What a wonderful weekend of weather we had. My memory is sometimes not what it once was but I think we may have had the best weekend of the summer no matter how you look at it.
Whether you were fishing at Howard T. Brown Park, enjoying the Dominican Fest in Franklin Square or walking around in Mohegan Park it was a great moment to live here and if you agree with that sentiment, maybe you'll also consider helping to multiply the great moments.
A current popular phrase I like a lot goes "Teamwork makes the dream work." And while that may seem cliché, much like another expression, usually offered by our Moms when we were kids, "many hands make light work," it's still very true.
We always seem to have a great turn-out all summer long for the Rock the Docks concerts at the Harbor, though there's always room for one more, and the attendance and participation for First Friday Norwich continues to grow as more and more area residents discover there really is something happening in Chelsea.
We can thank a relatively small number of volunteers engaged in Norwich Events Organization and/or Global City Norwich for the Harbor fireworks on the Fourth of July, and the Winterfest Parade and the Lighting of City Hall (both of which are closer than you may think), or any of the other parades and celebrations we enjoy throughout the calendar and if you have the time to help them out, I'm sure they'd appreciate your helping hand (as would we all from the good you'd be doing).
But there are a thousand or, more precisely, forty thousand or so ways each of us can make where we live a better place. So rather than waiting for somebody else to do something, our involvement can not only help make a difference it can be the difference across every neighborhood in the city. Here are two ideas, and feel free to add more:
School starts in about two weeks' time. If you have children starting or returning to school, think about all the help within, and without, the classroom walls, that's needed. When our two children were Norwich Public School students my wife was always a part of every project our kids' teachers needed a hand with and more often than not, I was along and not just for decoration (even then I was too ugly for that). Being a parent is the hardest job you'll ever love and the more you of yourself you invest, the greater the return for both your child(ren) and our community.
Something smaller, perhaps? How about a one-person neighborhood beautification team? When I'm out walking, much like you I'm sure, I pass a variety of discarded items of all shapes and sizes strewn everywhere. None of us would ever throw any of this stuff on our lawns or sidewalks and streets but it seems someone else doesn't have that problem.
I carry a small bag, used to be a plastic grocery bag but that ship has now sailed, and try to pick up as much as I can of the fast-food wrappers, flattened beer cans and soda bottles, discarded coffee cups and certainly not forgetting the ever-popular (just not with me) nips bottles that are like sand on a beach. I admit it's not the most fun with your clothes, but sometimes fun is over-rated.
I keep coming back to Edward Everett Hale who authored another phrase we could do well to follow, "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
-bill kenny
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