On a pretty regular basis, something I write in this space hits a nerve with (I'm guessing) someone who's spent their lives in The Rose of New England and who, from their perspective considers me a thorn and boy do they let me know about it.
That's more than fair. If/when you want to reach me, I'm not that hard to find. Admittedly they did take my picture off the side of the milk carton but not so much because I was scaring the kids but because I was souring the milk. But, as we used to say back in the analog days, 'I'm in the book.'
Kidding aside (yeah, that was an attempt at humor. Sometimes I try too hard; next time I'll try softer) if I had a dime for every time, anyone, in the course of disagreeing with me about something told me 'you're not from here,' I could afford to move to many of the places those same folks have wished I'd go to (I could leave the winter coats here). And yet, here we are, so many people in the same device.
Whether we agree (you and I or either of us with somebody else), an important key to a successful life here on the ant farm with beepers is communication. There's not a lot of other places for any of us to go so getting along in some manner is essential if we want to remain at the top of the food chain.
And successful communication involves both speaking and listening and some of us, myself included, can have problems with one or both of those skills. We all had a chance last night on the largest stage in the world, the US Presidential debates, to listen to a pair of widely divergent visions of what our country is, and what we ourselves are and could be about.
Ideally (and I'm not suggesting it wasn't but your mileage may vary) it was a golden opportunity to look past the banners and slogans and put aside the slickly produced videos and attempt to listen for real-world, real-time solutions to a myriad of challenges and problems that we are facing.
The speed of light, I'm told, is much faster than the speed of sound which is why so many people seeking office can look good until you hear what they have to say. We each will decide for ourselves, I'm guessing, as to which man met and mastered his moment last night but no matter who you think it is, we can agree that we need all the good ideas we can get right now.
I'll bet if we each made a list of five (or ten or twenty) issues we feel are facing our nation right now, we'd have more in common than we have different. Sometimes the devil is in the detail and how we achieve and maintain life and liberty while in the pursuit of happiness is where our paths diverge. My point: the issues are relatively self-evident but developing equitable and sustainable answers can be a little tricky.
To be honest, I'm not sure as I've aged, that I've not grown more set in my ways and more prone to present myself as a man whose mind is already made up so don't confuse me with facts. I'm also not sure I'm alone in being that way but I fear it's not making the way ahead any easier for any of the those whom we choose to represent us.
It's tempting to just throw up our hands and wish a plague on both houses (I was looking for work as a smiter, but the temp agency thought I said spider but I don't have enough legs) but that's not going to do any of us any good. H.L. Mencken more than once suggested we get the government we deserve, and it's up to each of us to prove him wrong, for all of our sakes.
-bill kenny
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