Carpe Diem

This was a memorable weekend in Norwich, CT, for close calls and public service-circle the dates so you can better remember them. You may have seen front page headlines in local newspapers and dramatic video on CT-based TV news operations on the HUGE fire in Norwich. The scope of damage and devastation, from the photos and imagery I've seen, is almost beyond measure. That, as I understand it, all the damage is property and there was (authorities believe) no loss of human life is on the scale of a miracle, and while I'm sure those who lived there are inconsolable at this moment on their loss, they, too, realize, they are fortunate to be alive.

I hope that feeling lingers because sometimes we forget how much good fortune we have, or have had, in our lives. I find it reassuring, not knowing anyone in the fire or directly affected by it, to read the news accounts on those helping to make things better and realizing less than a month ago many of us here in Norwich were scrutinizing annual budgets and support requests and weighing and measuring. Those were, and are, important decisions and the way we framed that discussion made sense at the time except.....(maybe?) We spend a lot of time every year, and not just here in Norwich, trying to put a price tag on people and services when we might be better off trying to place a value instead. And then, after we've stirred up one another we move on to other things until it's time for the next annual drill.

It's easy at any level of government to lament the perceived shortcomings or inefficiencies but this particular event really does justify the faith that so many place in our organizations and institutions. All the fire departments across Norwich, the paid firefighters and the volunteers responded immediately and enmasse, were courageous and effective (if not flat out heroic, a word we tend to use inappropriately far too often) and so, too, were all and every, emergency responder. For those, like me, who didn't have a family member or an acquaintance impacted in any way, it should be easy to see the value of those departments we have in our city and how they demonstrated, again, their importance in all of our lives.

Memory is a tricky thing. In the not too distant future, we'll revisit our discussion on buying fire engines, or reallocating our emergency response resources, and (again) instead of having a reasoned and reasonable debate where we all seek to better use what we have after attempting an all-inclusive review, we'll choose a lesser path and a lower road and have yet another variant of the petty bickering, name calling and personal demonization that so often, and too often, passes for public dialogue. And sitting silently watching us will be those whose lives were so profoundly altered this weekend by a personal calamity on such a public scale that you would think we'd all recall it. We have dates circled on a calendar but can't seem to remember why.
-bill kenny