A Half Full Glass Is Still a Glass

I took advantage of the atypical tropical temperatures for Southeastern Connecticut and my hometown, Norwich (Connecticut) yesterday, middle thirties (Fahrenheit), for a forty-five minute walk from my house near Chelsea Parade to the Norwich Harbor, where the Shetucket and the Yantic Rivers meet to form the Thames which empties into the Long Island Sound.

As walks go it was pleasant enough-I'm getting the knack of dressing in layers so I manage to do a decent job of staying warm without the risk of perspiring when I stride vigorously, which I do, everywhere.

2013 is having a going-out-of-business sale. We've already had the shortest day of the year and we're gathering up snippets and snatches of daylight with every tick of the clock and day of calendar we take towards a mid-summer's night in 2014, but there's a way to go between here and there, wherever there happens to be exactly.

While enjoying the view from the Howard T. Brown Park (I tell people "the 'T' is for savings (but it's silent and invisible)" and they tend to make crazy eyes and back away from me rather quickly so I always have plenty of elbow room) and watching the seagulls pick over every last scrap of detritus near the rubbish bins they've picked over for days, I encountered a fellow happy wanderer who was more a wonderer, and not all that happy come to think of it.

He wasn't thrilled at the temperature, and was very vocal in looking forward to something a little warmer, he told me. I did my usual 'in New England we have pine trees not palm trees' but he was having none of it. The more he spoke, the more animated and angrier he became. I am an expert in anger, so I recognize a member of the tribe when I see one.

I can't fix people like this and don't think anyone can. They are truly the proverbial 'would kvetch if you hanged 'em with a new rope' type from whom I once learned a valuable lesson and which I pass along to you free of charge, realizing the greatest thing about advice you neither solicit nor pay for is there's no obligation to take it.

The only piece of the earth you can save is the one you are standing on and the only person you should strive to be better than is the person whose reflection you saw yesterday in your mirror. When you look again today, see and be the improvement. As someone sang a lifetime ago, the movement you need is on your shoulders.
-bill kenny