All Hallow's Eve

It's amazing how a religious devotion, a commemoration and remembrance really, evolved into an all-the-candy-you-can-eat-without-barfing exercise all the way to an adult party hearty event. Greetings and salutations nevertheless. 

There was an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain that some sociologists theorize 19th century Irish immigrants brought with them that helped create our current observance/holiday/day on which to go gluttonous on chocolate. It certainly caught on in the United States, but we are no longer alone. Far from it. 

Halloween is celebrated in about a dozen countries around the world, gladdening the hearts, I'm sure, of candy manufacturers in the days leading up to it as well as the bottom lines of dentists in the days and weeks following it. Alas, poor Linus, I knew him well. We can always content ourselves that Strongbad doesn't do candy, I guess. Did you have Trick or Treat for UNICEF in your neighborhood? Sign of the times now, I fear, I haven't seen or heard about it in years and years.

Remember how our Moms used to go through the goodies making sure that the apples didn't have unpleasant surprises and throwing all the unwrapped candy away 'just to be safe'. Would it have killed them to pretend the Mary Janes were unwrapped (talk about a dentist delight-it could take fillings out)--a candy that I don't think I even see at any other time of the year except now. And what about candy corn (and I loved it, btw)? 

If scientists are correct that cockroaches would survive an atomic war, I believe they would do it munching on candy corn, indestructible, indescribable, often imitated but never duplicated. One of the many things I surrendered once my doctors made me understand, as a an adult, I couldn't be a part-time diabetic. And I miss it more than I can say.

As a parent I can recall some of the worst weather of the season always seemed to start about two hours before the kids got organized to head out. So I'll keep my fingers crossed for all the goblins tonight. And every child, no matter how young, wanted to trick or treat with her/his friends. Only a baby goes out with a parent. 

So with a heavy heart and a quiet footstep the trick was to figure out how far back to trail them as they went from house to house and no matter how many times a child was told 'no running', what happened? Yep. Why was I always surprised when mine paid as much attention to me as I had to my parents? 

And every neighborhood had a trick or treater without a bag-usually one of the hyper active kids from down the street who ate the candy as quickly as he got it. Can you imagine how much magic it was in that house later that same evening? Me neither.

My own children long ago outgrew the doorbell ringing and candy-collecting aspects of the evening and we don't even even play anymore at my house. But the Dream Children and ghosts of ghouls past sometimes encounter one another on my porch when "Open, locks, Whoever knocks!"
-bill kenny

Putting Ours in Hours

Even though it was a Saturday and a day off I was still late. I awakened with a start about a quarter after seven realizing I was supposed to have blood drawn at seven for a doctor's appointment on Tuesday afternoon.

I see an endocrinologist for my diabetes which I continue to believe was caused by my sweet personality, or not; that's what the blood tests regularly attempt to prove or refute, often with mixed results.

There weren't a lot of people at the drawing center around the corner (and a wiggle) from the house which has Saturday morning hours in addition to their oh bright early until dark hours during the regular work week.

There's hardly ever a wait but I still always make an appointment because of how I ration my time, consistently allocating the smallest amount possible for me and mine (like my father before me) and then wondering what happens that my life seems to work out the way that it always has. Yep, absolutely mystifying.

The phlebotomist noticed my ballcap, from the HBO series, "The Newsroom," and smiled in recognition, telling me it was one of her favorite shows, as it was mine, and how she thinks Donald Trump got a lot of his ideas about making America great again from Will McAvoy's speech to 'sorority girl' that opens the debut episode.

I wanted to tell her I think Donald Trump's last original idea died of loneliness and that he is, as Will McAvoy himself might say, the period dumbest period and laziest period spoiled brat moron period in the history period of our country exclamation point period. I did mention he stole his slogan from Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, "Let's Make America Great Again."  She marveled at what she saw as the coincidence rather than the plagiarism.

I was about to get wound up, as I tend to do with little to no provocation and then remembered she had the business end of a needle just about into one my veins or arteries (I can't tell them apart) and I need to do blood draws about twenty times a year. It's not how you start, it's how you finish and the day hadn't yet run its course and neither had I.
-bill kenny

Speak Softly

I am always amazed at our genius as a species for willful self-destruction. Even if they could talk, I cannot imagine a lemur, or an ocelot or a wombat saying to another one, ‘here, hold my beer (or hookah/doobie) while I try this’ and yet there’s not a day goes by where shenanigans and $hit among our biped brethren aren't the order of the day.

It’s bad enough when it’s “kids” doing dopey deeds, but here’s a news item from not too far away from where I live that would cause me to shake my head in disbelief except when I do there’s a noise like a BB rolling around in a boxcar so I’ve stopped.

Michael White, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law but quite frankly, based on this account, it is obvious to me you are dumber than a box of rocks. This is stupid stuff when you’re nineteen (I’m thinking of an Army mail clerk where I once worked, Rooster, who piloted his scooter into and through a military snack bar at lunch time) and is just flat-out idiotic and inexcusable at thirty-one. 

Of course, it was a Wal-Mart. How’d you like to have them as a client for your public relations firm as you struggle to up-market their image? How much lipstick can one pig take, right?  Every bad internet meme that has or will ever be made about congenital dumbness is set in a Wal-Mart and now we have Mister White and his motorized escapade.

I’m trying to imagine if White rode the motor scooter “erratically” into the store or found a motor scooter, ride-ready (so to speak) in housewares (?). I had no idea what an “air soft revolver” was (I don’t get out much anymore), so I googled it and am less than reassured by the search results. Not a lot of warm fuzzies from a description that tells me “they are built to look and feel like an actual revolver.”

Seriously? Why would that be a sales advantage he asked fearing he already knew the answer. Maybe malevolent is a better descriptive for Mr. White since it now seems to me that from any distance somebody brandishing one of those things might be pretty persuasive when soliciting a passer-by for her/his wallet/purse or watch. 

What was it Al Capone used to say? Oh yeah, “you can get more with kind words and a gun than you can with kind words alone.”

-bill kenny  

And None of You Stand So Tall

Sometimes we have the four seasons of the year in a single day in New England. Apparently, it’s what we do, unless you’re like me where you do it automatically and bleat piteously all the time it’s happening.

This time last week we had felt-like-record-high temperatures as if we were going to redo the middle of July all over again (I voted to second the motion but it was tabled I guess) and yesterday we had snow (a trace and taste of what's to come).

But on the days in between we had seriously brisk overnights where the moisture in the air clung lightly frozen to closely-cropped lawns (I’m not allowed to mow ours anymore and it’s getting a little long in the tooth) and where your footfalls made a distinct crunching sound when you walked on the grass and left tell-tale footprints that disappeared as the temperatures climbed when the sun rose above the horizon hours later.

I was listening to Nick Mason’s Pink Moon in the car because it’s excellent music first of all and a truly marvelous late-night-or-can-we-call-it-early-morning soundtrack. 

The sky in our part of the state of Connecticut has very little light pollution from populated areas because we don’t have many people to start with and most of us don’t like each other and live as far as possible from one another as we can. No, not true? Well, it seems that way when it comes to me, so I just figured it must apply to everyone else as well.

We had a full moon at some point last week but now the waning crescent moon was so low overhead I thought I could touch it and I remembered as a kid, riding in the back seat of a Chrysler Newport sedan and then later that navy blue barge of a station wagon I learned to drive on, always being impressed at how the moon was always on my side of the car, no matter how we twisted and turned.

The Impreza our current car, I still call it my new car even though we have it a little over two years and it wasn’t a new car when I bought it but it is new to me, is a hatchback rather than the small sports utility vehicle, a Forester that served me so well for so long. 

It’s lower than the Forester and on nights when I share the road with others I use that little switch on the mirror so the headlights behind me don’t obscure my view. We never needed that in the Forester but I use it all the time now.

My new car has a moon roof, the Forester didn’t, and I never use it during the day because my brain already works so badly I have no reason to bake it and then try to think. But driving along, keeping an eye on the moon and realizing neither of us was in any hurry to get to where we were going, I opened the moon roof and was immersed in a white, pale light that bathed rather than illuminated the front seat and and made the center console look like a dark island.

I drove almost the entire trip of a little more than a dozen miles from our house to work on a city street, state road, interstate and then back to a state road without seeing anyone else. There were no cars or trucks of any kind on the roadways or waiting at intersections to slide in behind me. 

I was the only person on earth, alone with the music and riding in an automobile that seemed to know the way and I was back to keeping track of the moon and where only one of us was heading.      

-bill kenny           

Postcards from the Sporting Life

Spent a not inconsiderable amount of time over the weekend in a sporting goods superstore-the kind so large it has its own zip code and border security force. It's been a long time since I've gone browsing for sporting gear.

As a kid, I had a Whitey Ford pitcher's mitt-a right-hander's model which, since Whitey was a lefty, was quite the rarity. Every off-season, I'd stick a baseball in the pocket and my father would place a small amount of neatsfoot oil on a rag and I'd rub it in good, use those rubber bands kids in the Sixties used to hold up their shin guards when they played soccer, and stick the mitt in the back mousetrap of my bike and wait for Spring. Sort of like the Yankees are doing right now.

I have zero business in a sporting goods store. The only place more useless is my being in a hardware store, or, as they're called now, a 'home improvement store.' FWIW, I improve our home every weekday morning when I leave for work. My wife, Sigrid, is the handy person in my family. I'm not even allowed to have tools, much less a charge plate from one of those behemoth stores. 

I LOVE when we go into one together and the folks on the floor start talking to me about the Finnegan bolts and Johnson rod adapters. It's a guy thing and I'm as close as they can get. She has to tell them to talk to her as the blank look on my face isn't enough of a clue....

All I wanted to see was what the store had for pedometers-the one I have is that classic example of 'you get what you pay for' and had pretty much spit the bit last week. I passed a whole section dedicated to darts which, and spare me the angry notes, I'm not really sure is even a sport. 

I mean, let's face it, is card playing a sport? How about slot machines? Folks play them all in bars across the country, but still. And don't give me that 'it's on ESPN!' crap. They also broadcast spelling bees and unless we're talking jungle rules, that's not sports.

It took me over an hour to find pedometers-past all the fishing stuff, the running shoes, the not running shoes, the bicycles, and footballs, soccer balls, something called a golf ball adjustment tool (I did NOT stop to explore). 

My favorite item may have been the heart rate and pulse monitor with GPS. The box said it was manufactured to comply with NASA specs which sounds vaguely bogus as I assume the Johnson Space Center knows all of it astronauts would be in the capsule or in the space station in the first place, right? 

GPS for astronauts is like having FIVE run-flat tires for your car. With a starting price of $129.99, it did get my heart racing and I had a sudden craving for Tang.

I flagged down an associate in a short-sleeved forest green sports shirt with the store's name above the right breast, in this instance perhaps more than a little overshadowed by same, to assist me in locating the pedometers. She conceded she had no idea where pedometers would be but to be helpful yelled to a colleague 'this old dude is looking for a Ped-OH-meter-we got any?' 

Preferably something other than the old dude model, which they did, and I noted the prices and quickly headed for the exit to do some comparison shopping elsewhere. I suspect unless I use GPS, even if I cannot find a single pedOHmeter anywhere else on earth, I still won't be able to find my way back to that sports superstore, dude.

-bill kenny

Reality and Perceptions of Reality

It's been ten days or so since The Bulletin offered a front page above the fold story "Bilda, Hinchey went on $340,000 trip to Kentucky Derby" that sparked a lot of words and may yet precipitate something even louder, action.

The story by Ryan Blessing outlined how (two) commissioners of the Norwich Public Utilities as well General Manager John Bilda, and Norwich Mayor Deb Hinchey along with three dozen other folks spent a luxurious weekend at May's Kentucky Derby (for over $340,000), participating in a retreat paid for, by neither taxpayers nor ratepayers of the utility, but rather by the nonprofit energy company that includes NPU as a member.

The eighteen online comments (when I looked Saturday) offered by readers were, as is almost always the case, nearly as revelatory about the posters as they were reactions to the story itself (including five from the same poster).

My favorite one had the folks in the story holding their retreat right here in Norwich, with what sounded like some good times at great savings (I already own bowling shoes and could have been sparkling company for one and all. Or not.).

One of the things I enjoy about living in a small town like Norwich is when I don't know what I'm doing there are plenty of other residents who do. However, in this case, it seems NOT a lot of other people had any knowledge of the trip, before, during or afterward, and, let's face it, as they say in the advertising game, in reading the accounts in the paper 'the optics on this aren't good.'

About a decade ago, I was fortunate to work with very dedicated Norwich residents, among them then-alderman Larry Goldman, who created our town's code of ethics.

I, for one, could not agree more with his concern about appearances offered as a member of the Board of Public Utilities Commission, in a follow-up story a couple of days later followed Sunday with yet another story, this time a conversation with the former chairman of the city's ethics commission, Rabbi Charles Arian, expressing astonishment that Mayor Hinchey didn't ask the commission for an advisory opinion before going on the trip.

The Bulletin's editorial last Tuesday "Luxurious Trip Doesn't Help Ratepayers" got right to the heart of the matter wondering how the money spent on the retreat "might otherwise have been used." Each reader, I suspect, had more than a few suggestions.

In this situation, a cynic might throw up his hands and say "rules are for people who don't know better" but then how could I finish typing this column?

Sometimes the things we do often speak so loudly I can’t hear what we’re saying. Often in reacting to behavior by those in the public eye, silence is seen as the best course and recourse but I hope in this case no one makes the mistake of perceiving silence as approval or agreement. We need to fully understand no one can ever treat a public trust like a private trough.
-bill kenny

Seven Years On, Bad Luck and Otherwise

This is from a long time ago and was called "Never Trade Luck for Skill." In honor of this election crap storm coming to end (I hope) in exactly two weeks' time, I wanted to revisit it and discovered what was true then is still true now.  

I came across that suggestion yesterday and, single-minded cretin that I am often (with reason) accused of being, thought of the ten of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of small and quiet decisions that households across this nation make on a daily and weekly basis as the economic tides continue to threaten to pull so many of us under. 

A non-economist acquaintance once shared with me 'when you're out of a job, it's a recession; when I'm out of a job, it's a depression' and I suspect there's more to that than meets the eye. At the end of last week and intermittently this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been 'flirting with 10,000 points'. (2016: Now over 18,000) I have absolutely NO idea what any of that preceding sentence means, but I've heard it repeatedly and parrot it like I know what I'm talking about. 

All of us do. We all assume or did until it turned out the whole house of cards decided to reshuffle itself, that someone somewhere knew and understood what it was we were doing for most of the last decade. Like Wimpy, offering to gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today knowing full well we would have no money on Tuesday, we just kept adding days to the calendar and hoped Tuesday wouldn't arrive. 

When the economic ship of state started taking on water, I didn't really understand the big picture and, like so many, haven't been as successful as I'd like in appreciating the larger picture and fuller impact. Conversely, with Bernake in the Seventh House and Geithner aligned with Mars (or something like that) am I alone in detecting a tone of barely-controlled euphoria by broadcast and print news reports on economic growth? Except I'm still not "getting" it.

Why isn't it all this just Accidental Excellence (not this one)? When we got it right, we had no idea what we did to produce those positive results so, not surprisingly we couldn't duplicate them, so when things started to go south, we went with them. It's hard to not be superstitious, wash your face and hands, until you get the bill at the end of the month for soap and water.

In times of stress we rely more on routines, they offer us the appearance of the familiar, the known and the comfortable and serve, in their way, as a mantra against a world we believe cannot otherwise manage. "Thirteen-month-old baby broke the lookin' glass. Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past." Sounds about as long as some of us think these hard times will last-while others who've never known other than hard times wonder what all the handwringing is about.
-bill kenny

Synchronize Your Calendars!!!

Today is the birthday of the United Nations. My local Hallmark store was fresh out of UN birthday cards the last time I checked though they may still have some (or lots) of the Keepsake Ornaments. Why anyone thinks Star Trek, Tom and Jerry or Agent P have anything to do with a Christmas tree is beyond me but I'm not the one trying to sell stuff at an exorbitant markup for the holidays. Call before midnight tonight and we'll get your money faster!

Actually, if you want to drive into lower Manhattan today and double park in a fire lane, in honor of the UN's birthday I'm sure the NYPD are very understanding. Or not, especially not.

More importantly, though Secretary-General Designate Antonio Guterres may disagree, at least for me, is that today is my brother Kelly's birthday. Kelly, as many outside of his immediate family pretend to be only dimly aware of, was, briefly, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the Bishop of Rome. Okay, technically he was only almost the Pope but only because, as it turned out, not all bears do $hit in the woods all the time and on that technicality, the Curia decided otherwise. I hope they are still happy with Pope Francis ("I" sold separately).

And, it turns out, two of the electors may have been monkeys and their antipathy towards my brother knows no bounds. Or is it the other way? I get confused sometimes probably because I have seen Kelly only sporadically since returning to the USA a quarter of a century ago and--what is that you're humming? Not funny.

But despite the time and distance of separation, we are, I think, still close. We have the same slightly jaundiced view of the world; he is a Rangers devotee and I like Chuck Norris (as an example). We often think so much alike we complete one another's sentences, for instance when he says 'Tippecanoe' I say "a Native American falls out." Incredible, right? Do not try this at home, ladies and gentlemen, we are professional siblings.

So, later today, when you finally ransom your car back from the clutches of NYPD impound and find a place to watch cartoons and brace yourself for Bugs Bunny who, if he did not already exist when Kelly started to watch TV, he would've had to have invented. Happy Birthday!
-bill kenny

The Hurt Gets Worse and the Heart Gets Harder

"The Beirut barracks bombing (October 23, 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon) occurred during the Lebanese Civil War, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen. The organization Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the American Marines barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers, along with sixty Americans injured, representing the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.

In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast. The explosives used were equivalent to 5,400 kg (12,000 pounds) of TNT.

In the attack on the French barracks, the eight-story 'Drakkar' building, two minutes after the Marine attack, 58 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured, in the single worst military loss for France since the end of the Algerian War.

The blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization following the Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon."

Abbott, Terry W. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. New Richmond, OH

Alexander, Clemon S. ...... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Monticello, FL

Allman, John R. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NM .. Carlsbad ... NM

Arnold, Moses J. Jr. ...... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Bailey, Charles K. ........ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Berlin, MD

Baker, Nicholas ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Alexandria, VA

Banks, Johansen ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Detroit, MI

Barrett, Richard E. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Tappahanock, VA

Bates, Ronny K. ........... USN .... HM1 .... 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Aiken, SC

Battle, David L. .......... USMC ... 1stSGT . 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Hubert, NC

Baynard, James R. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Richmond, VA

Beamon, Jesse W. .......... USN .... HN ..... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Haines City, FL

Belmer, Alvin. ............ USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Biddle, Shannon D. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. AL .. Valley Head, AL

Bland, Stephen ............ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Midway Park, NC

Blankenship, Richard L. ... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Hubert, NC

Blocker, John W. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Yulee, FL

Boccia, Joseph J. Jr. ..... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Northport, NY

Bohannon, Leon Jr. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Bohnet, John R. Jr. ....... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. TN .. Memphis, TN

Bonk, John J. Jr. ......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Boulos, Jeffrey L. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Islip, NY

Bousum, David R. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Fife Lake, MI

Boyett, John N. ........... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Brown, Anthony ............ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Detroit, MI

Brown, David W. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. TX .. Conroe, TX

Buchanan, Bobby S. Jr. .... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Midway Park, NC

Buckmaster, John B. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Vandalia, OH

Burley, William F. ........ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NJ .. Linden, NJ

Butler, Alfred III ........ USMC ... CAPT ... 02/09/1984 .. FL .. Cocoa Beach, FL

Cain, Jimmy R. ............ USN .... HN ..... 10/23/1983 .. AL .. Birmington, AL

Callahan, Paul L. ......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Lorain, OH

Camara, Mecot E. .......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Campus, Bradley J. ........ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Lynn, MA

Carlson, Randall A. ....... USA .... MAJ .... 09/25/1982 .. CT .. Trumbull, CT

Ceasar, Johnnie D. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. TX .. El Campo, TX

Cherman, Sam .............. USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. NY .. Queens, NY

Clark, Randy W. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 09/06/1983 .. WI .. Minong, WI

Cole, Marc L. ............. USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Ludlow Falls, OH

Coleman, Marcus A. ........ USA .... SP4 .... 10/23/1983 .. TX .. Dallas, TX

Comas, Juan M. ............ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Hialeah, FL

Conley, Robert A .......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Orlando, FL

Cook, Charles D. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Advance, NC

Cooper, Curtis J. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. North Wales, PA

Copeland, Johnny L. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Burlington, NC

Corcoran, Bert D. ......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Katonah, NY

Cosner, David L. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. WV .. Elkins, WV

Coulman, Kevin P. ......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Seminary, NY

Cox, Manuel A. ............ USMC ... SGT .... 12/04/1983 .. NJ .. Union City, NJ

Croft, Brett A. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Lakeland, FL

Crudale, Rick R. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Warwick, RI

Custard, Kevin P. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MN .. Virginia, MN

Cyzick, Russell E. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. WV .. Star City, WV

Daugherty, David L. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. OH .. Eastlake,OH

Davis, Andrew L. .......... USMC ... MAJ .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Decker, Sidney James ...... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. KY .. Clarkson, KY

Devlin, Michael J. ........ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Westwood, MA

Dibenedetto, Thomas A. .... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. CT .. Mansfield Center, CT

Dorsey, Nathaniel G. ...... USMC ... PVT .... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Baltimore, MD

Douglass, Frederick B. .... USMC ... SGTMAJ . 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Cataumet, MA

Dramis, George L. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 01/30/1984 .. NJ .. Cape May Court House, NJ

Dunnigan, Timothy J. ...... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. WV .. Princeton, WV

Earle, Bryan L. ........... USN .... HN ..... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Painsville, OH

Edwards, Roy L. ........... USMC ... MSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Elliot, William D. Jr. .... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Lancaster, PA

Ellison, Jesse ............ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. WI .. Soldiers Grove, WI

Estes, Danny R. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. IN .. Gary, IN

Estler, Sean F. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NJ .. Kenall Park, NJ

Evans, Thomas A. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. MT .. Conrad, MT

Faulk, James E. ........... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Panama City, FL

Fluegel, Richard A. ....... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Erie, PA

Forrester, Steven M. ...... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Foster, William B. Jr. .... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Richmond, VA

Fulcher, Michael D ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Madison Heights, VA

Fuller, Benjamin E ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Duluth, GA

Fulton, Michael S. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. TX .. Ft. Worth, TX

Gaines, William Jr. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Port Charlotte, FL

Gallagher, Sean R. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. N. Andover, MA

Gander, David B. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. WI .. Milwaulkee, WI

Gangur, George M. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Cleveland, OH

Gann, Leland E. ........... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Garcia, Randall J. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. CA .. Modesto, CA

Garcia, Ronald J. ......... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Gargano, Edward J. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 01/08/1984 .. MA .. Quincy, MA

Gay, David D. ............. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Harrisburg, IL

Ghumm, Harold D. .......... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Gibbs, Warner Jr. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Portsmouth, VA

Giblin, Timothy R. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. N. Providence, RI

Gorchinski, Michael W. .... USN .... ETC .... 10/23/1983 .. IN .. Evansville, IN

Gordon, Richard J. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Somerville, MA

Gratton, Harold F. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Conoes, NY

Greaser, Robert B. ........ USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Lansdale, PA

Green, Davin M. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Baltimore, MD

Hairston, Thomas A. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Haltiwanger, Freddie Jr. .. USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Little Mountain, SC

Hamilton, Virgil D. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. KY .. Dayton, OH

Hanton, Gilbert ........... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. DC .. Washington, DC

Hart, William ............. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Hasenfus, Michael ......... USA .... CPL .... 10/20/1984 .. MA .. Dedham, MA

Haskell, Michael S. ....... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Hastings, Michael A. ...... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. DE .. Seaford, DE

Hattaway, Jeffrey T. ...... USMC ... PFC .... 12/04/1983 .. FL .. Pensacola, FL

Hein, Paul A. ............. USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Held, Douglas E. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Helms, Mark A. ............ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NE .. Dwight, NE

Henderson, Ferrandy D. .... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Tampa, FL

Hernandez, Matilde Jr. .... USMC ... MSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Midway Park, NC

Hester, Stanley G. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Raleigh, NC

Higgins, William R. ....... USMC ... COL .... 07/06/1990 .. KY .. Louisville, KY

Hildreth, Donald W. ....... USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Sneads Ferry, NC

Holberton, Richard H. ..... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Beaufort, SC

Holland, Robert S. ........ USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. KY .. Gilbertsville, KY

Hollingshead, Bruce A. .... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Fairborn, OH

Holmes, Melvin D. ......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Chicago, IL

Howard, Bruce L. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. ME .. Strong, ME

Hudson, John R. ........... USN .... LT ..... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Riverdale, GA

Hudson, Terry L. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. AL .. Prichard, AL

Hue, Lyndon J. ............ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. LA .. Des Allemands, LA

Hukill, Maurice E. ........ USMC ... 2ndLT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Iacovino, Edward S. Jr. ... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Warwick, RI

Ingalls, John J. .......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Interlaken, NY

Innocenzi, Paul G. III .... USMC ... WO1 .... 10/23/1983 .. NJ .. Trenton, NJ

Jackowski, James J. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. S. Salem, NY

James, Jeffrey W. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Baltimore, MD

Jenkins, Nathaniel W. ..... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Daytona Beach, FL

Johnson, Michael H. ....... USN .... HM2 .... 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Detroit, MI

Johnston, Edward A. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Struthers, OH

Jones, Steven ............. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Brooklyn, NY

Julian, Thomas A. ......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Middleton, RI

Kees, Marion E. ........... USN .... HM2 .... 10/23/1983 .. WV .. Martinsburg, WV

Keown, Thomas C. .......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. KY .. Louisville, KY

Kimm, Edward E. ........... USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. IA .. Atlantic, IA

Kingsley, Walter V. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. WI .. Wisconsin Dells, WI

Kluck, Daniel S. .......... USA .... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. KY .. Owensboro, KY

Knipple, James C. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Alexandria, VA

Kraft, Todd A. ............ USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. ND .. Devilslake, ND

Kreischer, Freas H. III ... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Indiatlantic, FL

Laise, Keith J. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. East Stroudsburg, PA

Lamb, Thomas G. ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MN .. Coon Rapids, MN

Lange, Mark A. ............ USN .... LT .... 12/04/1983 .. MI .. Fraser, MI

Langon, James J. IV ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NJ .. Lakehurst, NJ

Lariviere, Michael S. ..... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Perry, FL

Lariviere, Steven B. ...... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Chicopee, MA

Lemnah, Richard L. ........ USMC ... MSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Lewis, David A. ........... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Garfield Heights, OH

Lewis, Val S. ............. USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Atlanta, GA

Livingston, Joseph R. ..... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Champaign, IL

Losey, Donald George ...... USMC ... 2LT .... 08/29/1983 .. NC .. Winston Salem, NC

Lyon, Paul D. Jr. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Milton, FL

Macroglou, John W. ........ USMC ... MAJ .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Maitland, Samuel .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Martin, Charlie R. ........ USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Martin, Jack L. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Oveido, FL

Massa, David S. ........... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Warren, RI

Massman, Michael R. ....... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Port Huron, MI

Mattacchione, Joseph J. ... USMC ... PVT .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Sanford, NC

Maxwell, Ben H. ........... USA .... SSGT ... 04/18/1983 .. VA .. Appomattox, VA

McCall, John .............. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Rochester, NY

McDonough, James E. ....... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Newcastle, PA

McMahon, Timothy R. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. TX .. Austin, TX

McMaugh, Robert V. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 04/18/1983 .. VA .. Manassas, VA

McNeely, Timothy D. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Mooresville, NC

McVicker, George N. II .... USN .... HM2 .... 10/23/1983 .. IN .. Wabash, IN

Melendez, Louis ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. PR .. Puerto Rico

Menkins, Richard H. II .... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Tully, NY

Mercer, Michael D. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Vale, NC

Meurer, Ronald W. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Milano, Joseph P. ......... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Farmingville, NY

Moore, Joseph P. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. MO .. St. Louis, MO

Morrow, Richard A. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Clairton, PA

Muffler, John F. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Munoz, Alex ............... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NM .. Bloomfield, NM

Myers, Harry D. ........... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Whittler, NC

Nairn, David J. ........... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Nava, Luis A. ............. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. CA .. Gardena, CA

Ohler, Michael J. ......... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/16/1983 .. NY .. Huntington, NY

Olson, John A. ............ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. MN .. Sabin, MN

Olson, Robert P. .......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Lawtons, NY

Ortega, Alexander M. ...... USMC ... SSGT ... 08/29/1983 .. NY .. Rochester, NY

Ortiz, Richard C. ......... USMC ... CWO3 ... 10/23/1983 .. OK .. Ft. Sill, OK

Owen, Jeffrey B. .......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Virginia Beach, VA

Owens, Joseph A. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Chesterfield, VA

Page, Connie Ray .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Erwin, NC

Parker, Ulysses ........... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Baltimore, MD

Payne, Mark W. ............ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Binghamton, NY

Pearson, John L. .......... USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Perkins, Marvin H. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 12/04/1983 .. TN .. Franklin, TN

Perron, Thomas S. ......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. MA .. Whitinsville, MA

Phillips, John A. Jr. ..... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Wilmette, IL

Piercy, George W. ......... USN .... HMC .... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Mt. Savage, MD

Plymel, Clyde W. .......... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Merritt, FL

Pollard, William H. ....... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Pomalestorres, Rafael I. .. USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Prevatt, Victor M. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Columbus, GA

Price, James C. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. AL .. Attala, AL

Prindeville, Patrick K. ... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Gainesville, FL

Pulliam, Eric A. .......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. E. St. Louis, IL

Quirante, Diomedes J. ..... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. RP .. Calcoocan City, RP

Randolph, David M. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. AZ .. Siloam Springs, AZ

Ray, Charles R. ........... USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Reagan, David L. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 09/30/1982 .. VA .. Virginia Beach, VA

Relvas, Rui A. ............ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Rich, Terrence L. ......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Brooklyn, NY

Richardson, Warren ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Brooklyn, NY

Rodriguez, Juan C. ........ USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Miami, FL

Rotondo, Louis J. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

Salazar, Mark E. .......... USA .... SSGT ... 04/18/1983 .. CA .. Pasadena, CA

San Pedro, Guillermo Jr. .. USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Hialeah, FL

Sauls, Michael C. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Waterboro, SC

Schnorf, Charles J. ....... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Camp Lejeune, NC

Schultz, Scott L. ......... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Keeseville, NY

Scialabba, Peter J. ....... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Moorehead City, NC

Scott, Gary R. ............ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Rankin, IL

Shallo, Ronald L. ......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Hudson, NY

Shipp, Thomas A. .......... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Shropshire, Jerryl D. ..... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Macon, GA

Silvia, James F. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Portsmouth, RI

Sliwinski, Stanley J. ..... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Niles, OH

Smith, Kirk H. ............ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Miami, FL

Smith, Thomas G. .......... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. CT .. Middletown, CT

Smith, Vincent L. ......... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Soares, Edward ............ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Tiverton, RI

Soifert, Alan H. .......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/14/1983 .. NH .. Nashua, NH

Sommerhof, William S. ..... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Springfield, IL

Spaulding, Michael C. ..... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. OH .. Akron, OH

Spearing, John W. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Lancaster, PA

Spencer, Stephen E. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. RI .. Portsmouth, RI

Stelpflug, Bill J. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. AL .. Auburn, AL

Stephens, Horace R. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Capitol Heights, MD

Stethem, Robert D. ........ USN .... SW2 .... 06/15/1985 .. MD .. Waldorf, MD

Stockton, Craig S. ........ USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Rochester, NY

Stokes, Jeffrey G. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. GA .. Waynesboro, GA

Stowe, Thomas D. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Sturghill, Eric D. ........ USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Chicago, IL

Sundar, Devon L. .......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. CT .. Stamford, CT

Surch, James F. Jr. ....... USN .... LT ..... 10/23/1983 .. CA .. Lompoc, CA

Thompson, Dennis A. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Bronx, NY

Thorstad, Thomas P. ....... USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. IN .. Chesterton, IN

Tingley, Stephen D. ....... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. CT .. Ellington, CT

Tishmack, John J. ......... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. MN .. Minneapolis, MN

Townsend, Henry Jr. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 12/02/1983 .. AL .. Montgomery, AL

Trahan, Lex D. ............ USMC ... PVT .... 10/23/1983 .. LA .. Lafayette, LA

Twine, Richard ............ USA .... SFC .... 04/18/1983 .. UK .. Salop, UK

Valle, Pedro J. ........... USMC ... CPL .... 09/06/1983 .. RP .. San Juan, RP

Vallone, Donald H. Jr. .... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. CA .. Palmdale, CA

Wagner, Michael ........... USN .... IS1 .... 09/20/1984 .. NC .. Zebulon,, NC

Walker, Eric R. ........... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. IL .. Chicago, IL

Walker, Leonard W. ........ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. AL .. Dothan, AL

Washington, Eric G. ....... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. VA .. Alexandria, VA

Weekes, Obrian ............ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Brooklyn, NY

Welch, Kenneth ............ USA .... WO2 .... 09/20/1984 .. MI .. Grand Rapids, MI

Wells, Tandy W. ........... USMC ... 1stSGT . 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Wentworth, Steven B. ...... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Reading, PA

Wesley, Allen D. .......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Philadelphia, PA

West, Lloyd D. ............ USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Weyl, John R. ............. USMC ... SSGT ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Wherland, Burton D. Jr. ... USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Jacksonville, NC

Wigglesworth, Dwayne W. ... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. CT .. Naugatuck, CT

Williams, Rodney J. ....... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. FL .. Opa Locka, FL

Williams, Scipio Jr. ...... USMC ... GYSGT .. 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Charleston, SC

Williamson, Johnny A. ..... USMC ... LCPL ... 10/23/1983 .. NC .. Asheboro, NC

Wint, Walter E. Jr. ....... USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. PA .. Wilkes-Barre, PA

Winter, William E. ........ USMC ... CAPT ... 10/23/1983 .. SC .. Fripp Island, SC

Wolfe, John E. ............ USMC ... CPL .... 10/23/1983 .. AZ .. Phoenix, AZ

Woollett, Donald E. ....... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. OK .. Barthesville, OK

Worley, David E. .......... USN .... HM3 .... 10/23/1983 .. MD .. Baltimore, MD

Wyche, Craig L. ........... USMC ... PFC .... 10/23/1983 .. NY .. Jamaica, NY

Yarber, James G. .......... USA .... SFC .... 10/23/1983 .. CA .. Vacaville, CA

Young, Jeffrey D. ......... USMC ... SGT .... 10/23/1983 .. NJ .. Moorestown, NJ

Zimmerman, William A. ..... USMC ... 1stLT .. 10/23/1983 .. MI .. Grand Haven, MI

(thank you to http://www.usmcvietnam.net/MARINES-KIA-IN--BEIRUT.html from whose site this information was taken.)
-bill kenny  

Flat Line on the White Lines

There comes a time when enough is enough. Quite frankly you or I would probably call it quits on any given project mired in its own misery before a government agency, be it municipal, state or federal decided to toss in the towel.

Here in Connecticut for more years than most of us still have functional brain cells, development proponents have yearned to have our Nutmeg State finally finish Route 11 in Eastern Connecticut.

That sort-of-circle shape is an artistic approximation of the part that was always dreamed of but never funded, financed or finished. And now, it never will be. If you've driven in our fair state for more than an hour in any direction, it's a cinch you're probably no more than 25 miles from where you started.

That's been part of our secret appeal, I think. You can never get to anywhere from anywhere else in a direct route. We go North to head South and drive East to Go West and think nothing of it as we've long since confused travails with travel.

We already had plenty of state highways with beginnings, middles, and ends in the correct proportion and number. Making Route 11 whole would have been not just expensive but ludicrously expensive.

As it happened, decades of state-funded surveys and studies were for naught as the Federal Highway Administration had anywhere between 1.2 and 1.5 billion reasons to pull the plug and have now done so.

Perhaps it's for the best in many respects not just in terms of saving far too finite dollars for more deserving projects, but to allow those who will feel cheated of a near birthright in the completion of Route 11 to stare into the fires as the night's shadows grow longer and murmur and mutter about what might have been.
-bill kenny

I Know I Ain't Nobody's Bargain

I was born in April of 1952 but in far more ways than I can explain (and far more than I can ever hope to understand) I think of today as being the day I was really born.

It was on this day in 1977 Sigrid Schubert and I were wed in the Federal Republic of Germany, known then as West Germany, at Offenbach am Main's Rathaus at twenty after ten in the morning with Evelyn F, Sigrid's friend, and Chris H, my chum, as witnesses.

I had met her in Sachsenhausen on Christmas Eve night 1976 and I asked her to marry me the following Easter, April 3rd. So suave and debonair was I (not) that she told me later for a moment as I started to ask her to marry me she thought I was breaking up with her. Yep, even then I was Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collected. 

How lucky can one guy get, eh? I've never known what she saw or sees in me aside from a great personality, rapier-like wit complementing a puckish sense of humor, a body like Adonis (Joey Adonis from West Orange over by Prospect Plains), almost hobbled by a nearly crippling sense of modesty that has been my lifelong cross to bear and delusions, (I almost always forgot those) but she is my entire world.  

She is everything I have wanted to be or to do and she makes me a better man by knowing that she loves me, often despite who I am. I can remember the most minute of details of that day and have driven her and both of our adult children to distraction and beyond recounting them incessantly AND also on an annual basis with today as my excuse, so I'll skip them here, but they know what will happen, just not when.

I hope with all my heart wherever in this world you find yourself that you also have and keep someone who will hold your heart forever as she has mine. I don't remember often enough to tell her I love her as I should though I will today and I will again vow to be better about that for every day we have together for all the days that remain to us.
Happy Anniversary, angel eyes. 
-bill kenny

Not Now Doesn't Mean Not Ever

The nominees for the next class of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, were announced Tuesday. Congratulations are in order for all who were nominated but I wouldn't be me if I didn't wonder what the deal is with Warren Zevon still NOT being in the Hall and still NOT being nominated again.

If you think I'm whining about this, shut up because I'm not. Go here and get educated.

I'm not going to offer a snarky variation of a false equivalence where I pick one of the new nominees, lift an eyebrow as I curl my lip and say their name while adding 'Seriously?' That's counter-intuitive to everything I have always loved about music, most especially that we have all kinds of music because we have all kinds of people in the world.

There are Warren Zevon people in the world. I would know; I am one and I'm not alone. And I have every confidence the day will come when he is nominated and elected because he was and is a genius.
-bill kenny

Uniquely Portable Magic

As a kid, I grew up reading Tom Swift. His adventures were my dessert, so to speak as a reward for 'real reading' that we did in my parents' house after we came home from school and had finished our homework.

Our father was a teacher and our house was filled with newspapers and magazines but most especially books. I think I was allowed to get my own library card for my seventh birthday. The sense of power it gave me was remarkable and something I can still very vividly recall.

No longer did I have to plead with my Mom when she was checking out books from the library or try (and usually fail) to negotiate with my dad along the lines of 'for every Sir Walter Scoot and Ivanhoe and Mark Twain and "Connecticut Yankee," I can also have a Chip Hilton or a Hardy Boys book.' That first library card was my passport to anywhere and everywhere in the world anytime I wanted to go. My parents even got me a wallet to put it in even though I was a decade away from having anything else to keep it company.

It sounds like "back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth" I know to anyone who's come of age in our current Converged and Connected World of non-stop noise and news that there really was a time when downloading a book to read meant using a step stool in the library to reach a book on a high shelf.

I thought about that whole then and now comparison a lot this past weekend because the school at which my father last taught before passing away thirty-five years ago honored both his memory and his impact, still, on his generation of students with their Distinguished Faculty Award.

And at practically the same time, across the country, a Facebook friend was cheerily, if not gleefully, posting that while most of her Pacific Northwest major city was plunged into darkness, she was sitting in a comfortable chair in her living room, sharing the illumination of her battery-powered lantern with her pre-teen son as both were engrossed in catching up with some of their favorite books.

If you have a library card from the Otis Library, you don't need me to tell you about all the places you can go in terms of materials to check out and enjoy, be it music on compact disc or feature length movies, and of course every manner of book imaginable.

But this weekend, actually, starting Friday, you don't even have to have a library card because it's the Friends of Otis Library Semi-Annual Book Sale, held in the basement of the library, open to everyone.

It's a great fundraiser for the library and it gets bigger and better every time it's held.  As I said, its starts on Friday morning with an early bird from 9 until 10, that will cost $10 to get a first look at all the treasures.

Officially the sale will run from 10 until 3 on Friday with the same hours on Saturday with Sunday from noon until three your last chance to get bargains, huge bargains, and I'd hope enough reading material to get you to the spring sale.
-bill kenny

Share and Share Alike

We were coming home to Norwich, Connecticut mid-Sunday afternoon and had already taken 287 North into New York where we changed over to 87 wending our way on that long and winding road (Sir Paul McCartney sold separately) that takes us over Bear Mountain but long before we reached it, we got caught up in a traffic jam.

Traffic jams are eight gallons of cars and trucks trying to pour through a two-quart funnel. The jams are never helped when instead of taking turns the way we told our children to do when they were little and still thought we knew stuff, we try to barge forward at all costs. The gamble in this kind of traffic chicken is that the other motorist loves her/his car/truck more than you do yours and allows you to be evil and ugly but dammit, first!

It all had to do with Octoberfest (mit uns Amis gibt es kein "Ich" im "Team" und gar kein "K" im Oktoberfest) being held at the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area in Harriman State Park. I'm not sure "Mad" Anthony would have been at home at a beer-based bacchanalia, though I suspect he would not have approved of the horseless carriages getting in the way of enjoying some brilliant fall foliage, not to mention one another.

It's taken me eons behind the wheel to accept that traffic is one of the things I cannot change. I watch people zoom quickly into lanes posted with signs advertising they will disappear in 500 yards and have watched folks drive on the shoulders of a roadway untroubled by the brazenness of their own selfish behavior. In truth, when I wore a younger man's clothes (several sizes smaller than the ones I wear now) I was too often those very same bozos.

I now believe you get along by going along, or at least I say I believe. So yeah, at some level, I buy in on the concept that cars and trucks are much larger than motorcycles and so we who drive the former two should pay extra attention to our two-wheeled brethren and share the road.

My willingness to support that belief  Sunday was tested nearly incessantly by motorcyclists (plates from a variety of states to include Texas and New York) who threaded the needle, so to speak, by riding on the white broken line separating the two lanes of traffic as if it were some kind of motorcycle monorail as they made their way, I imagine, to the good times and cold suds.

All the traffic jam added was about a half hour to what was in total about a four and a half hour drive and if I were honest with myself( but why start now?) I'd concede it was the worst thing that happened all weekend. A weekend otherwise filled with family, and extended family (thinking of Katie, Jessica and Zooey), and warm and wonderful memories.

Though I was tempted to add just one more smile: what if I'd suddenly and swiftly opened my driver's side door as some Solo Suzuki or Other was rolling on by and stop 'em cold? Land sakes! Of course, I'm not sure how I'd have explained to my auto insurer I'd accidentally opened the door into a motor cycle. Forty-two or more times.

Share the road, Harley and Holly. How about you first? It's clutch time and later than you think.
-bill kenny              

Charlie Not Harry

It was George, not Carlos, Santayana not Santana who offered that 'those who do not learn (from) history are destined to repeat it.' If there is such a thing as a faculty newsletter for the Greenwich (Connecticut) Cardinals, I'm hoping someone on the staff is able to read it to the coaching staff on their football team.

This is either embarrassing or sad, depending on your perspective. Your call.

I especially enjoyed learning about how long the play has been in the Cardinal's playbook and its various alternate and previous names. I sure hope by the time Greenwich starts its spring practices, they've straightened all of this out.
-bill kenny

That Cool Breeze from a Cold Steel Rail

When you reduce society to its smallest component, it's just you and me, literally. That's all we are, just us and others who come along and join us, either philosophically, metaphysically, or geographically. I always smile when people tell me I'm not from here as if I didn't already know that. What they don't seem to get is I'm from here now.

Maybe like you and your local papers, I've been reading a lot of letters to the editor and on-line comments on news stories where readers invoke the ubiquitous and mysterious 'them' as the source of all unhappiness and problems. 'They' don't get 'us.' 'They' are out of touch, or set in 'their' ways and need to go home in November. It's always especially 'themy' when we have National Elections.

And all that carping is great stuff except if I may offer a distinction, 'they' started out as 'we' as in 'we the people, in order to form a more perfect union...' (Let me know when you've had enough, okay? I can quote this stuff all day-I am that good).

Here's a newsflash, sunshine. No one can do anything to you that you do not give them the power to do. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Don't read newspapers, listen to radio, watch TV, or troll the interwebs and God forbid, do not dare to go to public meetings of your local government because you might just find out what's going on and then what would happen?

Here's what: You might have to do something. Maybe tell a neighbor, maybe bring a friend to the next meeting, maybe have to offer an informed observation on how you feel about a particular issue. Or you can keep your head down, get lost in the shuffle while shuffling along with the lost and never once risk being on the 'wrong side' of an issue by ever taking a stand.

So if you're reading this while wearing your "A Pox on Both Your Houses!" tee-shirt, or after you've repositioned your 3rd/4th/5th party candidates' lawn sign out front, I'm typing at you. You don't get to pretend to not have a dog in the hunt, because otherwise, it's over, Rover, for all of us. For the most part, I can understand your desire to NOT get any of it on you, but democracy is a contact sport so suit up and shut up buttercup.

Nothing in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or Declaration of Independence says we have to like each other (thank goodness!) but we owe one another the opportunity to get along. 

Don't sit there with your arms folded, your eyes closed and hearts hardened. We need every oar in the water and put your back into it. Aren't you truly tired of watching and waiting-or have you forgotten what you were waiting for?

-bill Kenny

       

Times and Manners of a Father and a Son

Me and mine are on the road today back to a place I've never been before, the last school in which my father taught, in central New Jersey as the school and its alumni honor him.

It is beyond most kind that they would do this and I'm hoping to see brothers and sisters I'm rumored to still have of whom I see less than others often because of schedules and the push and pull of other-directed events and circumstances.

My father and I had a complicated and complex relationship while he was alive and I've spent a lot of the last three-plus decades since his passing trying to make my peace with it, with varying amounts of success.

I've encountered in the course of my days many of his former students who are effusive in their praise for him and realize, again, each of us is an actor playing many different roles in this drama called life.

When my curtain falls, I hope to have a greater appreciation if not awareness of all the people I was expected to be and to be able to forgive both myself (most especially) and others for all trespasses committed, real and otherwise.
- bill kenny