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

Hear the Drummers Drumming

In the coming days, we'll mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I'm still pondering Thomas Jefferson's words about "...certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (and) That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted." I think we form governments, regardless of the manner of actual governance, to do for us collectively what we cannot do for ourselves as individuals.

But maybe I'm missing something, or maybe we all are when we elect/select those who represent us and our interests at all levels of government. Still, the education of our children seems to me to be one of those basic services for which we created government. 

Except, too often we seem to have created governments that most closely resemble a self-licking ice cream cone requiring increased infusions of tax money to explain why less is accomplished. How about for the next two hundred and fifty years, we stop doing that? Deal? 

Our two children are grown and gone, so my experience's 'best used by' date might be a problem for you, but the point won't be. Their first language was other than English when they started school here. They succeeded in both school and life because of their own talents and efforts, and in no small part because of a remarkable public school system of programs and teachers who created an ecosystem that allowed them to grow into who they are today.

But in the decades since our children attended, programs have withered, been eliminated, improved out of existence (pick one) and funding is often more of a rumor, and rather than look at the causes of the financial instability and insolvency that forces decisions like this, and be inspired and incited to demand long term solutions which create real systemic change and reform, we idly and angrily wonder 'gee, what happens to our tax dollars' and continue doing what we've always done, growing angry when the result never varies or improves.

What is permitted is what will continue.
If you want a better place wherever it is you live, you need to make it yourself and join together with the rest of us right now.
-bill kenny

The End or the Beginning?

I have no idea how I lived before the internet. I've checked my birth certificate, and I was around for decades before any of this stuff that we take for granted had ever been thought of. 

Maybe like you, I can go online to look up a particular topic or event, and hours, if not days, later, I will look up to realize I'm still at the computer. Every click becomes a revelation, if not a revolution, and more often than not, the original reason for the search is forgotten. 

Just the other day, I found something online that I had to tear myself away from to tell you about, knowing that when I do (and you try it out), we may never see one another ever again.

Are you ready? Go. 

See you in the next life.
-bill kenny  

Talk about a Short Trip

You may not have yet started to notice, but the days are getting shorter--yes, I know, hot summer nights and all that, but since we've had the solstice, we're already on the downside of the slide to the longest dark day of the year in December. 

I guess the good news might be if you want Santa to bring you a sled, you only have to wait one hundred and seventy-nine days.

And you thought I'd say something chirpy and perky to start your week? Silly rabbit!
-bill kenny