Going off half-clocked

This is the weekend we 'fall back' and return to Eastern Standard Time. If we're not careful on Election Day here in Norwich, Connecticut, we may turn back time all the way to the Eisenhower Era while turning away and shutting out many of our own residents.

The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth (of the habit).

In the (about) sixteen years of living here as one of the thorns in the Rose of New England, I've met many, who, like my wife and I, settled here to raise a family and who invested of themselves in our city.
Yeah, I said "our" even though many across Norwich seem to have a mental stopwatch on how long you must be here to be from here. It's not enough our kids went to Buckingham or Kelly Middle School together. I didn't attend Elizabeth Street School with my kids' friends' parents.
Like thousands, if not tens of thousands in Norwich, the 'old-timers' are right: we weren't born here, but we're here now and Norwich is just as much our city as it yours.

Some of us have family that arrived here on the Mayflower.
Others got here with the Mayflower moving van. It's not the destination that matters so much as the journey that defines it. I think the dreams and hopes (and maybe fears, too) we have for ourselves and our families draw us closer together than all the zip codes and accents that some would use to push us apart.

Happiness and success aren't rationed. We should believe they are infinite in supply, both quality and quantity, so that each of us should be able to have enough. And if you don't, I cannot understand how you get through your day.

A lot has been written in the weeks (and months) leading up to Tuesday about those of us, and the City Council candidates are 'of us' and just like us, who have volunteered their time and talents, in an attempt to harness the energies and ambitions of so many of us for the benefit of all of us in Norwich. For all of them, the reward for doing a good job on the council is, and will often only be, the knowledge that they have done their best. Making people who only want to help into heroes or villains demeans and impoverishes all of us.

If on Tuesday it's Election Day where you call home, just as it is here in Norwich, which I call 'home', you owe it to your family, friends and most especially yourself, to vote for your hopes.

I'll see you out in front of the polling place, looking for rainbows at the horizon.
-bill kenny