I Poke Badgers with Spoons

I saw that this morning on the back of the car in front of me, as opposed to on the front of the car in back of me, and it made me smile and then it made me wonder.....Where exactly do you poke a badger? In the nose? In the eye (that sounds unpleasant and unkind)? In the belly? How does the badger react to all of this poking, with bemusement, bewilderment or annoyance and anger? How long a spoon should you use if you intend to poke a badger? A spoon of the length one uses to sup with the Devil? Is there such a thing as having too long a spoon? The priest is right-that is truly an original sin.

I wondered about this as I was reading the next installment in the newspapers of the discussion that promises to get heated without any warmth or light in Norwich about taxpayer support of volunteer fire companies. Norwich, like many cities and towns across the state and country, is fortunate to have energetic and engaged community members who help out in a variety of ways and at various times, perhaps none more selflessly than the volunteer fire fighters. I don't know about you, but when I see an uncontrollable or unexpected fire, my first impulse is to move in a direction away from the fire, unlike volunteer fire fighters who run towards it.

As economic times harden in the Land 'O Plenty, and the belt tightening continues (and we start to look up recipes for cut-off pieces of tightened belt, with rock soup as the appetizer. Feeds as many as can find a place at the table) members of our new City Council (they are new, themselves, as five of the seven were just elected in November) are examining practices and procedures for how and why processes in Norwich are accomplished. Sometimes different is better and sometimes it's not. For everyone who likes change, you'll find one or more who think 'not so much'.

The volunteer firemen are concerned about what they feel might be happening to their organizations while those councilmen on the Public Safety Committee insist their desire is to improve, not harm, the volunteer fire companies. The firemen should be concerned, but not about what processes could get improved in Norwich, but from Robert Putnam. I knew the guy was trouble the second I saw those shoes, and as it turns out, his warnings on 'social capital' and how we Americans have grown more disconnected with one another, our families and our communities, are ringing louder than any fire bell. Even if you've never bowled a line in your life, you need to read his book and then look at where you live. When we say to one another 'we can't afford to live like this', we mean in everything and in every way. That's why we (or at least me) elected this City Council in Norwich.

For my part, I've checked Amazon dot com to purchase a copy of Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America not only because it's Spring and the EPA has stocked so many of the streams and rivers, because TFiA doesn't have much to do literally with that, but, because in Spring, it's good to remember how we used to dream big and live larger and wonder why we don't do that anymore. Brautigan's book is a good place to put the souvenirs we pick up along the by-ways and side roads of our lives. And the sleeve in the back of the book is just the right size for a spoon, runcible or otherwise.
-bill kenny