Untapped Guilt

Later this morning well after it gets light I have every intention to head over to the far side of town from my house on Chelsea Parade, Greeneville, to help some neighbors I've never met clean out their park and picnic area they haven't yet made near the 8th Street Bridge. Looks like a good size plot on the map. Yeah, you just read a lots of future pluperfects floating around in that previous sentence. Be careful you don't get anything on you and whatever you do, don't wear good clothes when you're helping out because no one offers to pay for dry cleaning.

I should point out, in fairness to both language and geography, if you live in Greeneville, my house is on the far side of Norwich as well (even though my house isn't on the far side of Norwich but rather, right here). I think that's Michelle's car out in front of the house. The car she has now, not the car that was stolen; the one the  police didn't find until it turned up in Hartford three weeks later with the brake lines cut. Who is Officer Cupcake anyway?

The weather promises to be much nicer today than it was last year around this time when we cleaned up downtown Norwich. It might have gone faster then had we had more volunteers but with about two and half  dozen folks it was all over but the bagging in about three hours. The organizers today, the folks who live in the neighborhood, have budgeted about five hours so that may mean we we don't have to rush or it could be that we may not have very many people. I'd be heartened if we had hundreds (only because thousands is a little ludicrous and the area isn't all that large).  Maybe if it's nice where you are today you can be the difference at some neighborhood project instead of always just talking about trying to make one.

There are a thousand things each of us can do to make where we live, be it a NYC borough or a small block of flats on a side street in the middle of nowhere, a better place for our families and our friends. Instead of waiting for someone else to get it started, be the start and the spark. Gandhi says be the change you wish to see in the world. I got the funny feeling today around here a lot of folks are going to want to be rakes and black trash bags. You might want to see what the mood is where you live and then elevate it.
-bill kenny.