 
-bill kenny

   

Coming through the Fog

As George Santayana admonished, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," and I think one of the things I've enjoyed about our nation's 250th Birthday is that, in looking at the past, I've become more confident about the future, despite how grim the present is at so many levels.

We spend a lot of time in this neck of the woods, Norwich, Connecticut, talking about days gone by, forgetting that there are close to forty thousand of us here in the now, who, by our efforts on a daily and repeated basis, form a bridge from yesterday to tomorrow. 

Through everything we do and everything we don't do (commission and omission-Sister Mary Jean would be proud I've remembered those), we add or subtract from our city. 

I wasn't born here, and I'm not especially comfortable with the growing probability that I'll die here, but that's pretty much out of my hands, so all I can do is my best for every day that remains. And that goes for you, wherever it is you live.

Each of us is in a formalized environment with financial, emotional, and organizational structures and strictures. We function in a form with a President, a Governor, a Mayor, or a leader with a title of some sort, and there are subordinate bodies and functionaries in a descending order to deliver goods and services to us, the citizenry and residents. 

But there's also an informal association of significant others, our neighbors and friends, perhaps in a neighborhood watch, or a bowling league, or a group of volunteers who coach a kid's soccer team or host scout meetings. Where we live is the sum of all those activities, not just our bond rating and our reserve to debt ratio.

What we are is defined and refined by who we are. Yes, we must have trash pick-up, but it's just as important that we keep an eye on our neighbor's house when they go away for a long weekend. We have a municipal apparatus for the 'big things,' but we need to have engaged and energized citizens for all the things in between. We should celebrate those who give of themselves to make the place where we all live even better.

-bill kenny 

An American Tune for America's Birthday

"Many's the time I've been mistaken

And many times confused

Yes, and I've often felt forsaken

And certainly misused

Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright

I'm just weary to my bones

Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant

So far away from home, so far away from home."

"And I don't know a soul who's not been battered

I don't have a friend who feels at ease

I don't know a dream that's not been shattered

Or driven to its knees

But it's alright, it's alright

For we lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the

Road we're traveling on

I wonder what's gone wrong

I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong."

"And I dreamed I was dying

I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

And looking back down at me

Smiled reassuringly

And I dreamed I was flying

And high up above my eyes could clearly see

The Statue of Liberty

Sailing away to sea

And I dreamed I was flying."

"We come on the ship they call The Mayflower

We come on the ship that sailed the moon

We come in the age's most uncertain hours

And sing an American tune

Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

You can't be forever blessed

Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day

And I'm trying to get some rest

That's all I'm trying to get some rest." 

-bill kenny

PS: Happy Anniversary, Jena and Patrick!

A Nation and an Experiment

I'm sharing something I wrote not long ago for this holiday. I called it:

America Is a Dream the Whole World Owns

There are a lot of traditional activities for Independence Day, not that reading these words is in any danger of becoming part of that, and if you've heard me write some of this before, you've been standing too close to the keyboard. 

Before it gets really crazy busy over the next few days, perhaps each of us should look in the mirror and then take a look around at the country we received from our parents and their parents, and which we hope to give to our children and theirs. 

There’s been as much gained as there has been lost through the tears and years, and some of what has changed has been better, and some of it has only been different. The dilemma is in deciding which and what.

By many accounts, the heat was oppressive, and tempers were hot in Philadelphia two hundred and fifty years ago as malcontents and troublemakers (in the eyes of His Majesty, George III, King of England) gathered to refine, define, and catalog their grievances and complaints with the most powerful empire the world had ever seen.

Articulating what they called our ‘unalienable rights’ to include ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ the founders of our republic, who did not agree on very much except that the present state of affairs such as they were in 1776 could not continue, concluded the only way forward as a people on this largely unexplored, new continent whose size and wealth was not yet known, was to break with the past and declare independence from King and Crown.

And out of all of that has come all of this. 

And along the way, the original magic and meaning have been muffled by backyard pool parties, holiday car sales, and chicken-fried steaks on the barbecue.

Our politics is spirited even if our interest isn't; we confuse partisan and patriot far too frequently, and our understanding of issues is muddled and muddied because too many of us have created media echo chambers where all we ever hear/see and read is what we choose, not what we should. 

And, again, it’s not that we all agree with who we are and what we are doing. It’s been reported that we haven’t been this divided morally, politically, and socially as a country since the Civil War. And that should frighten us more than it does and galvanize us into redoubling our efforts to reach out to one another, and yet we continue to shrug our shoulders.

Some say never have so many had so much of life’s material rewards, but others contend that never have so many struggled to hold on to what they have. There's a lot to be said on both sides of that argument, and there’s even more that we're not hearing because we’re just not very good anymore at listening to one another.

What may be missing in our nation is our sense of self, our confidence, and belief in our own abilities to forever adapt, adopt, and overcome. We had those traits at our Founding, and I would hope each, in our own way, might again rediscover them, both for those whose inheritance we are and for those whose promise is yet to be.
-bill kenny

Benjamin Franklin Speaking

This Independence Day holiday finds us as a nation and a people going in different directions, seemingly heedless of others with differing perspectives and beliefs. 

We've forgotten, or seemed to, the United in the name of our country. Too often, we see people with different values as some kind of awful, if not some kind of enemy.

Maybe after the barbecue, and before the softball game sets us up for the fireworks we all always look forward to, we can spend a moment thinking about what we have, who gave it to us, and how we can better safeguard it for those who will follow us. 

Just a thought, or more like a Happy Birthday wish.
-bill kenny