Synchronize Shamrocks

If you don't already have plans for this Sunday afternoon (and even if you do), you should pin a reminder on your calendar about the fifth annual Norwich Saint Patrick's Day Parade and Festival. 

In that same spirit of tradition, I'd like to share some péarlaí a d'fhéadfadh a bheith ina eagna (pearls of what could be wisdom) I've offered for previous parades.

Weather permitting (a phrase we’ve used almost every day since the daylight started shrinking last fall), the Norwich Saint Patrick's Day Parade will step off at one from Ferry Street, makes its way around Franklin Square, up Franklin Street and then use Willow Street to march to Chestnut and then, in turn, Broadway before making a left at the Wauregan onto Main Street and finishing up at City Landing. I'm bringing a compass even though I never get lost becais\use so many people tell me where to go 

Here’s the Facebook page with a map of the route and a listing of many of the shenanigans activities going on around the parade itself. The parade gets larger and longer with every passing year, not just in terms of events associated with it but also for cosa a chur ar an tsráid (putting feet on the street) across downtown.

It's another reason to stop and visit someplace too many of us still too often  drive through on our way to someplace else complaining ‘there’s never anything to do in Norwich.’ Which could be, I guess, except when it’s not such as this Sunday and on the other six days of the week as well. And while you are in downtown, take a couple of minutes to check out what's new (or new to you) since your last visit and see for yourself how the heart of Norwich is beating stronger than ever.  

Every year I've attended (with my last name where do you think I would be), and have met more and more people who do not live in Norwich but have heard about the parade and the family-oriented crafts festival afterwards with authentic food and beverages (both adult and unadulterated) and decided to try it on for size and were very pleased that they had come.

Everyone is welcome to march, or mush (in case we've had snow), though it's really more of a brisk walk than a march in terms of distance, so you can smile and wave without breaking a sweat.  And you won’t be alone.

All kinds of agencies and organizations are scheduled to march led by this year's Parade Grand Marshall Sofee Noblick, so now is the time to practice putting your best foot forward.

When Irish Eyes are Smiling, let’s hope they brighten and warm up Sunday afternoon enough to allow both the wearing of the green and the marching of the feet. And though it’s technically early, it’s right on time for Sunday: Beannachtam na Feile Padraig "Happy St. Patrick's Day!"

-bill kenny

I Was Pretty Cranked About Something

I wrote this a long time ago and from the sound of it was pretty pissed off about something. I've no idea what it was and am assuming I'm still not angry about it thank goodness. Just proves Buddy Holly wasn't the only one who could rave on.

Habits are actions we take after we've trained ourselves (or others have trained us). Many of us remember as kids when mom would insist that we 'cover your mouth when you cough' or those around us might say 'God Bless' when we sneezed. Perhaps we still do one or both of those actions to this day because what we are now is what we were when.

I was thinking of this yesterday morning as I went to leave the house to go to work. My wife has mounted the monitor portion of our very-super weather station in the hallway from the living room to the kitchen in a very logical spot, beside the closet where we keep all of our outer clothes, coats, jackets, scarves, and mittens. 

Her theory, proven repeatedly in the course of all the years we have lived where we do, is you can check the outside temperature as you're readying to depart and keep the 'whoa!' sharp intake of sudden surprise to a minimum when you step out the back door from the kitchen to the landing to the stairs. 

I am so gentrified. We called the back landing a stoop when I was a kid in Jersey, which is what it still is. It's not like I live in the part of Connecticut where I and my stockbroker neighbors wash our cars with domestic light beer or are building a twin-hulled catamaran with an eye on challenging for the America's Cup. 

Yes, we do have a big backyard, but not big enough for a polo pony, so pardon me while I remember to NOT dye my roots but do call things by their real names. I'm thinking Royce would have been a good name for the horse. 

Anyway. I can tell the difference between two dollars and two hundred dollars. As well as between two dollars and twenty dollars. Maybe that's habit, too. Worlds collide for me when I look at the outside thermometer yesterday morning around five and it says 16.7 degrees Fahrenheit and I pause, trying to remember what it was on Wednesday morning (18.7) because in and of itself that's somehow important and/or will dissuade me from going outside and going to work. 

In terms of Galvanic Skin Response, GSR (not Gun Shot Residue), the skin on my face could better and more easily tell a difference of percentage of moisture in the mid double digits easier than a difference of two degrees (maybe at Kelvin, but only maybe). Do I risk some form of a cerebral surprise if I don't check the gauge before stepping out into the dark and minimizing the possibility of atmospheric ambush? No clue and truth to tell, I don't know why I look, except out of habit. 

In the summer, if the display were to be a triple-digit reading at the same hour, I don't think I'd remove my trousers and leave them in the kitchen heading to work in socks, sakko, and a smile (so ein schmarrn). I can, however, think of one long-suffering spouse who's probably not willing to place money on that turn of events NEVER happening. One of these days letters are gonna fall from the sky, telling us all to go free. 

Of course, by then to save money, the Postal Service will have ceased home delivery entirely and to save even more, our schools will have eliminated literacy requirements. Will be curious to see if anyone left can tell the difference or to whom they would.
-bill kenny

Definitely NOT Delivery

Watching "Combat" with Vic Morrow, "Sgt Saunders" on ABC as a grade-school kid with no idea what the military was like but hanging on every frame of video being televised, I'd watch the platoon eat "K" rations during breaks in the battle somewhere in the war (I think it was France). 

By the time I was in the Air Force in the middle Seventies, we were up to (down at?) "C" rations, many of which may have been older than we were, and despite what the other services always said about zoomies, we didn't have field exercises catered so that's what was for dinner. (Loved the can opener, usually called a church key)

We had cartons of them in the engineering spaces at the AFRTS station while stationed in Sondrestrom, Greenland, in the event a blizzard or arctic weather condition forced us to shelter in place for days at a time, so we wouldn't starve. 

I never ate them then either, but figured I could feed them to one of the arctic foxes or ravens that haunted and skulked us and when they died from eating them I would eat them. We called that 'seven level thinking' in the Air Force.   

Times have changed from back in the day and Meals Ready to Eat (and there are a LOT of other suggestions for what those three letters stand for floating around) have been how American fighting men and women have eaten for decades. 

Why this condensed culinary combat history? Because it's been announced the next chapter has just been written and don't get me started on the chocolate hazelnut protein smoothie. What can a hungry boy (or girl) say except "to beef goulash and beyond." 
-bill kenny           

Timing Seems About Right

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

marchforourlives.com

I'll have to owe you. 
-bill kenny

What Is It You Get When You Didn't Get What You Want?

When it popped up in my email last week, my first thought was 'how did they know my address?' And then I took a look at the sender and had my answer. Then and only then, as my second thought, was "whoa!"

I have no idea what the Dark Web is. I'm unclear if it's a place somewhere on line, sort of like an informational speakeasy with bootleg hootch and flappers with cigarette holders. 

I tried typing Dark Web.com, knowing it was an internet Hail Mary at best, and was admittedly less than impressed with the search results so I felt a little bit like Dionne Warwick in that era before GPS roamed the earth (great song!) as I entered my email address for the free search.

Experian like Equifax has been hacked, so my evil twin, Skippy, was sure they knew the answer to their own search question even before asking me as a more than reasonable amount of whatever it is and wherever it is located had probably started out on one of their servers until it was liberated by those sworn to practice and pursue entrepreneurial outcomes that benefited only themselves.

And, as he pointed out to me, sadly and accurately, signing up for the free test drive offer came with a cost, a seemingly endless stream of email from the now-concerned folks at Experian offering me such a  deal on identity theft protection.

And I'll need it since I'm hoping to purchase a new barn now that we've confirmed the horse has already exited. Judging from the offal masquerading as silver bullets in the hay, it, too, may be suffering from an identity crisis.
-bill kenny     

I Keep My Eyes on the Sparrow

With all due respect to a split-squad pair of games the Red Sox played yesterday afternoon, Spring Training 2018 gets absolutely real today as both the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues commence play.

Anyone who tells you baseball in Arizona and Florida in February does not count has never, ever lived in the Northeastern part of the United States. Those of us who (now) call New England home can face the rumors of a nasty-a$$ winter storm return later this month with grace and composure, assuming we have MLB Network, because our lives between snowflakes will be filled with images of grown, supposedly adult, men accomplishing sandlot heroics at Wall Street Raider salaries. And we eat it all up with a spoon and damn sure we ask for seconds, please.

For folks like me, surrounded by choices like SNY for the Mets, NESN for the Red Sox and YES for the Yankees, let it snow for a month. It'll be melted by the All-Star Game, at least it usually is. Old Man Winter, do your worst and we'll do our best. 

Baseball, the ageless pastime that makes old men young again has returned. and if the green of the grass looks just a little different maybe it's because of the dye we're using to make the field 'pop' because of the TV cameras with the artificial turf, but no worries, the crack of the bat isn't lip-synced. 

“People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” Break out the Windex, Rog. We're ready, okay, maybe only speaking for me, we are completely past ready and fully there.
-bill kenny 

Still Struggling to Stay Awake

I wrote this ten years ago at about this time of year. I’m not sure if any of that is pertinent or important or both (or neither).

I had a dream last night/this morning so vivid that the clock radio when it went off, ended up being part of the soundtrack of the dream. And none of it, or almost none of it, made a lot of sense. I had forgotten about the dream until I was driving to work and saw the full moon (or close to it, I defer to astronomers) while listening to Joni Mitchell's recent album, Shine, released late last year on the Starbucks label.

I had been thinking about her the other day, most probably because of the Grammy Herbie Hancock received at this year's awards for an effort that was inspired/incited/dedicated to her and loaded into the CD player in the car. She's as caustic as ever and the gift of language, combined with her talent for quiet observation produces lines like this, from a song, can you taste the irony?, called Bad Dreams: 

You cannot be trusted/Do you even know you're lying?
It's dangerous to kid yourself/You go deaf and dumb and blind.
You take with such entitlement/You give bad attitude.
You have no grace/No empathy No gratitude.

What do Moms say about a guilty conscience needs no accuser? Thanks, Mom. 

And those lines led me to recall my dream though it creeps me out to recount it. In the dream, I was having a drink with a neighbor who passed away a couple or three years ago around Christmas. We were I have no idea where and he thought it would be nice to stop someplace.

We were traveling with someone I did not know, a woman with a thin face and long black hair. I had the impression in the dream she knew my neighbor and yet he seemed to think that I knew her and he was putting up with her to be polite. I don't remember anyone else being in the dream, except the woman bartender/saloon keeper who was annoyed that we were her first customers of the day (I don't know why I 'know' we were doing this in the morning, I just do). 

It was a very small bar-tiny; literally no more floor space than a phone booth (are there still phone booths? I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a pay phone and where it was. Another artifact of America from the Last Century gone forever, I guess.) And the three of us, my neighbor, and this woman and I are standing at a little, tall table and the bartender is taking the drinks order.

My neighbor is having Dewar's-I have no idea if, in life, he even drank and if he did, what he did, but in my dream, he was a Dewar's man. I knew my neighbor for a score of years or more and exchanged, in total, maybe five hundred words with him, so I'm not sure why he and I were dream drinking last night.

I kept trying to order a scotch and water and every time I did, the dark-haired woman would tell the bartender I didn't drink so there was no need to put the liquor in the same glass as the water. And the bartender kept demanding of me 'are you a comedian or an asshole?' and I kept explaining I didn't do well on multiple choice but was much better at true or false. 

I was aware, in the dream, that my neighbor was dead, though I think I was too cool to mention it (I have a habit of blurting out things and hope, in light of the tight spaces last night, this didn't happen, even if it was a dream) and, as I said, I never figured out who the lady was or what she was to him (Hecuba, perhaps?) or to me.

I am a creature of habit and set an alarm every night though I tend to wake up at the same time every day, not just on work days and I lay in bed until the alarm is supposed to go off and then shut it off just before it does. This morning I was aware of music but couldn't see a radio in the bar in my dream and looked around until I saw the clock radio on my nightstand which is when I realized I was in a dream and woke up. 

Not sure if I ever got my drink which made the drive to work more than a little awkward as I worried about what I'd tell a policeman in the event of a field sobriety test. Sometimes, it's neat and other times it can be just black ice.
-bill kenny

Spuds and Budding Businesses

The more you look for something the more you find. Unless it’s Capezio cowboy boots. So far, no joy. But on my walks around Norwich looking for better days and things, I find them in surprising spaces and places. 

Take Small Potatoes. Not the kind you make with undersized turkey, a drizzle of gravy, and some tiny cranberries for a miniature Thanksgiving. I mean the arts and crafts shop on Otrobando Avenue on your way to Yantic, past Agway and Comfort Suites that shares a parking lot and green space with Our Piece of the Pie. 

It’s been there almost five years and if you’ve been inside (and three’s a crowd if you follow my drift), you know it’s crammed with handmade goods ranging from flags to shawls, as well as crafts books, paintings and oodles of stuff you usually find online at sites like Etsy.

Lifelong Norwich resident Erica Corbett created Small Potatoes and explains “I saw this adorable little building just sitting there, screaming to be put to use. I decided to open a business but didn't know what! 

“I decided to open a gift shop that showcased handmade goods. I reached out to local artists I stumbled upon and some that I found on the artist marketplace ETSY. I run on a consignment basis which allows for me to maintain a low overhead and for the new artist to get their feet wet in retail without a large inventory commitment.” 

Success breeds success, just not necessarily more floor space. And gravity being the way it is, Small Potatoes can’t display crafts on the ceiling where there’s plenty of room and so is a week away from being part of a bigger success story as it moves up the street a bit and a step back in time to what I and my family used to call “The Big Y Plaza” on Sturtevant Street. 

Remember it? Now it’s the Yantic River Plaza, and it’s starting to fill up with other small businesses taking a flyer on what is happening elsewhere in Norwich. Individuals pursuing their passions and putting their money, time and talents where their hearts are, into businesses of all sizes and shapes. 

If you’re unhappy with your current shape, stop in at CrossFit Payback. And if you’re trying to unwind after a workout, there’s Vibes Hookah Lounge on the opposite end of the plaza soon to be joined by an ice cream shop (with the promise of coffee and donuts). 

Paul Breglio Yantic River Plaza owner praises the city’s business-friendly environment saying, “What brought me to Norwich was the price per square foot of buildings. What has kept me interested in buying more properties in Norwich is the way the City and all if its departments welcome and work with me on getting projects accomplished.  NPU is a big factor too; They are very easy to work with.” 

So next Thursday, 1 March, (put it on your calendar and if you don’t have one, we both know where you can get one) make it a point to celebrate Small Potatoes’ Heaping Helping as they debut at the Yantic River Plaza. And learn for yourself how sometimes mighty oaks from small potatoes grow.  

-bill kenny    

The Music Plays

A blast from my (distant) past. 
I was out walking yesterday on the Heritage Trail to the Norwich Harbor. My choices for the return leg of the hike were back up Washington Street, which is a state highway and very loud and highly trafficked or through the downtown district and up Union Street to Broadway and Chelsea Parade.

I have little talent so the only way I'll ever get to Broadway is walking on it, so off I went and was just passing Monsignor Kelly Park which is sort of opposite the Cathedral of Saint Patrick when an arm from the past reached out and grabbed me.

Actually, he had no choice. I had earbuds on and was listening to a station I've created on Slacker radio (I wasn't yet to the point where I was singing along, loudly and undeterred that I know very few of the lyrics of anything played on the station) so I hadn't heard him at all. And he assured me he had been hailing me from across the street, the St. Pat's side, so to speak, for at least a minute.

When my family and I arrived in Norwich two and half decades ago, he had been an ambassador of sorts explaining to many of the people both at work and in the neighborhood as to where we were all from and how we came to be here-assuring them all we spoke English and there was no reason to speak slowly or loudly (which I had actually enjoyed for a couple of weeks). 

We were never friends-I don't make friends because I'm not willing to be one so I can't be surprised when no one reciprocates. This guy was a person who uses your first name a lot, especially with others around and creeps you out by ladling on the pseudo bonhomie just a tad thick and too often.

Same thing yesterday-lots of how you've been and very little explanation of where he has been for the better part of a decade and a half. That's actually a guess-I don't know how long he was gone before I realized I hadn't been seeing him. As you can surmise it left a huge hole in my life. Truth to tell, I had trouble recalling his name and was working hard to NOT speak in such a manner that would require using it.

I realized as he was speaking about 'going to Mass with the family' that I recalled a very different woman than the stunt double with two very small (maybe six, maybe not, year olds) youngsters standing in front of the cathedral. He seemed to read my eyes if not my mind as he rushed to explain he and D-- had "gotten together" not long after his marriage had gone south (I'm not suggesting cause and effect; I don't care enough) and he was now living back in the area.

I'm thinking it had something to do with the length of the walk or just because I'm way too old to make happy talk with mopes I don't remember, but I asked him if his divorce didn't keep him from taking Communion (something as an altar boy trainee we spent hours at the time discussing) and he assured me he was 'a Catholic in good standing.' I hadn't realized scorecards were now issued and I wasn't surprised that suddenly he wanted to be anywhere which didn't include me.

I made it a point to look at my watch while pointing to the cathedral spire suggesting he shouldn't keep the Pope waiting and smiled as he assured me we really do need to get together while making absolutely no effort to make sure that would ever happen as he ran across the street to his 2.0 family. All I had been was a vamp for time. The whole exchange had lasted about three minutes. I'd put the song I was listening to on pause instead of stopping it. It was like I never left.
-bill kenny   

Sprawled Across the Davenport of Despair

I like time off as much as the next person. Actually in terms of enthusiasm, probably as much as the next three persons, so today is right up my street.  Happy Presidents Day (apostrophe much like personification seems to be a hit and miss proposition)! 

When I was a kid, we had separate school holidays for Abraham Lincoln and George Washington but I'm thinking all those who attended places like James Buchanan Middle School or Millard Fillmore Vocational-Agriculture High School insisted we do something for them. And of course, wearing a winter coat in memory of William Henry Harrison was never going to be enough. 

So here we are almost two hundred and forty-two years since the founding of the republic and taking an inventory of our history leaves me more than a little disquieted. Cast a glance at the signatories of the Declaration of Independence; it won't take long and the furniture stores are open until late so stop fussing (besides, online never closes). There are a lot of names we know but how many of them went on to become President of the United States?

And now? Let's not get me started on the incompetent infant currently ensconced in the White House. Look at the 'Bigger Picture' and what do we have? Seems to me as we wade in, the presidential talent pool doesn't even come to my ankles. 

Instead of revolution, we have devolution and we've replaced democracy with kleptocracy and told one another it's the exact same thing. Next stop ready or not, Pure Bliss. Buckle up, buttercup; it's about to be a dark ride. But hope you snag a bargain on a lounge suite.  

-bill kenny         

The Hint of the Century

When we were kids, Ash Wednesday was a serious point in the calendar even if all we really got out of it was the realization we were supposed to give something up for Lent whose First Sunday is today (already?). Easter and rebirth and resurrection is at hand. 

It's been decades since I gave something up for Lent (truth to tell, I failed my faith and gave up Lent but then kept on living) and I've rationalized my failure by pointing out to myself that since I always went back to whatever I gave up (usually something to eat as opposed to a behavior change), I hadn't really changed at all, so surrender cost nothing because it was worth nothing.

And then I look around me, and see where we are and where I am in the midst of all of that and realize I didn't run backwards or stop running at all in order to be here (nor did any of us) but rather, just ran a step slower, a step less resolute, perhaps a shorter footfall until the distance grew inexorably between where we wanted to be (and knew we had to go) and where we were to end up, so far behind we could no longer see those up ahead.

And when the distance between us was too great to ever fill, we stopped and have forgotten how to start again. Which makes all of what leads up to Easter more important as part of a beginning than as part of a continuum because I think I saw you try.

-bill kenny

Sort of the First Robin of Spring

Mark Twain really nailed it, in terms of the yo-yo nature of the weather we've been having here in the Northeast in the last couple of days. It's still winter, I can tell by the calendar even if the occasional glance out the window suggests something else, and that's all well and good.

We're picking up daylight, rather than burning it down, at a decent enough rate and pace so SAD sacks like me have reasons to be cheerful, or as cheerful as we ever get. And just the other day, as I struggled to not get maimed or killed by the treadmill I run on to improve my health at the fitness center, 

I looked up at the wall of monitors and there in the early morning of CNN's Early Start, I saw what for me is my first sign of spring, an advertising Robin, if you will, for the Sunsetter awning. Every year, they come back on cable news channels to offer us the promise of summer without the simmer. In nearly sixty-six years on the big blue marble, I've never yet known anyone who purchased one and yet there it was as large as life, and maybe larger, on the monitor on the far wall right next to that goodly assortment of folks on Fox News Channel at four in the morning. 

Now, come what may weather-wise, I am heartened and of good cheer. Can those Memorial Day everything-must-go furniture sales commercials be too far behind?
-bill kenny   

Seek Solutions and Stop Offering Solace

We've been here before. Quite frankly, we've been here too many times, about a dozen and a half in just this calendar year. Lots of disbelief and incredulity as it unfolds followed by shock and sadness as the aftermath 

But the carnage and the killing doesn't seem to stop. Hand-wringing, recriminations, and remonstrance aren't getting it done. Neither are hopes and prayers. 

Here's the deal: What if a disease, a scourge, a plague of some kind, be it bubonic or harmonic, was maiming and killing our children indiscriminately while they were at school? Do you think we might investigate what is happening, look at causality and consequences and work together to not only understand what we were doing to one another but to stop it? 

I get the Second Amendment advocates but I'm also looking for some help in securing 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' and we have to find common ground on guns and violence before we end up burying one another in the ground from all of it. 

I'm not an expert and I'm not sure we have enough smarts yet on all the issues that we conveniently slap together and call 'gun control.' We don't know what we don't know, but we can make a start and a good place to do that is by repealing the Dickey Amendment so that the Centers for Disease Control can do the job they were designed for and, help us to heal ourselves because there are too many home fires burning and not enough trees. 
-bill kenny

Now and Zen

I tell myself I'm a practitioner of 'get along by going along' and 'live and let live.' I had a painfully timely reminder the other day that I am an awful liar on both of those points.

I shower at work when I arrive for the day. Let me back up for a moment. I set my alarm for 0330 and tend to get up at or about 0300 so that I can be at the fitness center by 0400(ish). I have sadly discovered merely having a membership doesn't help me live forever, which is #mygoal, but going in may say some scientists help me do that. So far, so good. So what, you say. Fair enough.

I get to work around 0530ish, depending on traffic, which does seem to get out of the way when I put the flashing red, rotating light on the roof of the car ($49.99 on Amazon (plus CT sales tax), two day delivery with Prime). The siren is on back order and I can't wait.

I no longer bound up the five flights of stairs in my building (right now it has somebody else's name on it but that's more out of habit I suspect) as all the years have taken their toll on me and by the time I get to the third floor landing I am winded and look for the elevator which someone always leaves on the 5th floor and it takes a moment, mulling over its decision to descend before arriving where I am and taking me upstairs. 

I hit the shower with the same vim and vigor I always have, repetition doesn't seem to dull my enthusiasm but I was startled the other day, as I closed the shower curtain (the last thing I take off are my glasses) and encountered a spider whom, in retrospect, I realize was just as startled if not frightened to see me as I was her/him. 

I wonder if we look as ugly to them as they look to me. "Eeek! Only two eyes! And only two legs!?! What's that about?" I can imagine one of them yelling followed by a series of very loud 'crunch' noises as I step on them repeatedly and with ever-increasing amounts of force.

That's not what actually happened in the shower as the spider was on the shower curtain and was heading south even as I started waving my arms attempting to fly. After an hour of cardio on the treadmill, it was nice to get some more in I guess. 

Showers are not as well-lit as a spider-avoider like me would prefer, but I was able to see a small blob, that I think was the spider, slide on a water stream across the floor of the shower and then disappear down the drain. 

Mindful of Itsy-bitsy's legendary climbing prowess, I allowed a large amount of hot water to cascade across my head, shoulders, and torso while silently hoping the spider had not had SEAL training. 

I keep checking back in the shower, throwing back the curtain and peering at the drain. So far, so good though (and it may just be my imagination) but it looks to me like my conditioner is a bit low and spiders do have hair on all eight legs, so I remain vigilant.
-bill kenny           

A Sentiment to Suit the Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m blessed to have met and married my Valentine over four decades ago (and NOT decades of the Rosary though I have had a few of those said on my behalf in my time). 

These words today are not necessarily about her, but about where we’ve come to call home. I have a sticker on the back window of my auto (and some have suggested an invisible tattoo approximating the same idea on my heart) expressing my fondness for this city so you need to know that going in.

We came to Norwich with two young children more than twenty-five years ago and, like you, have lost count of all the grand schemes and big ideas that ‘will turn Norwich around.’ While past performance has too often not matched promise in terms of progress, I believe we have cause to be cautiously confident.

A journey of a thousand miles says the proverb, begins with a first step, and that, I submit, has already been taken.  Admittedly, the seven-foot sheet metal man known as Sweezor would have difficulty walking and yet as you should have read last Friday, he has made his way to Foundry 66. And based on the hub of activity that address has become in a little more than a year after it got started, he arrived not a moment too soon.

What’s that? You don’t live in downtown Norwich, so what’s my point? 

Glad you asked! Have a seat.

We’ve all heard/read stories how, once upon a time, ‘shopping malls’ devastated downtowns and the businesses that were there and then, decades later, how computers and connectivity created the Internet which, in turn, spawned online shopping and begat Amazon, Destroyer of American Retail, and if we can’t get people "off of Amazon," all is lost in terms of economic revival.

Except we’re not going to get off of Amazon and we need to accept that and move on. I concede buggy whips don’t sell these days, online or retail, the way they once did, but in the age of Amazon, perhaps a more attainable and sustainable goal for brick and mortar merchants of all stripes everywhere is to offer and assure enhanced customer service and experiences which exceed online shoppers' expectations.

And in case you haven’t been downtown, that’s exactly what’s been happening. The retail revolution on almost every corner is driven by the little engine that could, and does, Foundry 66, called an incubator, a sparkmaker, a test pad, a drawing board, and a dozen other sobriquets. It’s all in the same location and so easy to find you can’t miss it. They have Sweezor in the lobby. Bring the kids and take a selfie.

And take a look around while you’re at it because the distinguishing characteristic about the businesses which flank Foundry 66, both These Guys Brewing and Epicure is the positive experiences their expanding legions of patrons continue to enjoy. And that enjoyment, marketing folks call it ‘buzz,’ is building and echoing across downtown.  

Take a walk around. There’s Encore Justified, Doll Me Up BKS, Rose City Athletics, (almost) countless restaurants offering unique menus for whatever you feel like, as well as a half dozen and more other retailers, all redefining Norwich as the place for goods and services found nowhere else.

And by all accounts the best is yet to come; not brag, fact. So, if you enjoy feeling bad about living here, you’ll need to move. Foundry 66 is helping make Norwich better and improving our quality of life, opportunities and revenue streams, and the ripples from downtown successes are being felt across the city.

I’m not saying Norwich is perfect, not even on Valentine’s Day, far from it. But what needs fixing can be done by everyone in Norwich to include Foundry 66, as a model and a great example of what we can do when we make up our minds and do it.  

-bill kenny

He Travels Fastest Who Travels Alone

I wanted to steal a day's march on Valentine's Day. Yeah, I know, patience was never my strong suit or even sport coat. Ich habe kein ruhe im arsch. And have been like this my whole life and I think it's a little late to change now.

I often wonder, in light of my journey so far, if he who does travels so fast runs the risk of missing the entire point of the sojourn if/when he has no one with whom to share it. 
As someone who was very much, and for a very long time, singularly unlovable, Valentine's Day is a day of major import and a minor miracle, all at the same time.

I look at photos of my wife, Sigrid, and I, back when we were fab and she was, as she still is, absolutely beautiful to me. It took zero intelligence for me to fall in love with her at first sight and something far rarer than intelligence to help us stay in love all these years on. I do find myself looking at her, then and now, and wondering if she still sees me as I was or as I am now and if the latter, why does she stay?

We have, she and I, grown old together which causes me to smile as I had nothing nearly so grand in mind when I first saw her. And there are those who knew me back before that day who would be amazed that she kept me nailed to one place long enough for all those years to have become all these years, and to some degree, I share their amazement. 

We share a life that isn't and will never be the one I thought I wanted when I believed things worked out the way we desired (if we only wanted something bad enough), but when I reach the end of every day, I look at her and at our two adult children, Patrick and Michelle, and know that I love, and am loved by, them and I cannot complain about some settling of the contents during shipment. So, even if it's a  little bit in advance, trust me when I tell you I wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.
-bill kenny

Sometimes Repetition Helps

I offered this last year at this time and can do it again because so little has changed.

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday is still on my calendar for today, but it has had less meaning for decades, since Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act and we rolled it into the other February birthday celebrating the Father of Our Country, George Washington (normally 22 February). 

That Honest Abe used his Second Inaugural Address to offer "(w)ith malice toward none, with charity for all..." at a moment in our history where we most fervently hated one another (with a ferocity that would cost him his very life a little more than thirteen months later) causes me to wonder why we, you and me and all the lunatic loudmouths and bombastic blowhards on either side of the political fence, can't pipe down long enough to work together to get this cart we're all in out of the ditch we've maneuvered it into. 

To put it into perspective when Washington and Lincoln were presidents, people disagreed to the point they fired weapons at one another--and you've seen 'em, it took work to shoot at somebody back then. None of this cap bustin' stuff-serious mayhem was on the agenda. 

All this pouting and posturing we are up to on Sunday morning talk shows, the lawns of the White House and in the Halls of Congress makes my brain hurt and when we get all through sorting out who's to blame for all the wrongs and shortcomings, real and/or imagined, maybe we can devote a scintilla of that energy to fixing things. We certainly have a target-rich environment to choose from. (Looking at our Loudmouth-in-Chief as I type that)

With DNA testing the way it's working out, don't you suppose the day will come when we could, theoretically, work up political profiles of those enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns? And don't think somebody will try to make political hay out of it because you'll be sadly disappointed. 

That would make as much sense as turning immigration and open borders into a litmus test or reinventing what should be an unalienable right to accessible, affordable health care as a variant of the Great Loyalty Oath, but no matter. It's a fine line between pathetic and petard. Try drawing it for a while and then get real. And maybe we can stop being so cranky with one another while we're doing it.
-bill kenny

Roman Numerals and Greek Games

Does reading about the XXIII Winter Olympic Games also count as watching them on television? No?Just as well because I'm not reading about them either in addition to not watching them. It doesn't mean I don't like them; I'm sure they're wonderful but I think the sports offerings need to be a bit broader. 

I know I missed the opening march-in, or it probably has a very fancy title, where all the competitors from all the nations enter the filled-to-overflowing-with-cheering-crowds arena to tumultuous cheers and huzzahs while we at home, warm and safe in our living rooms, tsk-tsk the way everyone is dressed. Opportunity missed I say.

Why not make the 'national garb grand entrance' an event and have (perhaps) Tim Gunn and the Project Runway judges grade everyone. I'm trying to imagine the last member of the Lesotho luge team turning to look back at Heidi Klum as they parade past and she's holding up a placard with either 9.9 or Go Home (not sure which one is more helpful for ratings so I'll check with the suits of NBC).

And since most of the events are still before us, why not combine a few sports? How about Synchronized Downhill Skiing though, I must admit synchronized ski-jumping is not without its appeal, especially if one skier crashes so the other one must unstick the landing to keep the score up.

Combining ice skating with ice hockey has already been done-ask the Nashville Predators-but what about combining the bobsled and high hurdles? Or, even more interesting (to me), why not just pull random people from the crowds who are there to watch the events, and make them compete in the events?

How much more purely amateur can you get than someone who not only is not being sponsored to take part in the luge but who has no idea how to do it? NBC wants must-see TV-this will help create Oh-God-I-Can't-Watch! moments no matter how much tape delay is involved because of the time difference.

All this time we've been following headlines about the Unified Korean team and how Mike Pence doesn't think sports and politics mix when black athletes kneel at Colts' football games but is okay with it 10,000 miles from home.

I think we may have lost sight of the true spirit of the original Olympics which seems to have something to do with thick yogurt sales or just sitting back marveling at the audacity of the human spirit and our strength of purpose in pursuit of the things that we love.
-bill kenny

If We Can Sparkle

The eternal third-grader somewhere deep inside me remembers Alan Shepard and his amazing rapid rocket ride. The whole sub-orbital nature of his journey in comparison to the Soviet cosmonauts’ space flights was meaningless. If I had known how to spell nuance, that, too, would have been wasted on me, but totally appropriate. 

Thank goodness for third grade. Because when you’re in third-grade you don’t see the effort and toil behind The Work, just the rocket blast, and the liftoff. [Insert your favorite DJT is a spoiled child joke here: ___]. Such a deal.  

I should have stayed in better touch with that third grader as I was thinking about him the other day watching reports on the Space X lift off as it disappeared into the sky over Florida. All I can say is that Elon Musk! Quite an achievement for a guy from a shithole country.

I'd like to think the left blinker is forever on.

The long-ago third grader was very nearly in mortal sin trouble, he found out many years later from his mom, for asking the Sister of Charity nun leading us in a discussion of the launch we had listened  to on the PA, ‘what direction is heaven when you’re in a space capsule?’ 

However, Mom, the lioness, explained to the Mother Superior on the phone that she thought her cub had asked an excellent question and wondered what the equally excellent answer might have been. Thus endeth that lesson.

 

Okay, it wasn't exactly the same as nailing the 95 Theses to the cathedral door but perhaps I should have realized that close encounter was a harbinger for the sea of troubles that were to lie ahead in nearly every transaction between that third grader and the Rock Upon which The Church Was Built from that day forward.

Still, it’s nice to think sometimes, you have to go left at the Moon to get to Heaven and at other times it’s in a whole ‘nother direction and may involve a tunnel or even a ferry.

-bill kenny

May 28th and November 11th Come to Mind

Oh to be alive at such a time! 

We have every kind of technology at our beck and call to help us do, to be, to go, anything, anyone or anywhere we wish to. If you don’t look too closely we have peace and prosperity although the veneer is getting a little thin on both of those and we have a “B” if not more likely a “C” list TV personality as the President of the United States with a head so empty that a thought of any kind just rolls around in that orange-hued noggin and makes a noise like a bee-bee in a boxcar. 

The man in the Oval Office, in the words of a former Vice President, has 'difficulty with precision' which, at any other time in our history might well be a screaming headline on newspapers across the country but here in Trumpland it's generated little more than a yawn because our New Normal with the Prevaricator in Chief at the helm is so skewed we can't even take a sighting of the horizon and be certain that's what's really there. 

Cadet Bone Spurs, who, having led a charmed, coddled, and sheltered life, feels absolutely no obligation to extend assistance to anyone not in his family tree and crony circle continues to compensate for genitalia I suspect he doesn't have as he spends money on a military industrial complex with its nose deep in the trough at the expense of improving and enhancing the lives of every day Americans in need of basics like food, clothing, shelter, meaningful employment with a living wage and universal affordable healthcare.  

And now the man who successfully avoided getting anything on him during the entire Vietnam War (full disclosure: I had a 2H draft deferment as an enrollee in Army ROTC at Rutgers College) wants "his" Pentagon to stage a parade to celebrate the men and women of the US Armed forces, like the parades annually staged in Russia or held (seemingly) every other week in North Korea because he was so impressed by the French Bastille Day parade he witnessed. Not for nothing, azzhole, the French also have universal health care; how about trying to imitate that?.

Macy's Parade has floats, why not Trump's?

As an eight-year veteran of the United States Air Force who enjoyed the cool of Greenland north of the Arctic Circle during the heat of the Cold War I can't help but point out to Dear Leader that on my calendar for this year we have Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. 

I and millions of brothers and sisters in arms on those days remember all with whom we served to protect and preserve our nation. It wasn't and isn't always easy, not that the Mango Mussolini could know that, and we didn't do it for a thank you. 

Perhaps speaking only for me, I know the reward for doing a hard job well is the knowledge that you have done it. Nothing else is expected or desired. Try doing your job, Tiny Hands.

-bill kenny