Thoughts Meander like a Restless Wind

Weather is always a lot more frightening on television for me than it actually is in real life. Watching the American Southwest and Midwest get pummeled by every manner of awfulness in terms of meteorology (okay, no rain of blood or frogs, but just about everything else) made me appreciate the great weather (okay it was hot and very humid) we have had in these parts.

It looks like in the course of the next few days we're going to get enough rain to make up for our "rain deficit" which is probably like attention deficit, but I wasn't paying attention when the TV weatherman explained it, but NOTHING to rival what Houston, Texas and about a dozen states had to handle. For which I am most grateful.

Passed on the highways and by-ways over the weekend a lot of folks with convertibles in the top-down mode which is okay I suppose (it's a little braggy if you ask me, but no one did) except they were almost all wearing hats which, to me, is like having a raincoat on when you're in the shower.  If you're committed to going topless then go all the way, otherwise go home.

Sunday, on my back from work on Route 12 going through Ledyard and Preston I passed the pile of rubble of the Norwich State Hospital's Kettler Building which is about all that's left of a century's efforts at institutionalized mental hygiene and hospitalization. There are a lot of gruesome tales told about the Norwich State Hospital which sat on close to 500 acres on the banks of the Thames River, and most of them don't have happy endings.

There are some buildings still standing on the "Preston" side of the property possibly because they are architecturally valuable or historic and all the buildings within the Norwich City limits, recently privately purchased, are still there as well.

But a great deal of the "campus" is gone. When you back to that Abandoned America link and realize 80% of what you see there is now gone, you get a sense of the size and scope of the demolition project. But for me on Sunday looking at all the twisted metal and broken brick, I wonder what becomes of all of that.

Are we sure inanimate objects have no sense of self or feelings because if they do what does the sheet rock  hauled away and dumped I don't know where think happened to the doorways and windows it once lined.

And, the biggest question of all, what became of all those who were cared for in those buildings. Sometimes, it seems to me those who made the decision to tear it all down wasted not a moment on that consideration.
-bill kenny