Another Blast from My Past

From quite some time ago...

There was an article in the New York Times, the other morning that caused me to smile and grimace simultaneously. I didn't really need to read it (though I did) because I agreed with the headline, had seen the nearly-legendary visual that went with the story, and lived through countless, some might suggest innumerable, close, personal encounters of the worst kind. 

The article was, when I was in the Air Force, what we called a BGO, blinding glimpse of the obvious. And its premise was/is that PowerPoint has lots of the former and none of the latter. I've endured my share of meetings where multi-colored pie charts demonstrate conclusively (and irrefutably) "11" is larger than "5". 

I've always loved the animations some folks use to make these very points--though it's hard to not adore the old stand-by, stacks of various heights so even a cretin can grasp three dollars is much many more than two. There's nothing like the classics. 

Not so amusing has been the amount of my life that's been invested in supporting this kind of puppet show mummery-but since misery loves company I point out that few, if any, of the folks who requisition my help are ever very happy that I show up with a shoe box full of hand puppets while wearing finger puppets (it's hard to get those suckers on, too, after you've got a couple on already on one hand; and I don't have a lot of friends to help). I get invited to less and fewer of these soirees as time passes. Hey, I'm a traditionalist-what can I say?

And it's not fair, in a way to blame the device-when it's we who made it, used it and now overuse it, just like everything else we put our hands to. We will have access to more information, vastly more than we can process or retain, by the end of today then has existed throughout all of civilization. 

Actually, that's crap-I suspect something like that statement is probably true, but like the talking heads on TV, I don't have the time to research or confirm it as a truth, so I'll just proclaim it my truth and because you have no way to compare, measure or analyze, you'll buy it. 

Then tomorrow, we can make it into a bullet on a slide and then turn that into a bumper sticker. Soon, we'll have a movement, with a website and maybe some endorsement deals. Between you and me, considering how full of it as a species we already are, it's amazing we don't have non-stop movements, but that's a discussion for another time. 

Next slide please, "Confusion through Consensus." Yes, it's just a random collection of various parts of speech-what you read it to mean is what your reality is and welcome to it. Subject to your briefing, that concludes my questions.
-bill kenny

All Gave Some

Thirty-three thousand, one hundred, and three of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on The Mall in Washington D. C. are of those who were nineteen and never grew to be twenty.

Norwich, Conn. Chelsea Parade, April 28, 2018

There are fifty-eight thousand, three hundred, and eighteen names on the Memorial today.

Yesterday here in Norwich we remembered those who sacrificed their lives and those who served and came home very different from the people they were who served. 

Thank you. 
-bill kenny 

Photographs and Memories

I suspect earlier this week if you'd leaned your head out an open window (though closed would have gotten you extra credit under 'degree of difficulty' I suppose) you might have heard Desmond Harris laughing and applauding.  

That's because the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Monkey ©. Nope, Monkey don't. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one might jog your memory. 

Not available as wallet-sized; crested macaques have no pockets

That's Naruto, both the subject of the photo and the photographer. And in this instance, also the subject of a lengthy and contentious court battle over intellectual property rights and the ownership thereof. 

Perhaps your reaction reading that CNN account was one of strained incredulity that living in these litigious times, with so many issues of major if not life-or-death impact facing our jurisprudence system, this stuff has a place on the docket.  

Or perhaps you feel otherwise. And that's the great thing about our country, we can disagree with one another without being disagreeable (or at least we used to be able to do that until we became a nation of snowflakes, SJWs, alt-rights and I have no idea how many other labels and epithets we deploy against each other). 

My favorite part of this story might well be the explanation that a settlement among the parties had been reached before the 9th Circuit Court issued its ruling. Sort of the legal equivalent of the Battle of New Orleans and ending the War of 1812. 

Naruto has opposable thumbs but I, for one, am more grateful for the absence of a different finger that might be offered in reaction and response to how some of the evolutionary higher-ups spend their time and expend their talent.
-bill kenny

Luke, Du Bist Ein Einsamer Cowboy

As Robert Palmer sang in another lifetime, some guys have all the luck (and if not technically all, then most of it). And if you are one of those who has nothing but bad luck, it might be because of this guy hogging it all.  

Although after reading this story, I confess that I don't see Dylan as hogging all the good fortune so much as needing every bit of it or he wouldn't be here now to tell us about his adventures. 

To be honest, if I were he, I'd stay in bed under the covers all day every day until, with my luck, the house fell on me. I'm lucky that way.
-bill kenny

I'm Losing My Edge

For the first time in well more than four decades I will not call my mom today on this, my sixty-sixth natal anniversary, to thank her for giving birth to me. Mom passed away June 3 of last year and there's still a hole in a lot of my family's hearts where she was, and which our memories of her can only start to fill. 

The tragedy of  youth is that it's wasted on the young. When I was a kid, I don't remember knowing anyone my current age (though at some point in time my grandparents must have been this old. Except I'm not a grandparent, yet (staring at our two children)). I don't think I even realized people could get this old and now that I have I don't ever see myself as old. Worn, yes. Beaten and broken, yeah. Old? Dunno.

I'm thinking now of two distant friends from long ago, Bill S and Dave M, whose birthdays were yesterday and how, despite the years we worked together I never knew that at that time. I wonder if they did the long stare yesterday morning in the mirror to kick off their birthdays? 

That guy I see in the mirror every morning must look different to me than to most other people I encounter the rest of the day. For instance, people who see that guy tend to hold doors for him and to also  say 'sir' to him and offer to help him carry things upstairs or out to the car. Okay, I have a shotgun, but I think there's more than just Al Capone's rule at work here. And no, I don't really.

I should feel something today, right? Except with almost 8 plus billion of us here on the ant farm I have no idea how many of us are celebrating the same Natal Anniversary, though this kind of gives me an inkling. Where would we all meet? Yankee Stadium? The Super Dome? A small state of our own? I have no clue. Being special is hard; I'll stick to being different.

People congratulate me on my birthday like it was my idea. Sorry, no. I was oblivious to you (just like now) and to me, if that helps. Was everyone in the delivery room waiting for me to finish putting on my gloves and shirt? 'Will I need my sled?' I shouted before the delivery began. I think not. We all came into this world the way we're all going out. And all those years of possession by our possessions will be mist in a minute and then dust forever. 

Memory must be the first thing to go because I swear it was only earlier this week when I asked this incredibly beautiful girl to marry me (which she did; I probably should next ask for a pony ride, considering my luck). The calendar tells me that my 'earlier this week' was actually over forty years. And we have two children, okay, they are grown-ups now with their own lives and I'm forced to realize the tighter I hold on to time the faster it slips away.

Through the love and sometimes other descriptives of my family to the kindnesses of randy and random strangers streaming through my life, from Elechester and Dinah Shore on TV to Belford, down the street from Aunt Anne and  Uncle Chief, to Wannamassa, Franklin Township, to Somerset and up to Rhinebeck and Canal Road,  a year on ice in Greenland and then vorwarts to Germany and now the Nutmeg State, phew! It's been quite a ride. 

And I've had a window seat for all of it, to include the stuff I wish I hadn't, and I'm glad I remembered to wear trousers with pockets so I had some place to put all the memories and the fun. 

Thank you Mom and Dad, without whom none of this would be possible (or otherwise) and to you, Evan, Kelly, Kara, Jill, and Adam who've helped make it memorable (at least to me).

And you stopping to read this today, thanks for being here and sometimes being back there as well. Yeah, I'm sorry for being a poor companion. I will strive to improve and have every intention of doing some of this again tomorrow so if you're not doing anything you could come along and we could do it together. 

Despite what I've read or as you may have heard, I've learned it's never too late to have a happy childhood, but it is later than you think. Much later.Trust me on this one.
-bill kenny

This, That, and Some of the Other

I'm writing this on Earth Day 2018, Sunday, April 22, which may surprise some who believe I create this by opening a dictionary over a blank piece of paper and shaking it vigorously while gathering up the words that have fallen out. I wish. 

I mention Earth Day because I accidentally ended up in the first-ever Earth Day Parade in New York City back in 1970 as a pimply prep-school know it all. And now, nearly a half-century later, I have clear skin and not only still know it all but know it all better. 

Another reason I mention Earth Day is that a lot of words have been written in the last week or so about the end of the Chelsea Botanical Gardens. Sunday's editorial in The Bulletin, I think, struck a nice balance between elegant and elegiac in summarizing an environmental and economic revitalization initiative that for too long labored in obscurity and when it finally became known to many of us here in Norwich it was under far less than favorable circumstances. 

All I'll add is I regard it as a cautionary tale illustrating the power of information and the importance of sharing it. In this case, too little was offered too late by too few to too many for the kind of support and public engagement such a project needed to ever succeed. 

I'd hope a lesson we all learn is that open, honest communication is the best way to enrich and enhance our community by building bridges among us rather than allowing the pursuit of alleged hidden agendas to create walls we can never overcome. 

And why should/would this be important?

For me, perhaps because of an online article I read in the last few days, "Connecticut Towns Graded from A+ to D+: How Did Our Community Do?" from Niche.com whose mission the site says is to "help you discover the schools and neighborhoods that are right for you." 

It would seem we're in need of a lot more help than I thought since we received a grade of C+ on their report card (ahead of only twenty-two other towns). Factors for their grade include the cost of living, housing, public schools, diversity, crime and safety, outdoor activities, and walkability among others. Perceptions of reality and reality are very often the same thing and in this case, for someone like me who tries hard to see the positive in The Rose of New England, a C+ is really harsh and hurtful.

Of course, it also means there's room to improve and if anyone can, it is us (especially since no one else will). Rather than shrug or sulk, how about we start to do something for ourselves? 

Let's circle next Saturday, May 5 on our calendars and meet up at nine that morning at Foundry 66 on Franklin Street for a Downtown Norwich Community Clean-Up Day. 

Come as you are, cleaning supplies (and light refreshments) will be provided. Consider it our Earth Day celebration, and roll up your sleeves and lend a hand. C+ only for now! 
-bill kenny.       

Literacy Can Save Lives

There are times my imagination helps me smile and other times when I'm glad I don't live in a world that is ruled by it. I take a baby aspirin every day, technically they're called low-dose to make adults like me with medical conditions requiring their use to feel a little less like a wuss. 

I was running low and while out shopping Friday with Sigrid, I grabbed a pair of small bottles each containing one hundred low-dose aspirin (see? It's working!) with the intention of opening each and pouring them into the container I bought almost a year ago because it had three hundred low-dose aspirin.

I undid the caps on the two small bottles and underneath them was a foil wrapper telling me the containers were "sealed for your protection." I was about to simply tear it off when I decided to err on the side of caution and walked out front, intercepting someone out on a stroll enjoying the sunny day. 

I asked him to please rip off the foil, which he did. And hundreds of ravenous low-dose baby aspirin devoured him. It would have been awful had it really happened. Talk about the value of learning to read for meaning. 

And if it had happened, his memorial service would be Friday at the St. Joseph's chapel. 
-bill kenny    

The Music of a Heartbeat

In a week's time, I'll undergo (yet) another carotid stenosis; I'm thinking of it as a belated birthday present to myself in the hopes (probably somewhat forlorn) that I'll have more natal anniversaries. I'll have to let you know how that works out, assuming it does and I remember.  These are words from the first time I had one done. 

Yesterday afternoon I went for my semi-annual carotid stenosis.It's another reminder that there are just so many sunrises and so many Springs, meaning me and some very clever person with a wonderfully complex machine from Siemens and warm gel to smear on my neck, measure I have no idea what. 

I listen to the sounds of my own blood rushing through my arteries (I do know the difference, you know) and hope it continues to sound like the ocean crashing onto the shore and watch the monitor for waveforms and splotches of color, sometimes dark blue and other times bright yellow and vivid red, knowing no matter how keen I am to know what the colors mean, I'm too afraid to ever ask.

In all these sessions with all the watching, waiting and conferring is the awareness that there's no medication I can take to reverse the process. That's a joke, actually. After I had had four Transient Ischemic Attacks, I was so terrified the surgeon could have told me to drink my own bathwater and I'd have asked if I could use a straw. Fear of death is probably the most powerful reason to live there can ever be. 

Our local hospital has Diagnostic Medicine, and other outpatient services tucked away across town in a renovated failed Ames Department Store near Interstate 395. Seated across from me was a young woman in what looked like hospital scrubs, holding a small child, a baby actually, of perhaps six months or so on her lap. He, not she, was the customer for whatever other imaging equipment now is sprawled across what once was the hardware and ready-to-wear departments. Adds new meaning to clean-up in aisle seven.

He was extremely well-behaved as if I were an expert with our babies getting ready to celebrate a 37th as well as a 31st birthday in the coming days, for one, and weeks, for the other. He stared at the world, bounded by the waiting room walls and ceiling with an eagerness and intensity I no longer remember but truly admire. 

It was a moment for rubber-necking, his, and reflection, mine. He, even if he lives to be one hundred, will never remember me, and I, should the same fate await me, shall never forget him. I see a man without a problem.

-bill kenny

A Very Back Back Page

This is from the first two weeks or so of when I started writing this stuff. 

Spent the weekend reading news stories driven by folks whom I would consider 'comfortably well-off' grasping for a few dollars more (don't tell Clint Eastwood I'm appropriating a movie title, okay?) 

Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp and that's not a bad thing. I think we should live out loud and dream larger than we actually are. Who better to set the bar for us than ourselves? Sometimes we fail, but as long as we learn from that 'failure' we can look forward to eventual triumph. I get sad when, after we fail, we learn to cheat better because we then cheat ourselves and demean everyone in the process.

We have so many public figures, not just politicians, who've had the shame gland removed years ago, so remorse is an emotion they can only read about but never experience. All any of these folks do when they now get caught is reinforce the reasons why fewer and fewer of us care. 

Most of them are my age cohort which is embarrassing. As a generation, we had our moment. I haven't been able to explain to my son and daughter why I was willing to trade clean air and my beliefs for a BMW-but I did. Thankfully, they no longer ask. The only thing left to negotiate, as is demonstrated every day in a hundred ways, is the fee. And listen closely because money talks.
-bill kenny

Ch-Ch-Changes

I'm workng very hard to be able to retire at the end of June. This came as a surprse to the people for whom I work as, based on their perception of my output, they assumed I had retired about a decade ago. Everyone's a comedian, I guess. 

My wife, Sigrid, and I are married for a skosh over forty years (she often says it feels much longer, but I think that's because Germans use the metric system of measurement. See my above remark about comedians). 

We started out zum zweite or, as Erich Fromm and Helen Reddy might say, 'you and me against the world,' and evolved into an LLC with the birth of our son, Patrick, and then more towards a GmbH with the arrival of our daughter, Michelle. 

Now, Sigrid and I are, for the most part, back to where we began if not in that exact same physical location. Something about no one steps into the same river twice as both they and the river have changed comes to mind but, in my case, only briefly. 

Speaking of water, we journeyed across the ocean to start here again after we thought our lives' paths had been pretty much determined, proving that what you learn after you know it all is often more valuable than anything else you could imagine. 

And now, as we sort through pensions, retirement plans, social security and analyzee charts of expenses and living costs, have concluded we may be moving from the only home we've had in over a quarter of a century. 

Where we live, we all understand, is not the least expensive place in the USA to settle, which sort of proves the difference between a rut and a grave is too often only the depth, but I, like so many others, prefer problems which are familiar to solutions that are not.  

A solution for us in our situation should be to relocate, but possessed by the possessions we have acquired and allowed to accrue over four decades of life (and we have a crammed to overflowing basement to prove it), we've never progressed much beyond the "we may have to move" discussion part of the program until now. 

And as I'm learning with more shock than alacrity in the course of this week, that discussion may be taking on a more urgent tenor and tone as the days on the calendar dwindle down, proving again that time moves slowly but passes all too quickly.         
- bill kenny        

   

Enough Is Enough!!

I very much enjoy learning though I usually don't appreciate being taught. Today's different. 

This is a good day to look to a younger generation for wisdom we should have had a very long time ago.
- bill kenny

Schemes and Dreams

I rarely if ever recall my dreams (or hopes for that matter) but I did earlier this week as Sunday night was bleeding into Monday morning and outside we were having a fistfight between Spring and the lovely day we had on Saturday and yet more winter which did some heavy shoving on Sunday. 

I slept through the transition or most of it. When I headed to the gym around four it was raining and misting with a nasty wind, not a breeze but a full sock you in the nose wind, that made everything shine with a glaze as we hovered just above freezing.

I had trouble getting the cobwebs out of my head when I arose. I had been having a dream where I was somewhere on the Jersey Shore (I'm guessing that because places like Point Pleasant Beach and Ocean Grove were involved) with my father who was struggling to file his income taxes. 

It's plural for a reason. There was a time when my dad worked as a teacher in NYC and paid, in addition to federal income taxes, both New York State as well as New York City income taxes. He and tens if not hundreds of thousands of others got plucked by both Albany as well as Gracie Mansion to pay for goods and services they rarely used. In those days, when my father was alive, neither New Jersey where we lived or Connecticut, where I now live, had income taxes. 

My father died almost thirty-seven years ago and I racked my brain all Monday morning trying to recall if I had any memories of him ever working on taxes, drawing a blank entirely. The most disquieting part of the dream that I recall is the conversations he was attempting to have with our son, Patrick, in the dream a full adult, even though Patrick was born thirteen months after my father passed. 

I've done a reasonable amount of reading over the years on what causes us to dream, perhaps better phrased as what causes us to remember our dreams, back from a while ago when I kept dreaming I was being choked by someone from behind whose identity I never knew. 

At some point after months and months of both dreaming and dread,it stopped or I just stopped remembering or (perhaps?) whoever was attacking me in my sleep got  bored and moved on.Even in my sleep I'm boring I guess.

I'm not the only one who has trouble in his dreams, or in my case, with them, I know that but it doesn't do me much good to believe in safety in numbers. I'm thinking of trying eyes wide-open sleeping in the hopes of learning what's farther ahead than I'm able to see now.   
-bill kenny

      

Taking the No Out of Norwich

I've mentioned repeatedly (some have suggested incessantly) that I didn't grow up in Norwich, Connecticut, but I'll concede that it is here where I am growing old. Something else getting old, and even faster, is the lamentation that far too many of us think is our role as residents for living here. 

I'm not an engineer but I believe those who are when they assure me that it takes far more energy to be a light than to be a horn. Let me put it another way: complaining about everything we don't have and/or needs replacing and repair isn't anywhere near the same thing as suggesting remedies and resolutions that would benefit all of us.

Yeah, I know the comeback: we're not elected officials and it's not our job. Except we live here and that's why this is our city and because it is it makes everything that goes on here our business. In case you haven't guessed, we are Norwich. 

Schools, streets, police and public safety, all of the physical structures of what we call "the city" aren't what Norwich, or any city, are about. It's we, the people, who define the spaces and places in which we live and for too long, says the guy not from here, we've focused on the first two letters of our city's name.

I was heartened to read accounts earlier this month about the City Manager's proposed budget, not because I was cheered at the prospect of higher taxes (I'm not) but because the proposal was proactive in calling for investments in who we say we are. 

The budget restarts contributions to the Sachem Fund which at one time fueled dozens of citywide initiatives and is an idea that requires optimism and vision in economically lean times like ours but also demands courage and a belief in oneself. 

And don't forget a request by Mayor Nystrom for a budget boost in economic development funds. And why? Because if not us, then who? And if not now, then when?  

We've been here before and answered those questions. We believed in ourselves almost a decade ago when we approved bonding to start reversing decades of decline that had helped create a ghost town where once a downtown had flourished. And if you don't see the improvements that money and talent made and continues to make, then you are being willfully blind. 

This time last week Chelsea Groton Banks' Global City Initiative, offered funds to leverage the diversity we brag about here in Norwich to better enhance the quality of life outreaches that expand the value of our community and pay dividends for all of us. 

You don't have to agree with a word of what I've written but in disagreeing tell me what you would do otherwise, and how you would do it. Don’t worry if your first, second, or even one-hundredth idea isn’t a success. Don't give up or give in. Failure is NOT when we do not succeed; it is when we do not even try.         
-bill kenny

                   
 

Be Thankful I Don't Take It All

This is the nearly-universally dreaded "Tax Day" here in the Land of Unlimited Opportunities Where Seldom Is Heard a Discouraging Word and the Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day. How all of that gets reduced to USA always amazes me but I chalk it up to a triumph of marketing and branding.

Speaking of which, how'd you like to tell folks you work for the Internal Revenue Service? Don't be like that! Somebody has to! And tens of thousands of people do and despite our muttered imprecations and seriously intended aspersions cast without the benefit of a net, they do what they are charged to do and what Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr. summarized, though probably pre-audit.  

Point in fact, we pay taxes every day. And every year we file a return to see if we are to get back some of our own money. I remember my wife filing her taxes in Germany when we lived there and she rarely saw any money returned to her. I often thought because her husband was such a sonderangebot, her government saw no reason to bless her twice. Strangely I never got around to mentioning that theory to her when we lived in her country.

Like you, in all probability, I've filed my taxes already. Do I grumble? Of course, I do and anyone who tells you s/he doesn't grumble is a liar. And speaking of grumbling, I can only assume Jarod Kintz doesn't know my dulcet-toned friend from Palestine, Texas, David M. when he offers with some acerbity "Taxes and Texas, they have the same letters but only one can go to Hell."
-bill kenny

And Still the Telling Never Changes the Tale

I wrote this years ago because there was nothing else to write that day but the words of the next paragraphs. We are another year on, no sense still makes no sense and people still have holes in their hearts where loved ones used to be. 

Today is Patriots' Day in Massachusetts and also the traditional running of the Boston Marathon. That order of precedence, if you will, was altered and changed for forever because of circumstances officially recalled in this news account on the one year anniversary of a day now five years previously that we all recall.

In 2013 at the Boston Marathon, Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev those evil, ungrateful bastards whom we took in and who repaid that kindness with killing innocents, broke hearts, destroyed lives and shattered our national illusion of insularity and insulation from the other horrors of the rest of the world and altered forever anyone's memories and imaginings of the Boston Marathon.

Both brothers will be long faded from memory before what they did is forgotten, but better remembered, and hopefully always remembered, is what they failed to do. Just ask Jeff Baumann, who gets stronger every day and whom I fervently hope gets angry and powerful enough some day to kick the ass of Dzorkhar all the way to Boston Harbor and then hold him under until the bubbles stop.

I understand being an angry old man will get me nothing but an even more premature grave and I should take my cue from those who not only survived but triumphed over the tragedy of that day. Perhaps I shall, starting tomorrow.

Martin Richard

I have the good fortune to have a friend, in the Facebook sense of the word, a Fenway denizen and Grammy-nominee who spent a lot of years on the Jersey Shore and has now followed the advice of Horace Greeley and gone west, Linda Chorney, who repurposed and molded her sorrow to create a beautiful celebration of a life taken terribly, suddenly and far too soon into a song perfectly suited for today and all those enjoying it.
-bill kenny

Turns Out They Do Make Tin Foil Ball Caps

Here I am, counting down to ecstasy, slowly being consumed with worry about the swordfish fight Vlad the Impaler and Cadet Bone Spurs are readying over one of the few nations in the Middle East that has no oil.

I'm also keeping a wary eye out for a possible trade war with what seems to be half the rest of the world that could destroy our way of life (and do heavy damage to a USA stock market with a not inconsiderable number of my retirement eggs precariously placed in a basket).

And, like you and hundreds of millions of others, I'm still trying to maintain a zero bubble in the social media amniotic fluid I pretend is a pretty good facsimile of genuine, human interaction.  

And then this story pops up. 
So that we're clear, this is next Monday they're talking about.

Of course on the upside, it means there's no need to worry about paying down or off any of those credit card balances. But on the other hand, buying those green bananas last Friday evening may have been a waste of money. Other than that, how you feeling? Me? I'm fine.
-bill kenny 

Reflections on Ice Breaking

It's hard to believe sometimes what we use wall-to-wall news coverage to report on but I guess since we invented we'll continue to fill it up if not wisely then well. Don't get me wrong, on the treadmill every morning I switch between CNN and CBSN until my local CBS affiliate's newscast at 0430 (gotta have that weather even though I was out in it to get to the gym). I take solace in knowing that the world is going to hell in a handbag before most people are up. It's sort of my hobby.

So it was with ever-widening eyes earlier in the week that I watched CBSN report as part of their Money Watch segment at about a quarter past four that NECCO Wafers are suddenly the Bitcoin of the confectionary world.       

Our children may not even know what they are as we've done a good job of screening them through childhood into their adult lives but boy howdy, do I remember them. The article calls them "plaster surprise" and "tropical drywall." Nope, more like chalk with a side order of the sidewalk you were using the chalk to draw on. 

NECCO Wafers can bring people together, they really can. Take any two people with diametrically opposed views politically, sports, religious, whatever who agree on NOTHING and they will still agree that NECCO Wafers taste like a$$. It's sort of the candy's superpower. I've wondered most of my life why anyone would go out of their way to make something that's supposed to be a treat taste so awful (and I do appreciate the history behind them but still). I have concluded because they, whoever they are, are Evil Incarnate.   

As a child, I thought they might be a good idea as alternative Eucharists hosts at Holy Communion during the Mass. And Kelly wonders why he didn't get elected Pope. Holy Mother Church keeps records, my brother, and my well-intentioned suggestion didn't do much to help your candidacy.

In the article, I read the same folks make Mary Janes (I have no quarrel with Squirrel Nut Zippers or Clark Bars, move along), but with all due respect to the headlines about NECCO Wafers' popularity, Mary Janes should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention.  Kids (like me) who would eat anything in the goodie bag collected on Halloween drew the line on Mary Janes. 

I have never eaten kerosene, but I suspect Mary Janes are made in the same factory probably by the swing shift crew because those people are almost always bastards and Mary Janes is very much their idea of a practical joke. 

Meanwhile, newspapers and news channels are filled with the possible disappearance of NECCO Wafers and we pay no more than passing attention to other actual news because while candy is dandy, liquor is quicker. And Ogden Nash must be wondering if we've lost our minds.
-bill kenny  

Freakin' Friggatriskaidekaphobia

In honor of Friday and thirteen sharing the same square on my calendar, a reprise of some thoughts on just that subject.  

Are you experiencing a little trepidation at the thought of leaving the house today, Friday, the 13th? Don't be alarmed. In a study I almost read from some enterprising young Macedonian high school kids, most misfortune occurs within twenty miles of the house.

I'm not clear if that's your house, specifically or anyone in particular's house. In any event, I think you should leave now. And, by the way, I may have made that survey up but as our President would be quick to point out, that doesn't mean I'm lying (#ThanksDonald).

But no matter how your day is going or how you fear it may go by the time it reaches its end here's a guy whose misfortune, all self-inflicted wounds by the way, really helps explain the appeal of the word schadenfreude.

I'm still not sure exactly what Duane is smiling about unless he was getting busy waiting for what proved to be the deputy's arrival. And why do so many people smile in mug shots? Because those pictures look better on their Instagram accounts? Is it common practice now to ask the person at Central Processing to put aside some wallet-sized snaps for pick-up later? The way I read this, all we lacked were Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster.

Technically, of course, this isn't an example of the mischief and misfortune that can happen on Friday the 13th because Duane more or less stole a march. Though, as I read the report it's a pretty logical progression from his previous charge of running a meth lab on a boat. If that idea catches on, I'll bet cruise ship operators won't be able to keep up with the demand.  
-bill kenny

Roll the Bones

Nature knows things at which we bi-peds with our computers and big brains can only guess. A couple of weeks back on March 19, the Feast of Saint Joseph, as they always do, the swallows came back to Capistrano. 

From everything I've ever read, they've been doing this for quite a bit longer than it took us hairless apes to even notice. I refuse to buy in on the party line, 'no one knows why or how they know...' because I sincerely believe someone does and chooses to NOT tell the rest of us, leaving us with an imponderable.

I'm waiting for a local rite of Spring probably delayed a little this year because of winter's refusal to move in. That is, I'm anticipating the bees who show up every spring to live under the wooden banisters on our front porch. 

I'm not sure if a bumble-bee is a real type of bee, or just a made-up name but that's the way they look. They're black, wearing what looks like a yellow pullover and they hover about eight to ten inches off the steps when you come out on the porch and dart away, right after they zoom in, directly at you (as if scanning their sector).

I'm not an entomologist, but I find it interesting they seem to drill/eat through the underside of the railing, leaving little piles of sawdust as they go and live, I suppose, snug in the holes they create. At the end of the season, they disappear just as suddenly as they arrived, and Sigrid, my wife, goes out with wood patching goop and fills in their holes which then dries and hardens and in the next spring the cycle begins again.

We have no idea what the bees are doing-aside from playing what looks like chicken with one another on the porch during most of the daylight hours. Sometimes, someone going up or down the three stairs from the porch to the sidewalk will attract their interest and they'll hover practically in the person's face, undaunted by waving hands (even if they get hit) until curiosity sated, they go back to Ollie, Ollie Oxen Free or whatever they're playing.

I'm not sure I'm not just a little bit jealous since they don't spend anywhere near as much of their time pondering me as I do them. They seem to be quite untroubled by questions such as Why are we here? Because we're here. Roll the bones. Why does it happen? Because it happens. Roll the bones.

-bill kenny

I'm a Fan of Basements Twice a Year

For the last week or so I've smiled more than normal when I’ve been out walking or driving on Broadway around Chelsea Parade. It certainly hasn't been because of the lovely spring weather we're all still waiting for, but when you look up at the sky, checking for snow or sunshine, you can clearly see the banner for the Friends of Otis Library Book Sale coming up next weekend, April 20 through 22.

I love everything about the book sale to include the start of the adventure from using the stairway down to the basement on the other side of that locked door at the library entrance, an area I otherwise never get to visit. I always I feel like I'm sneaking into a speakeasy (a readeasy?) or an underground club, which, I suppose, in a way I am.

 

If you've visited the book sale before, either the one every October or the one in April, you know there are thousands and maybe tens of thousands of books throughout the basement with treasures and delights waiting for everyone with perhaps some one-of-a-kind super buys for those bibliognosts who know exactly what they are looking for and why.

I came across a Japanese word a few years ago that perfectly describes me when it comes to books and book sales, tsundoku. As I've understood it, tsundoku is "the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piling it up together with other such unread books.’ Yep, guilty as charged (at least) twice a year.

I have shelves in our basement already crammed and groaning with the weight of books I've purchased off the shelves at previous Otis Library book sales that I sincerely intend to read someday but just not today, And, in case you were wondering, no matter how many unread books I have, it will not keep me from buying more next weekend.

The sale starts next Friday morning at 9 with an Early Bird preview hour (ten dollars gets you an ahead of the rest of us peek at collectibles).

Aside from that Early Bird session, all three days are free. Satisfy your passion or start a new one. What'll it be? Sports, history, biography, gardening (in case Spring does decide to make an appearance this year), mystery, or classics of traditional and modern literature? They're all sorted, stacked and shelved at bargain basement prices, just waiting for you.

But it's more than books; there are CD's, DVD's, and vinyl collections ('stacks of wax,' I like to call them). Book sale hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday and from noon to 3 on Sunday. And on your way back to the car with your bargain basement (literally) treasures, why not grab a bite at one of the restaurants that are on every corner around Franklin Square?

Next weekend’s Friends of Otis Library Book Sale is another chance to help the library, our downtown as well as yourself. See you there! 

-bill kenny   

Where Abstraction Collides with Reality

I think we've become inured to so much of the rhetoric from both sides of the aisle in Dodge City whenever the subject is the men and women of our armed forces that we don't really do much more than letting it drone on without actually listening to it.

As someone who was in that number for eight years, I'm more than a little tired of folks who attended military boarding school telling me how much they understand and appreciate the sacrifices made by those who serve (and those who love them, a segment of the American population largely invisible to the political prattlers who campaign on their backs). That's just so much horseshit. 

USS Thresher transiting on the surface

Last week, Marines died in a Super Stallion helicopter crash in California, Army aviators perished in an Apache helicopter crash, and the Air Force suffered the loss of a pilot killed in an F-16 jet crash. And that was in one week and it wasn't all of our military casualties. 

The men and women who raise their hands and take the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic understand that implicit in that oath is the possibility of losing your life.  

We do lots of wreath laying and fulsome (if often hollow) tribute-paying to those who suffer and sacrifice on Veterans Day and  Memorial Day but those in uniform lead dangerous lives every day, until, like those aboard the USS Thresher fifty-five year ago today, they stop having lives. Period. 

USS Thresher shattered on the ocean floor after being crushed by the ocean.

And no amount of thoughts and prayers or tweets can fill the hole in hearts of those missing loved ones who sacrificed the most important thing they had, their lives, so that we can continue to beat our chests, impugn one another's integrity, berate each another about our patriotism and carry on as if none of their silent sacrifices ever happened. Or mattered.
-bill kenny