I've mentioned before how much I enjoy walking in and across Norwich. After almost thirty years of living here I'm confident there's little chance of getting lost and if I do, anyone I'd stop and ask for directions could tell me where to go. They often do it now even without asking so I don't need GPS.
We have a lot of sidewalks here, though I'm not pretending we have enough, and because of the age of our city and the narrowness of many of our streets we don't really have a lot of space to accommodate bicyclists which is too bad because we have just the kind of terrain and topography many cyclists enjoy combined with great destinations to pedal towards and some gorgeous vistas to enjoy.
We have a lot here to enjoy, treasure, brag about, and be proud of; and each in our own way, to help make a little better. None of us can everything, but each of us can do something. A flood of improvement comes from individual raindrops of effort and while it's fashionable to wait for someone to do something, it's a lot more satisfying to be that someone yourself. And it's so easy, seriously.
I've taken to walking with one of the plastic bags we all used to get in the grocery stores when we couldn't use our own recyclable bags during the early months of COVID-19 pandemic precautions. As I walk, be it across town or just around the block, I pick up the detritus and debris so many of us thoughtlessly discard as we merrily and messily roll along.
I'm not alone in the clean-up efforts, far from it.
Saint Vincent de Paul Place, with Reliance Health and others and supported by Norwich Public Works, organizes a monthly targeted clean-up, RISE (Recovery Includes Spiritual Empowerment) that draws volunteers from all over, and beyond, Norwich, taking on some of the more blighted and blemished parts (the thorns if you wish) of the different neighborhoods in the Rose of New England.
The Greenville Revitalization Zone has an ever-expanding effort to in their historic village and just last week along with volunteers from the Norwich Police Department, cleaned up the playground and basketball courts on Central Avenue. Every litter bit hurts but every little bit helps, too.
Speaking of Greenville, the sidewalk and Central Avenue near The Ideal Skate Shop is almost always spotless and that's not by accident. You don't want to get between Jeff Blayman and discarded trash (and don't ask how I would know that). Walking to his shop, I always pass and say hello to a hard-working sweeper between 8th and 9th Streets who is out in front every day, no matter the weather, grooming up whatever has collected since the day before.
I love walking through Thamesville which has every kind of architectural style for those who enjoy that sort of thing and lots of residents who are trimming hedges and mowing lawns it seems every time I'm in their neighborhood. It's the same story in Occum, and over on the East Side and in Laurel Hill.
Norwich has an informal alliance of cleaner uppers, they're on Facebook as Cleanup Norwich CT, that you may have read about in mid-July, in the pages of The Bulletin, who hit the streets on a regular and recurring basis to gather up the gunk and garbage so many of us seem to no longer see. It's not their job, they just think someone should be doing it and so they are.
We make Norwich what it is by being the best of who we are. Stop waiting for someone to step up and make a difference and try being that person yourself. Helping can be habit-forming and maybe just what we need to be doing right now.
-bill kenny
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