Crawling Over Rubble Just to Sound Me Out

The calendar says for those of us in the Northeast and most of the rest of the nation, this winter of our discontent is drawing to a close. We just started Daylight Saving Time, and in less than two weeks, the swallows return to Capistrano. 

I know it's been a rocky time for many of us for quite some time, and you have to look hard to find reasons to be cheerful. Dylan offered it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. 

My mother, mom of six of the thickest-headed and strongest-willed children to ever walk the planet, demonstrated her smartness when, without consulting the Internet (there was life before ether. Who knew?), she told us it took more muscles to frown than it did to smile. We believed her because she was our Mom, and it didn't hurt that she was also right, but how did she know?

So we can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up faster. I always wear trousers with pockets, so I have somewhere to put all the fun. We can promise not to miss what we do not have and enjoy our now in the now and look towards tomorrow with hope and not dread. 
-bill kenny 

You Can Call Me Ray....

Sometimes I'm not sure if it's better to believe the calendar or my own eyes. We just started daylight saving time in the wee small hours of this morning. Many of us are already counting down the days to spring (I guess so we can then count down the days until Summer), but when I look out the window, there are more than enough reminders everywhere that winter's last word hasn't yet been spoken.   

Don't know about your house, but in mine, there's always one clock we forgot to move forward on Saturday night, and then didn't see it at all Sunday, so it's actually Monday or Tuesday when we finally get caught up on all the watches and clocks. 

I hate the clock on the microwave, and it shows because I never get it set correctly. You can hear the sounds of my struggling with it as it beeps and bleats in frustration while I manage to do everything but get it to move forward, and eventually, my wife resets it in what seems to be one fluid motion, leaving me to wonder as I always do why we have the forward and back thing with the clocks in the first place. 

I guess I should find solace in the knowledge that we do it whether we understand why or not. And while I'd like to hope the spring ahead means winter is now finally in retreat in the Northeast, what we will have is more daylight in the afternoons. As a kid, I thought it made the days longer and gave us more time, and the elderly adult in me now hopes that kid was right on both counts.   

But having the time is one thing; doing something productive and worthwhile with it is something else entirely different. I'm not going to lecture or hector because your mileage may vary, but there are people and projects in need of your extra time and singular talents, be it on your street, neighborhood, city, or state. 

How many projects around your house have you left undone because you just didn't have the time to get to them? Me too. Maybe tackle cleaning out the basement/attic/garage or shed project? And before you start, call Norwich Public Works and schedule a bulk pick-up.

And if you're already caught up on the around-the-house projects, look no further than the end of your street to find an agency or organization in need of volunteers' time and talents. I'm not talking large-scale projects like leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but down to earth. 
     
Take an hour and invest it: in reading to a child in the local library, or seeing if your neighborhood school can use a helping hand, assisting an elderly neighbor to grocery shop, or just visiting someone who's a shut-in. It will benefit more people than either of us can possibly imagine

Take a hint from your clock and outshine the sun. It's alright.
-bill kenny

It's "D" Not "T"

The last time we had a parade in downtown Norwich was for Winterfest, and look at the snow and cold that followed. I’m not suggesting cause and effect, but I mention that because Norwich’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is this Sunday, and I’m concerned we might have large numbers of very short-bearded men with pots of gold and shillelaghs that we won’t be able to get rid of until Memorial Day. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I wanted you to know the possibility is out there.

Weather permitting (a phrase we’ve used almost every day for the last seven weeks or so), the Norwich Saint Patrick's Day Parade steps off at one from Ferry Street, makes its way around Franklin Square and up Franklin Street and then uses Willow Street to march to Chestnut and then, in turn, Broadway before making a left at the Wauregan onto Main Street and finishing up at City Landing.

Here’s the website and a listing of many of the other activities going on in and around the parade itself. Last year’s parade was a great success, not just in terms of marchers but also for cosa a chur ar an tsráid (putting feet on the street) across downtown.

Think of the Parade as another reason to stop and visit somewhere, far too many of us simply drive through on our way to someplace else, sometimes complaining how ‘there’s never anything to do in Norwich.’ Which, I agree, can be true except when it’s not, such as tomorrow.

Everyone is welcome to march, but it’s really more of a brisk walk than a march in terms of distance, so you can smile and wave without breaking a sweat.  And you won’t be alone.

When Irish Eyes are Smiling, let’s hope they brighten and warm up tomorrow afternoon enough to allow both the wearing of the green and the marching of the feet. And though it’s technically early, it’s right on time for Sunday: Beannachtam na Feile Padraig "Happy St. Patrick's Day!"

-bill kenny

Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears

When Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington’s Continental Army at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781, history notes that the British fife and drum corps at the ceremony played a popular tune of the day, “A World Turned Upside Down.” In many respects, such was the state of the empire of King George III.

Upstart colonists, angered by a monarch who “erected a multitude of new offices, and sent …swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance,” declared their independence in the summer of 1776, proclaiming the function and purpose of government was to protect the ‘uninalienable rights (of)…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Two hundred and fifty years later, how much happiness can we stand and how much can we afford?

Instead of government at all levels working for us, we toil to pay for it. Pick a program, be it local, state, or federal, and work through its budget, trying to understand how much is overhead and how much is initiative. We’ve been living hand to mouth in Norwich, and elsewhere, for too many years; we’re now eating our own fingers. Something wrong has got to be righted.

Last week, there were news stories about the 1.49% increase in the Rose City’s grand list—an increase that does NOT keep pace with the consumer price index, but all one of our (two) local daily newspapers wants to talk about is the paid vs. volunteer fire department pissing contest. Adult municipal leadership is in criminally short supply.

The Land of Steady Habits, as Connecticut likes to be called, has picked up some terrible fiscal habits, most especially unfunded mandates of all kinds used by Hartford to stick municipalities throughout the state with the check, while special interests celebrate preferred treatment and businesses and the middle class flee our borders in droves.

The government at all levels needs to be repurposed to best support programs delivering the best quality and lowest cost public services for our collective good. The public trust must stop being the public trough.
-bill kenny

A New Past Time

Another Winter Olympics is history, and I watched about the same number of hours on the plethora of NBC stations carrying them as I always do. None. It means I missed the significance of the men's and women's hockey teams' victories over Canada, and the fallout for the men. FOMO ain't so bad.

Someone explained to me that 'hockey is the national sport in Canada.' That got me to wondering what about US, not just us, I mean the USA. When will the summer Olympics add NASCAR? 

How about Monster Trucks? Let's update traditional Greco-Roman wrestling with WWE. And don't tell me we're the only country on earth with dogs running the length of docks, leaping into the air, and landing in the water. I feel a Wide World moment coming on.

Considering the dollars, petro and otherwise, changing hands for the rights to broadcast the Olympics to the farthest corner of the universe, where, I suspect, the reaction is often like it was in my house for the last two weeks, we might seriously consider throwing the competitions wide open, so put those thinking caps on.

I'm holding out, of course, for that most national of all of our past times, regime change. The problem is lining up sponsors. No worries, we've got four years to square this away. What's that? Beer Pong? Brilliant!
-bill kenny

From the Sleep of Reason, Life Is Born

I imagine I've come across stories and features on this topic, or a variant, a thousand or so times over the years, but this time around, Seven Fresh Facts About Babies, 

I have an interest of a more pressing personal nature in sharing.

Welcome, Tiny Tot Trinkley. Your Opa cannot wait to meet you.
-bill kenny

Finally!

I've lived in Norwich for a skosh over thirty-four years. We Norwicheans have a terrible self-esteem problem, possibly because Eeyore seems to be our spirit animal. We spend enormous amounts of time waiting for something simply awful to happen and are always relieved that it does. 

(Even) long(er) time residents than I are fond of reminding the rest of us, "Norwich isn't Mystic." 

It's hard not to be impressed by our command of geography, in all candor.

But now, finally, we have something we can brag about.  

First person who says, "I'll drink to that," gets punched in the nose.
-bill kenny