Work and Other Four Letter Words

This is from seventeen years ago in this very space. I am impressed, even if I say so myself. At the time, I called it:  

Cursing (in) the Darkness, Sitting at the Light

It's early when I go to work, not as early as when my brother Adam heads out, and by the time I do he's gotten most of the chickens fed and the cows milked, which works out well for me since my employment efforts are confined mostly to the mess the back ends make.

At the foot of Washington Street, which is also a state highway whose number I cannot remember, right next to the church with a sign that once advised, "Life is Short, Pray Hard," at the intersection with the Sweeney Bridge, is a traffic signal that captures relationships in and with The Rose City.

The light sits at the junction of a "T". Those coming down the hill who go right AND those coming up the hill who go left, all head in the same direction over the bridge onto what becomes Route 82. 

Maybe that's what happened to Norwich-everyone went for a drive and drove over the one-way bridge and never came back because they can't. The traffic signal is a beacon and often a vexation and, I suspect, not for me alone, a cause for some head-shaking.

No matter the hour, this traffic signal is on duty--no blinking light, red for us and yellow for the other folks. No pause and go, no roll on through and have a nice day. Nope, nada. It works 24/7 every day of the year.

 Once, during a truly awful snowstorm, it was a blinking light (red in both directions-that was very helpful, especially for those struggling to get up the hill), but only that one snowstorm. 

I wasn't sure what to make of the state snow plows NOT heeding the red blinking light as they blew right on through it, so I decided I imagined it (I'll bet you didn't know there's a difference between city snow and state snow). 

Again, as always, yesterday morning, the traffic signal was red when I reached it. It's not on a sensor, and if it's on a timer, it's more of a calendar than a clock, based on my experience. My red signal lasted five and a half minutes at five fourteen in the morning (Yes, my life is so empty that I timed it. In fairness, it's NOT always that long, so add consistency to the list of quirks.).

The part I find funny is that at the time of day I'm there, it's not unusual to NOT see another vehicle for the entire time I'm at the light. Yesterday was a bit weird as the walk/don't walk signal came on, and there were NO pedestrians. 

Eventually (of course), the signal changed; otherwise I'd be trying to type this on a cell phone (and be cited for violating CT's hands-free law). I had f-i-f-t-e-e-n seconds of green light (that amount of time is a constant; go figure). I've driven the street at all times of the day so I have to wonder why, at oh-bright-early, it can't be blinking. 

I'm counting on, eventually, the bulb(s) in the signal, mine (red) and the oncoming (green), just burning out, and motorists can then drive happily ever after or until they reach the next intersection at the Laurel Hill Bridge.
-bill kenny

Play 'Free Bird!'

Just kidding. Don't you dare.

That song and a handful of others on a list that expands and contracts based on who is doing the listing are among those not to be played on a bar's jukebox, under any circumstances. (And it is a rather impressive list, is it not?)

Not sure how this song came to be, but I know it should never be on a banned list.
-bill kenny

Aller Guten Dinge Sind Drei

A recent political passing on the national stage reminded me of an old German expression that translates as 'all good things come in threes,' and leads me to wonder who's next?

Do you suppose Kalshi has a list and odds? Wanna bet?  

Gamble if you want to win.
-bill kenny

I Watch the Patchwork Farms

This is the hardest part of the season for me. The promise of the endless summer I savored in June has been replaced by a sinking feeling that I've missed out yet again, even though I'm not really sure what, exactly, I've missed. The days are still very often hot, but the light fades faster than it did three weeks ago, and there's something in the air, different and yet familiar.

In years past, this was the time of year when my wife and I would be organizing one or the other (or both) children for the arriving, too-fast-and-too-soon school year (actually, my wife did all the organizing, and the school supplies were assembled despite my assistance). This not-summer much longer but not-yet autumn resonates beyond those of us with school-age children.

That the world beyond my doorstep is in shambles and chaos is not helping me manage the malaise that's become my constant companion for reasons I cannot fully understand. We have lived in our house, on our street, in our neighborhood, and in our city for nearly thirty-five years. I don't think the fatigue I'm feeling in terms of 'same shirt, different day' is a result of any of that, but what's harder to sort out is what to do about it.

You may have had it happen to you as well-you look up and you're not where you used to be or where you want to be, and have no idea how you got to where you are or what to do next. I used to tease my wife back when it was just she and me, as I loaded us into the VW Käfer and just drove. After all, when you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. Eventually, we were always home and dry, more or less.

I've been around this juke joint for a not inconsiderable number of years, somewhat to my surprise and to the abject chagrin and dismay of more than a few people whom I won't dignify by naming, though they know who they are. I'm thinking that maybe I'm just momentarily becalmed and that in the next moment, or maybe the one after that, the wind will fill my sails and we'll be off again, racing to the horizon and beyond.

I'm starting to enjoy the sunrises more than I ever have and to take the sunsets as personal affronts when the days end. I can figure out how and when the night creeps in on a cat's feet, but I cannot stop or slow it. Hoping today's events can fulfill this morning's promise, just as I did yesterday, and hope to as well on the morrow.

-bill kenny

The Dustbin of History

I try to stay out of other states' politics, since residing in The Nutmeg State is already challenging enough without borrowing trouble and mixing it up with folks in places I don't live. 

I must, however, make an exception for Graham Platner and the professional political consultants who advocated for him to become the Democratic Party's senatorial nominee in Maine to oppose the incumbent, Susan ("Yes, I am as close to clueless as possible") Collins. 

Again, not my state, but from what I've learned so far about Platner, which, I suspect, is by no means everything, he's a skeeze and a sleaze and has always been one. It would appear the Maine Democratic braintrust did ZERO vetting of the guy after asking themselves, 'Do we think he can beat Susan Collins?' Nothing else mattered, apparently.

The Nazi-affiliated chest tattoo, the just-above-the-police-calls ideology he offered in public discourse over the last few months, didn't cause anyone to go "huh? It was only when the trickle of rumors about his previous relationships became a torrent of accusations that the folks in charge realized perhaps their Golden Child had feet of clay. 

The murmurings questioning the motives behind the women coming forward bewilder me. They are victims, and it was courageous they spoke up. What kind of person would invent a story where they themselves were the victims of sexual abuse and rape? Believe the women.

Meanwhile, Platner did not go quietly. Instead, he sees himself as a victim of internal politics and, somehow, 'the media' (for reporting on his past, when no one else would?). In the future, as Andy Warhol, once said, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Time's up, Graham. Goodbye.
-bill kenny   

Growin' Up (Behind the Wheel)

I find myself alone with what passes for thoughts at odd hours, almost always in my car, which, doddering curmudgeon that I am, is funny because life and times for my generation go full circle. 

When I was coming of age, the driver's license and the open road (and all they promised, if not always delivered) were a rite of passage. And here I am, very much as I started, a long way from home on a dark highway, lost but making great time.

It was the era of Springsteen's chromed invaders-GTOs, Malibu SSs, Olds 442s, Buick Wildcats, Mustangs, 'Cudas, and Chargers at the top of the list. All those muscle cars had gas lines the size of garden hoses, and all of us, the dweebs included (present!), knew the cubic displacement and the brake horsepower. MPG at a time when gasoline was thirty-five cents a gallon was a nonsense concept and was never explored.

We traveled in packs but were often alone. Our music was transitioning from AM radio to FM, and we struggled to move from converters to tape decks, almost always eight-track, with FM receivers. I remember taking the back seat out of a car to make room for ludicrously sized speakers that were very important to me, but I can't remember why. Because I suspect, just because.

Growing up in the sixties, we were the pioneers who 'experimented' with pot and sex, sometimes at the same time and sometimes not so much. We were all psychedelic capitalists who believed dope got you through times of no money better than money got you through times of no dope. 

Fifty-plus years later, we invented the Real Estate Collapse and Stock Market Meltdown (all caps for a reason) and were absolutely stunned when it happened (now I know why we called it dope).

I watched older neighborhood boys, sent off by my parents' generation, thousands of miles away to places I couldn't say, for causes I accepted as good and true because my government told me it was so. 

A lifetime later, it's my generation sending our children and grandchildren to other eerily familiar wars, and I know just how good we've gotten at lying, but I don't know who we're fooling.

Now that I'm retired, I don't get up with the chickens to go to work the way I did for decades, but I think I prefer to drive in the dawning and the gloaming--when you don't know (or care) where you're going, any road will get you there. 

Those with whom I traveled in the wee small hours always seemed as lost as I, and the roads led everywhere and nowhere. Even now, I keep the windows rolled up, crank the climate control, and turn the tunes up. 
-bill kenny
 

Independence Day Post-Mortem

You probably have one or more in your neighborhood as well: the bozo who purchased a boxcar's worth of what sounded like M-80s for Independence Day but didn't quite use them all up and will now throw them around after dark for probably much of the remainder of this month or until they manage to hurt themselves because of a lack of caution (fingers crossed; and that body part chosen for a reason).

Sorry for sounding so grumpy, post-holiday. 

I hope yours was whatever you wished it to be. Most of the Northeast and large parts of the rest of the country have sweltered for nearly a week as a result of a heat dome and the thunderstorms and lightning it produced. I spent part of the Fourth in an air-conditioned house, rereading an amazing speech by Frederick Douglass, delivered 174 years ago in July 1852.

For those in love with the Bling-Crunk-Rap-Crap I see on music TV where we pretend it's art (at least I do), try this on for size in terms of anger, emotion,  eloquence, and, all these decades later, timeliness. Pull up your pants, home fry, and turn your ball cap around. Your act is so faded.      

THUGLIFE? Please. How in the moment is this: "Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me.

"This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice; I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony."

I hope your Fourth, our Fourth, was good, but that today and all the days that remain are great and greater than the sum of the hours of which they are made and that we finally succeed at that which we have striven our whole lives, a color and bias-free society, grounded by equity, built on equality of opportunity and beholden only to each of its citizens pledged to its success. 
-bill kenny

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