As I've mentioned previously, I am rarely in danger of losing my way as nearly everyone in Norwich I've ever encountered has told me where to go, though I'm pretty sure, technically 'walk East until your hat floats' isn't actually a direction.
Anyway, I started writing this stuff, on a daily basis only for me (it seemed most days) and then anyone who fell over it out on the Interwebz almost a dozen years ago this coming fall (long before Wednesday's Wit and Wisdom, as one of us (me) calls it in my house started to grace the pages of The Bulletin).
My family and I arrived here in the late autumn of 1991 with two children, one who was to enter the 3rd grade at Buckingham School after the winter holidays and the other, too young for school at all and we spent a number of years heavily involved in the ever-increasing school-oriented activities of our children, from soccer, through chorus, to music which is how for the most part my wife and I first discovered the best, but most often overlooked, aspect of Norwich, the people who choose to live here.
I'm not slighting the historical buildings and efforts at preservation (I'm sixty-seven years of age and us old things need to stick together) or the beauty of the Norwich Harbor from just about any angle at any time of the year, or the pearl of great price that is the Mohegan Park, and certainly not forgetting the Uncas Leap, the gorgeous homes along Broadway and attractions like the Leffingwell House and the Slater Museums.
Yep, if I were making a guide book, there'd be photos galore and more of each of those spaces and places but what it doesn't alter my opinion that what makes Norwich worth the travel from anywhere at any time to the here and now continues to be the people who've chosen to call here their home.
You saw it in a densely packed downtown for the Harbor Fireworks last Wednesday and for the first concert of the season of the Rock the Docks series that has continued to grow in popularity every year since its inception. Not scientific by any means, but I'd wager over half of those in attendance call somewhere other than 06360 their home zip code.
Add the Farmers Market which started out as almost a closely guarded secret and has now become a destination unto itself (despite continuing queries from non-attendees about the day, time, and location, none of which seems to bother those of us who go there) and, again, what makes all of these, or any of them, for that matter, worthwhile? The people with whom we share our city.
I'd love us to fall in love with ourselves; I think it would do us a world of good, but maybe we have to walk before we can run so we should practice liking who we are and where we live. And, maybe, stop being so surprised that so many others also like us. Hey, it couldn't hurt.
-bill kenny
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