Brace for the Race to the Finish Line

Don't look now but 2020 is in full "Hello, I Must Be Going" mode as tomorrow is the first day of the final month of the year. Finally, say a large number of us and others like me say Yipes.

In January, I'd have stuck an ! on the end of that pes but no more. Why waste it now? And by March I'd have started using words that I use all the time privately but in my outside voice and it doesn't look like that temptation is going away anytime soon.

All the poems, prayers, and promises we hoped to enjoy are nearly all past tense and unlike Banquo's ghost, they didn't stick around long enough for us to savor or regret them. Hell, I don't know about you but I can't remember more than a handful of them without digging back through my daily journal and a lot of that reads like a travelogue from Bedlam.

We're into Advent which means Christmas will be here in a moment and the New Year, which we'll embrace with the same enthusiasm we did its predecessor, will follow in short order. We're so busy struggling to live we don't seem to be enjoying life and that's a tight trick because whatever comes next is more a matter of faith than a statement of fact and that part of the carnival ride seems to be dark and quiet. I hope it's not closed for repairs.
-bill kenny

The First Sunday after Black Friday

Somewhere on the way to here, I lost my way. Not as in shuffled off the beaten path and got lost, but defiantly chose to not do as those who came before me had chosen for generations. Too stiff-necked to this day to acknowledge my failings and weaknesses, I'm often in doubt but never in error. At least in my own mind.

Today marks the beginning of a season of preparation; for the devout, it is for the coming of the Saviour. I've never been quite sure what it is people like me are doing or supposed to do. I miss the comfort of the ritual and the sense of shared belonging. I fill up my hollow days with noise to distract me from hearing the approaching roar. 

I've never been clear if I am to look to the future with anticipation or fear. 

I do understand I'll find out soon enough and sooner than planned.

-bill kenny

I Used All My Words to Fight

Someone much wiser than I once explained to me that freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to shout fire in a crowded theatre, nor does it afford you the privilege of sitting next to someone in that same theatre and whisper non-stop as the celluloid races through the projector gates. The danger, he said, each one of us face is that 'sometimes the things you do speak so loudly I cannot hear what you're saying.'

I thought about that yesterday as I watched people scurrying through the local mall for what we're still calling "Black Friday" although the COVID Pandemic hs seemingly changed its meaning beginning the search for low-cost holiday gifts for their mailmen and newspaper carrier, oil tank filling guy, coffee making person, etc-a dozen or a hundred jobs that no one notices until they're not done. 

The trick is to make sure to find something that doesn't like cheap and when you start the hunt early, you have a better chance. I've had this conversation with acquaintances in years previous who have a very complex and complicated mental math they do to compute just how much to spend on a gift for a person whose name more often than not they do not know or for one who, if the job is done right, they rarely see.

And in the case of the 'sandwich guy' or the 'coffee server' (and the like), it's a person with whom you would never speak, aside from 'please' and 'thank you', but if you crossed paths in a locale such as Borneo or even Boise, you'd chatter away like magpies who'd known one another your whole lives. The concept is called familiar strangers and many of us have a world populated with them and very few others.

I've gotten better as I've aged (I'm not bragging; I set the bar pretty low) and I no longer immediately say everything I'm thinking, which I did for decades and then wondered why I had tension-filled relationships with people. Turns out I had difficulties distinguishing between inside and outside voices, especially as I tend to hear both, and if you don't, it's your loss. Blurting is often hurting, a little tip from me to you about getting along here on the ant-farm.

There was a time I'd ask those shopping for the knick-knack thank you gifts, 'why don't you just give the person money?' After all, it's a holiday whose primary colors seem to be red and green and since most of us are in the former why not share some of the latter? I think we give each other seconds of pleasure that are put away and forgotten or lost by the end of the holiday season because we can't stand the insulted silences if we didn't.

It's not words, so much, that frighten us, it's the quiet between the words. That the words have, perhaps, sharp edges is all well and good as long as they keep coming, because that way we don't have to worry there might be time to think about their meaning and the last thing many of us want to do is find ourselves alone with our thoughts. 

I wonder if there's life on other planets and, like us, have giant parabolic microphones to pick up the sounds emanating from this septic orb if they've long since learned to turn the volume all the way down. We wouldn't mind, I fear.
-bill kenny

Sponsored by the Clayton Moore Foundation

Through a sad accident of birth, I have a face that has been only marginally improved by being covered in a mask for many decades (but still I persist) and a personality that has had me socially-distancing for longer than most people have been alive.  

Despite the wisdom of noted scientist and theologian (though neither in this case), Amy Coney Barett, most recently of The Supremes, staying safe during a murderous pandemic by wearing masks and maintaining distances from one another really isn't political in any light in which you choose to see it.

As Saint Ricky Gervais once offered, "When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid."

Thus endeth the lesson. 
-bill kenny

Faster than the Speed of Life

Once you accept this Thanksgiving is unlike any other one you've ever had, or (fingers crossed) are likely to ever have, you can actually enjoy the day for what it is and count your blessings and not your grievances. 

Somewhere this week, I lost track of almost all the days in it. I've had this happen before and have put it down to 'getting old' but that doesn't actually make sense since I've lived through all the days, I just didn't seem to get any of 'em on me.

The large item as best as I can recall was shopping for the fixings for Thanksgiving. My wife and I have two children who are, in every sense of the word, adults themselves, though I have a vision problem that precludes my successfully seeing them with my heart as anything other than as they once were.

I have memories of my son, Patrick, now 38, being no more than two or so when I'd pick him up to put him in his backseat car seat while cheering 'nur Patrick!' to which he shouted in return, 'nur Daddy!' It was always a pep club rally in the garage behind Ahornstrasse 67, Offenbach am Main. Zwei Deppen aber glucklich. This year, he and his Jena will celebrate their own Thanksgiving in Florida. Talk about a short movie.

Michelle, our daughter, now a relentlessly brilliant grown-up just like her Mom, would balance herself on my right arm as I held her up so she could see herself as a tiny toddler in our bathroom mirror as we (her brother and I) serenaded her with 'How Much is that Baby in the Mirror' to the tune of some other song whose name I've forgotten, as she peered solemnly into the mirror and then slowly smiled when she realized the baby she was seeing was herself. I smiled because the song was one of the ways I obliquely introduced English as a language into my children's lives.

And now, part and parcel of all the days I don't recall, our family which went from two to three to four and then down to three and back to two again will be not quite whole for a meal and a moment later today as Michelle and her Kyle join us. Some of us will enjoy stovetop stuffing while at least one of us (hint: me) absolutely loathes the stuff while perhaps only two of us will eat sweet potatoes, and one of us won't have any jellied cranberry sauce at all (but not me).

My wife, whose country and culture have no formal Thanksgiving holiday is the architect for every reason I have to be thankful every day, even the days that have rushed by, unheeding and unmindful. The moments that I thought I'd remember have so often, too often, been joined by all of those now lost to me forever. 

And though I've always tried to move as quickly through life as it has through me, I've not been as successful as I could and should have been. But, somehow the days I'll remember all my life are those of miracles and wonder and all of those seem to involve, and revolve around, those I love.
-bill kenny

Counting and Appreciating Our Blessings

It didn't start out that way but this is proving to be not a year to get everything we ever wanted but rather to better appreciate everything we have. And on this, the eve of Thanksgiving in a year of pandemic, it's tempting to be sad or angry about how much we're missing instead of being grateful for our family, friends, and ourselves. Maybe this will help.

Let me retell a story that’s older than our country. Variations of it have been experienced by many who've arrived on our shores since our earliest days. Sometimes we forget that we are at our best as a nation when we realize we are a diverse people with shared circumstances.

Here's our story: The travelers were very poor and had come a long way with very little money and less hope. The lives they led had been so desperate that arriving uninvited in a nation that had no use for them had seemed not only attractive but really their only choice.

The first months were terribly hard. The immigrants didn't know the customs, couldn't understand or speak the language, had little grasp of the nature of the place they had come to live in, and even less desire to learn of it. Arriving in the middle of the winter, totally unprepared for the season's savagery by their experiences in their own country, nearly half were dead by the Spring.

Their hosts in this new world had difficulties with the settlers. Their customs, their language, their religion were all so different from what they had known; it was hard to see a way to develop any sense of attempted community. On more than occasion, as it had turned out, befriending the new people had proven to be unwise as more and more of their sort just kept showing up and crowding out those who had lived in the area for so many decades.

The emigres were in a precarious predicament. It had taken almost all of their savings to make the trip to what they hoped would be a fresh start. They believed or wanted to, that if they worked hard and did well, one day they could send for family and friends to join them in their brave adventure. 

But every day was a challenge and more often than not, often without a victory. They were isolated, decimated, and left to their own devices. It took extraordinary hospitality and courageous kindness by one of the long-time residents of the established community to extend a helping hand and organize support so that as the following fall approached the new people had reasons to believe.

How fortunate there wasn't any strict security at coastal ports of entry, or any security of any kind actually. Fortunate for us, who followed in their footsteps that is. We, the direct and indirect descendants of those first arrivals five hundred years ago on Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, will tomorrow celebrate Thanksgiving, only because Samoset ignored the arguments and fears of so many of his fellow Abenaki and welcomed the Pilgrims to the New World, establishing even before we were a nation, our national legacy of welcoming all to our shores. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

-bill kenny

And the Ghost of William Jennings Bryan Preaches Every Night

On Saturdays or on most Saturdays I should say one of our newspapers offers on their editorial page a 'left' opinion and a 'right' one on some previously agreed-upon (I assume) topic of interest to someone even if it's not me. 

In the last couple of months the conglomerate that owns the paper, and hundreds across the country, has, and I find this amusing, actually eliminated having an actual editorial on its editorial page believing that people don't really need or care for them. 

In light of how much of our lives far too many of us spend in a variety of states, politically and philosophically, (not to mention Denial, or is that only the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC?) I am disquieted by synthetic lines of demarcation that will, ultimately, do nothing to help us build the bridges we need throughout this country, but will, instead, speed the expansion of walls we keep erecting.

If you're waiting for a point, I'll cut to the chase.  Nationally we have too much 'my mind's made up, don't confuse me with facts' already, so folks like Fox News and MSNBC, both recently admitting they had 'mistakenly' used crowd shots from other events in the reporting of stories that underscored their reportorial perspectives, need to stop helping now. Folks like NewsMax and OneAmerica News Network need to step on a Lego and go away entirely. 

And at the local level and we need a LOT more local news than we're getting in most places across the country (thanks internet aggregators)  we must get better at distinguishing a good person from a good elected official and people who mean well from this who do well.

Sometimes they are very much one and the same and sometimes they are two very different people. All ducks are birds but not all birds are ducks. And sometimes, there are things other than birds.
-bill kenny

Before It All Gets Lost in the Noise

We have more of just about everything anyone could ever want than anyone else in the history of human beings on this planet and that didn't happen by accident. So unless you're a post turtle, you might want to keep this thought in mind for more than just the holiday season but if that's all we can do then that's all we can do.  

Oh, and if you had to click on post turtle you might just be one. Just sayin'.
-bill kenny

A Picture Postcard from Long Ago

This should really appear in somewhat sepia tones on your monitor because it's about an event that happened in another, more hopeful America, a nation that I think may have vanished forever on this day fifty-seven years ago. That was the day John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.

As I typed that I'm chastened to realize how much has passed since that day. For you, this is probably like reading about the first walk on the moon's surface or the Fall of Saigon. For me and my generation, this is a part of who we are because we remember all of these events (perhaps because and/or despite what followed them).

JFK wasn't a better person than those whom we have chosen since to occupy the White House nor was he worse-if events and circumstances make a person who can and will master them, then he was a man of a different time and all of us can't pretend to be able to compare and contrast then to now. We were and now we are. And those we lost along the way have only us to bear their witness. That some of then looks a lot like some of now is as much a function of perspective as it is of situations.

All my memories of the days of coverage in the aftermath of his assassination are black and white. They are not the misty water-colored memories, the song would have me believe of the way we were but rather, grainy high contrast black and white moments stapled to special editions of newspapers and hurled at us by television stations engaged and engaging in their first national seance. 

We gathered in our living rooms or those without a TV stood on sidewalks in front of appliance stores to watch over and over again the film clips as the Secret Service agent clambered up the back of the moving limo, Jackie struggled to cradle the dying man's head, and Walter Cronkite removed his glasses and gathered himself before reading the teletype news telling us the youngest man ever elected President was now dead.

And as we headed home to houses with mothers, fathers and siblings gathered around the radio, there were only three TV stations in those days and 'live' broadcasting was a cumbersome operation, radio was faster and newspapers rushed out 'special editions', I think we all had a dim awareness that something had changed, but we didn't know what and we didn’t know how much. All those years on, many of us still don't.

-bill kenny

#PhuckHisPheelings

Here's the thing for those following along at home. It's really just math (which, along with science is not a favorite of the GOP). More is bigger than less. That is to say, Joe Biden got more popular votes AND more Electoral College votes than Donald Trump.

That's why Biden is the President-elect and Trump is a pathetic whiner who lost so obviously that even a sycophantic suck-up like Nebraska's Ben Sasse can call him on his behavior even if it hurts the Mango Mussoilin's ego and no longer fear the wrath of a Trump Tweet calling him a hurtful name. Such bravery should be praised even if it's not actually bravery, just a recognition (albeit delayed) of reality.

What I'm trying to figure out is why it took Sasse and the other mealy-mouthed morons of the party of Lincoln this long to figure out that their enabling behavior helped create the Orange Shit Stain currently occupying (and I do mean occupying) the White House. 

Thoughts and prayers to the Oval Office cleaning crew trying to get those Cheeto dust stains out of every damn piece of the furniture in the place by Inauguration Day. 
-bill kenny

#StayatHome

It's sort of funny, this editorial cartoon, sort of. 

I'm not sure why we don't 'get' it until and unless we do get it. Stop spreading illness as part of your holiday cheer. #StayatHome.
-bill kenny

Time Isn't the Only Thing That Flies

This not-always-the-typical-November-like-weather we've had so far this month presented me with an opportunity earlier this week to do a good deed that, except you already know I'm pathetic, I should be too embarrassed to recount.

I wound up with a hitchhiker in the front seat with me-barely visible. A gnat I guess or maybe a tiny fly, who didn't appreciate the grasp of tools we humans have that enable us to form glass and make windshields for our cars. The little bug(ger) kept bouncing off the inside of the windshield, regrouping on the dashboard and attempting to fly off again, into the window.

I don't consider myself to be a 'one with the universe' kind of guy. As a matter of fact, I'm very much the person most of the rest of the planet cites on surveys as to why they don't want to be from 'here' anymore. Despite what others say, I believe we should all take turns-it's just that I think the line forms behind me if you follow my drift and I know you do because deep down, you're the same way.

Our weather here continues to be remarkable. That's probably why, to NOT jinx anything or anger anyone, I decided to roll down the front windows and coax the bug to escape. I'll be honest, it was about as mild outside as it was inside and who among us doesn't love doing favors that cost them absolutely nothing in the first place. You doubt me? Try this: ask me if it's okay to borrow your neighbor's car this weekend. Sure, go right ahead! See? That was easy and trust me, in five minutes I won't even remember giving you the green light.

It took the bug more time than I'd have liked to make its way out. Perhaps I was the first car it was ever in (glad I'd just had it cleaned inside and out; you never get a second chance to make a good first impression) and after it was gone, it occurred to me I had no idea where it was from. Perhaps it was a Norwich gnat and now was wandering around in Ledyard (or Preston, I sort of lost track). I'm not sure how territorial bugs are (or need to be) or how well they interact with strangers. I may have provided safe passage for a colonist or an innovator.

Of course, driving home I heard and then saw a splatter on the outside of my windshield and wondered if I had just witnessed another Circle of Life moment. Hakuna Matata, indeed.
-bill kenny

The Gift of Loving Kindness

I was out walking on Chelsea Parade as an overcast Sunday morning decided to become a very unpleasant November afternoon and encountered an acquaintance I haven't seen since, well, since, 2020 sort of crashed and burned back in March (insert the obligatory 'I didn't recognize you because of your mask' joke here).

He remarked that Thanksgiving 'sort of snuck up on me this year,' which makes sense as Thanksgiving means the start of a holiday season for many of us that lasts through the new year, always associated with family, friends, and food.    

This year has been more than a little hard on family and friends and with enhanced (and enforced I hope) COVID-19 protections in place this holiday season which was already on pace to feel like none any of us had ever experienced just became even more insular and isolated. 

We have a Thanksgiving tradition in our house where everyone attending brings something (this year our gathering is very small) and continuing that tradition I'm bringing the paper plates and napkins because no one wants me near where food is prepared. 

Kidding aside, my mission as I wander the grocery store aisles is to answer the annual question about cranberry sauce, jellied or berried. Yeah, another First World Problem I'm left to solve not that I ever do. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. While I'm wrestling with what is truly a trivial concern, I'm somehow not seeing those around me who would trade my troubles for theirs in less time than it takes to read this sentence.

This is the time of year when we traditionally celebrate our good fortune, in a vaguely historical homage to the Pilgrim's Progress that we can't quite explain. That's probably because we get it wrong. The First Thanksgiving was really an act of generosity shared by those who had with those who did not.

We, or at least I, think of The Pilgrims when we think about Thanksgiving but it's the Native Americans who sustained them and helped those ill-equipped settlers adapt and overcome whom we should be honoring and emulating.

And that's my point for this year as it has been in past years. I pass by collection points and donation stations every day where assistance for those whom we think of as 'the less fortunate' is being assembled and organized. The people who need our help are not 'less fortunate'-they are our neighbors and in many instances family and friends.

These are brutally hard times for more of us than at any point at least in my lifetime and if you thought the response to COVID-19 was making things rough for you, try being a family that didn't have very much to start with when the stuff hit the rotating fan blades.

This time of year, and more so now than ever, agencies and organizations that work with those in need are being overwhelmed by requests for help.

Ask St. Vincent de Paul Place about how many (more) hot meals they're preparing not just for the holidays but every day and how many new food pantry customers they have. More importantly between now and next Thursday, ask how you can help with food and/or cash donations so that they, in turn, can help even more people. 

The pandemic and its response have changed how we conduct food drives and warm coat collections but that doesn't mean the need has disappeared and while this team of year the Connecticut Food Bank receives its greatest number of donations (I asked), we cannot allow hunger to be a holiday tradition for some families because it’s not and it shouldn't be.

Family, friends, and food. May we never have enough of them especially as we finalize our preparations for Thanksgiving. If you have the good fortune of being able to share some of what you have then both you and your recipients will be blessed which may be the greatest lesson of this most historical of all of our holidays.

-bill kenny

Time After Time I Held It

I've gotten into the habit, barring a torrential rainfall or blizzard of snow, every day to walk around my neighborhood, with an emphasis on the Chelsea Parade (sort of a park, but smaller) at the intersection of my street and Washington Street. 

This past Sunday because I was feeling like a rule breaker I walked around Chelsea Parade clock-wise; usually, I walk it in the opposite direction. I told myself I was vacationing in Australia where, I was raised to believe, thanks to the Coriolis effect, water drains in a different direction than it does in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where I grew up. 

It doesn't really, as it turns out, but knowing that it doesn't, never stops me from telling myself that it most certainly does. Kind of like how Trump incessantly tells us he won the election except he had fewer popular and electoral votes.   

We're five weeks away from the start of winter and until this past Thursday, we'd had a run of wonderful and lovely Septemberish weather that almost (but not quite) led me to believe (hope?) this might be the year that autumn simply melted into spring.

The bare branches throughout the Chelsea Parade are what remains of all the gorgeously hued trees lining the walkway that we had as recently as last weekend as those now fallen leaves of mostly yellow and brown cover the grass and the informal shortcuts across the parade, reminding me that whether or not, we'll have weather or not. 

The forsythia bush (more like a tree really) in our side yard near one of our kitchen windows provides refuge and shelter for dozens if not hundreds of sparrows from early spring until a few days ago when the leaves, having turned red, chose to abandon the bush for the soft embrace of the earth below and the birds, who don't seem to migrate for reasons I don't understand, have moved on in search of a more protected place and space to outlast the winter. 

The bush looks forlorn without its leaves and forsaken without its occupants. I can almost hear John Martyn, "Bless the weather that brought you to me. Curse the storm that takes you away."
-bill kenny      

Recalling Ozymandias

Watching Resilience liftoff last night on its way to the international space station made me feel like a kid again when the world was wide open and anything could happen at any time for anyone. I never became an astronaut though I hoped to as a child, while also dreaming of becoming a baseball player and the President (guess who ruined that gig). 

I come back to the NASA channel often and won't mind if you pop over there right now. I can't help but believe we'd be better off if more cable systems across the country had it as part of their basic television package and if to make room they have to leave NewsMax or One America Network on the shelf, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs I guess.

If we as a species can do this on our way to space, we can do anything we set our minds to here on terra firma no matter how irreconcilable our differences appear to be. But don't get too cocky, and never lose sight of Shelley's words. 

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-bill kenny

Roast Beef on Sundays Is Alright

One of the downsides to living where there are four seasons is the transition from summer to autumn, especially for the trees and their leaves. I am very much of the 'live and let live' persuasion which translates to the 'lie and let them lay' position on leave gathering. 

I've noticed this again this year in my neighborhood; some of us have gathered so many, it's as if we're waiting for them to fall from the trees and nab them on the first bounce. We rake them up and some of us, maybe you have the same kind of neighbors where you live (maybe you are that neighbor where you live) who then place them in those large brown stick-your-leaves-in-here paper bags to await pickup by the trash folks.

I saw in Wednesday's paper the City of Norwich announcement on when the actual pick-up is and it's not for the better part of almost two weeks I think. I didn't read it too closely because we have no trees on our property and I refuse to get caught up in that whole "I'm raking leaves that aren't mine because I'm a terrific neighbor" scene. I'm not fooling anybody. My neighbors know I'm not a great guy and tend to tolerate me I suspect because they are genuinely fond of my wife (who is a terrific person) and wonder what she did to be saddled with me (two words: bar bet; two more: lost a). 

For millions of years, I estimate, we as a species did nothing with the leaves as they fell. You see all that dirt around us? I have a funny feeling where it might have come from and I'm not sure what we're accomplishing with how we're operating now. While I wasn't looking, compost has become a lost cause, it seems, perhaps even a dark art. 

In its place, we have created a first-class annoyance, the leaf blower. We went from devices that looked like vacuums and picked up fallen leaves and plopped them into bags (do you remember those?) to a gadget that hangs from your hip and can be used to blow leaves that have fallen on your property into someone else's yard or out into the street all at a decibel level that makes the inside of a jet engine feel like the library's reading room.

I truly believe leaf blowers are a much more accurate and closer to an authentic symbol of America in the 21st Century than either the Bald Eagle or the Stars & Stripes. There's nothing that says "Wha?!" more than a guy on a weekend afternoon filling the time between sitting on the couch watching football games by being outside working a leaf blower wearing dark shades with Ibuds in both ears. And I'd ask him why he's doing what he's doing, but he's as oblivious to me right now as I am to him for the rest of the year. Ahh, Sweet Suburbia. We've got Mother Nature on the run--now what?
-bill kenny

Young and Innocent Days

One of the themes I'm picking up on social media over the last week has been a hope for a return on so many platforms to the way we were BT (Before Trump). You remember that time frame, perhaps only dimly but still?

We sent one another a lot of cat memes, old Gary Larson and Far Side cartoons, and the occasional quote from Marcus Aurelius (or was that just intended for me?). Hand on my heart, to this day, I've never ventured anywhere near the Trump Facebook page, but have read it does exist and if it's anything like his Twitter feed, it must be terrifying. 

And, as I said, I've been reading ruminations that when/if he's dragged from the Oval Office, leaving orange-tinged fingernail claw markings in the carpet all the way down the hall to the Rose Garden Portico, the halcyon days of Pre-Trump will return, peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars. Assuming, of course, they can get all the Cheeto Dust out of the furniture in the Residence.

Or not, I suspect. Yes, I won't feel compelled to check my Twitter feed three times an hour to see if the Mango Mussolini has threatened to blow up the world, but let's remember a lot of the content on social media back in the day was beyond mundane. 

For instance, and these will make a huge comeback: do you remember Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel? Do the math with me for a minute. In 2008, she was up to 'Twiggy #6.' What might she be up to today if she's still around working the 'animals doing odd stuff circuit?' And where did all the people in that audience come from? And what happened to the first five Twiggy the Squirrels and don't tell they drowned.

Turns out Twiggy was then, and Tony Squawk is now (comes complete with his own jaunty music). I know, 'sell my clothes, I'm going to heaven!' Good on you, but please don't put any of the undressing imagery on Instagram, okay?
-bill kenny

Broken Mirrors, Black Cats, and Walking Under Ladders

WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined blah, blah, blah, awful stuff, blah, blah, whenever it's Friday the 13th and fear of blah, blah, blah. The End. C'mon, none of us ever read disclaimers all the way through anyway so I figured I'd offer you a mock disclaimer, a slice of that mock apple pie made with Ritz crackers, and a tall frosty glass of something other than milk from a cow to wash it all down. Mmmmm. You got a little something on the side of your upper lip, there, sunshine.

We've got the most highly developed brain of any species on this planet but we're also the only species who hate and fear one another for reasons such as different religions, skin colors, or political beliefs. So if any other species has the gift of speech (and I guess, the ability to read as well and a thumb that works a scroll ball) now might be a good time for one or more of them to ask aloud, 'how come the bi-peds are the crown of creation., anyway?'

On top of all those misplaced prides and prejudices (you don't suppose Jane is related to Steve, by any chance? I'm trying to imagine Fitzwilliam Darcy having a discussion with Oscar Goldman) we have the mother of all irrationalities, Friday the Thirteenth and the fear of it. 

Of course, it's only irrational if you don't put any stock into any of the literature or folk tales you've heard since you were young. There are seven-point two katrillion jillion websites (a number I just made up and have you ever known me to lie to you?) on every aspect of this day and date combination, and one's as good as the other, or as bad, depending on how you feel.

You might have a lucky number or a special letter, or maybe a pony ride for your birthday (you ba$tard!), so far be it from me to pooh-pooh, pshaw or tsk-tsk (I love when I can use classic ancient words; I am, after all, wearing Old Spice. And you thought I was kidding about the pony. And STOP clicking the link!) your values or beliefs. If they help you place your universe in order, that's fine.

I put all the cash in my wallet in order by denomination (Catholics go first, obviously) and then in sequence based on the serial number. My wife used to find this quirk endearing; now, not so much. She's helped me manage my compulsion by making sure I have very little folding money. Everyone standing behind me in lines everywhere as I used to put the bills in order is very grateful.

In a way, I guess it's counter-intuitive to wish you a happy Friday the Thirteenth especially in this most snake-bitten of a year, 2020, where there's zero chance we needed anything aggravating our luck. And yet, here we are, staring at the calendar while looking out the window and praying that the approaching dark cloud is rain and not locusts. 

-bill kenny 

Neck Deep in Denial

How ironic. Those who most need to read this, the Trumpkins, the Proud Boys, the Brown Shirts, are all on the far side of the interwebz right now, bawling their little MAGA eyes out over on Brietbart or making smores with their QAnon buddies. 

What I'm offering (and it's not solace, sunshine, in case you wandered here by accident) is the equivalent of pissing in a dark blue suit: it will give me a nice, warm feeling and no one else will notice. It's okay; tough times don't last, tough people do. Works the same for stupid as well, in case you wondered.

For those convinced you have been victimized by Attempted Deep State Deceit, work with me on this: you believe the 'Dems,' 'Antifa,' and "Libtards' rigged the election for Biden and Harris by arranging on those same ballots they 'fixed' for Sleepy & Nasty to also lose seats in the House of Representatives and to miss out on a once in a generation opportunity to flip at least two Senate seats? Yeah, that's how sneaky we all are. 

Or, for those hung up on counting ballots particularly those mail-in ballots your Putrid Pumpkin Spice President told you to NOT use, what about those Christmas cards you get every year that show up in the mail after the holiday? 

What's your theory on those? The senders don't really love Jesus and aren't happy about his birthday? That maybe those cards are manufactured in China, perhaps in Wuhan, and coated in COVID-19 before the Antifa mail carrier brings them to you? Joke's on you: Trump has been afraid of the mail since his first draft notice showed up all those years ago.

Here's the thing and you, of all people, should appreciate it because you spent the last four years explaining it to me: you lost, get over it. Point in fact, the only way Trump gets to 270 is if he loses a hundred pounds.

What's that I saw on many of those pro-Trump banners and tee-shirts, "Fuck Your Feelings." Finally, we agree on something. 
-bill kenny

America Without Her Soldiers

I'm sharing something I've offered before on this date and in this place and thank you in advance for your kind indulgence. Today is Veterans Day which began as Armistice Day, marking the end of "The War to End All Wars" now known as World War One, because obviously and sadly it failed to achieve its goal, thus the numerical suffix. 

For most of the thirty-five nations, it lasted from 1914 to 1918; we here in the United States didn't become a combatant until 1917 but then made up with a ferocity of engagement what we had lacked in the length of deployment.

I strongly believe there’s a relationship between Election Day, last Tuesday, and Veterans Day, today, and always has been. Without the latter, I’m not sure if we even have the former. I’m always impressed by how much veterans have in common despite differences in age, sex, ethnicity, religion, or political beliefs. Our composition quite frankly very much reflects the nation which our service in uniform helped create and helps protect. Too often we lose sight of that. 

There are many observances across the country today. And like ours, sponsored by the Norwich Area Veterans Council this morning at eleven complete with all COVID protocols (to include face masks and social distancing), at the Richard E. Hourigan VFW Post 594 in the Norwich Business Park, the ceremonies are usually understated with little pomp and circumstance as is probably most befitting to celebrate a common and shared national experience.

The estimated population of our country is a shade over 331 million people with about 18 million veterans among us proving yet again it takes every kind of people to make a nation and to serve in uniform.

Today is NOT Memorial Day. We honor all who serve and served in our nation's armed forces, living and deceased. As we move farther away historically if not emotionally from the tragedy, trauma, and subsequent events and the consequences of the 9/11 attacks, the size and composition of our veteran population, and the concomitant need and necessity to take care of all those wounded in body and/or spirit, will continue to grow.

Veterans Day in many ways has become our Day of National Remembrance and Recognition of all the characteristics, embodied by those who serve as well as those who wait for those who serve, which allow us to remain among the freest nations in the world. 

I'm old now but I can remember the boy I was who listened to a Navy veteran of the War in the Pacific during World War Two, just elected President of the United States, who urged us to "....pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Service to others, like any other habit, becomes second-nature when performed often enough. Last week's election should continue, expand, and extend conversations about what’s in need of repair from sea to shining sea. Today should remind us of all that is right with our country, and with one another.
-bill kenny

Ever Since I Was a Young Boy

I'm not named Thomas or nicknamed Tommy but I found this mesmerizing.

Not sure Uncle Ernie would endorse it but am sure I don't care.
-bill kenny

The Danger of Remembrance

Not sure why these lyrics popped into my head earlier but they've made themselves quite comfortable in there (plenty of room, that's for sure) and I suspect the song they're from will be there for at least a little while longer.

"For there's not much use for innocence 

In a world gone crazy and blind

Those who place any faith in intelligence

Must surely be out of their minds."

Surely, indeed.
-bill kenny

(Not Just) Bartlet for America

Statement (and celebration) of the Obvious. 

Savor the moment but don't be seduced by it. 

Remember Jeb Bartlet's question and promise to keep trying to answer it every day for all the days that remain.
-bill kenny

As Donald Circles the Bowl

I guess I can finally delete my folder of 'Trump Graphics' now. and exhale. So not sorry to never need to use them ever again or even think of him (until sentencing). 

And having been diagnosed at birth with Irish Alzheimer's (we forget everything but the grudges), here's just a very small sampling of some of my favorites to commemorate and celebrate the End of an Error. 

As seen on I-495 in Maryland

Trump Legacy

Channeling OJ and AC 

Yellow River

Ask the man with the best brain

-bill kenny

Same Shi(r)t

There are other things going on in our country and in the world aside from counting ballots in the 2020 Presidential Election but with so much churn in the water right now you could be forgiven for not noticing or realizing it. 

Courtesy of The Oatmeal

New cases of COVID-19 topped 100,000 for the first time, ever, on Wednesday, topping 102,000. As of yesterday at noon, over 233,836 of our fellow Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19. 

There were 751,000 first-time jobless benefits claims filed yesterday and no framework for a stimulus/relief package on the horizon much less ready to be implemented. 

And what is the President of the United States of America doing about any of this and all of the other pressing issues facing us as a nation of which he is the elected leader?  Well, the good news (I guess) is he's not out playing golf. Now he's tormenting mail carriers.

The Liar-in-Chief hasn't been this frightened of mail since he received his first draft notice. 
-bill kenny

Abe's Divided House

Abraham Lincoln was a great patriot before he was elected to the Presidency of the United States. On June 16, 1858, in accepting the Republican party nomination to be their Senatorial candidate in Illinois two years before becoming the standard-bearer in what was to be the most contentious presidential election in our nation's history until the one the day before yesterday, he noted, "A house divided itself cannot stand." 

He was speaking about the split in our nation over slavery, and he was absolutely and tragically correct. One hundred and sixty years later that same Union he was murdered trying to preserve is, as I heard on NPR yesterday citing a study from a year previously, rending itself asunder as we sort ourselves out, not as red and blue, not as white and black, or rich and poor, but rather, as urban versus rural. 

The former tends to have a higher (and more costly) quality of life and feels constrained by the latter while the latter sees itself pitied and abandoned by the former. Tuesday's election did nothing, absolutely nothing, to help all of us bridge the gap that's becoming a chasm as we talk at rather than speak with one another.

As confounded and angry as I am that anyone could support someone for the office of President as manifestly incompetent as the incumbent, I have to accept that his supporters see me as dangerously disruptive and most disquieting of all, we are both correct. So now what?

Our nation's motto is "E Pluribus Unum," 'out of many, one,' but we've mistaken patriotism for tribalism and decide that while you (whoever you are) may look like we do, you know what it is? You're not one of us. I'm not sure there's a way back to the place we were before but I do know we have to try to find it.
-bill kenny         

By the Dawn's Early Light

As you or may not know (or care) once a week, on Wednesdays, these mutterings appear in the pages of The Bulletin, a daily newspaper based in Norwich, Connecticut, which is where I live. Because of their production deadlines, I wrote these words Sunday before Election Day. You’re reading them now, the day after Election Day. Pretty amazing especially if you don’t think about it. And when it comes to not thinking, I’m your guy.

Whether we already have final results or not at the national level and/or how long we'll wait for them (and patience is no longer an American value it seems), what we already do have are the consequences of the decisions we made, or chose to NOT make, when we voted. That's how this nation works and when you look at our history, our heartaches, and our triumphs, it has been, and is, a remarkable process of new beginnings and unending hopeful horizons.

Since my Mom and Dad taught me manners (and the set I have is still in pretty good shape because I seemingly hardly ever use them) let me start on an appreciative note: To all of those who sought office and campaigned tirelessly in the last weeks and months, thank you for your generosity of spirit. 

Congratulations to those of you who were elected and for those who weren't, there's still a role for you in all of our communities so thanks in advance for lending a hand. We have some rough days before us all, not just the Red States or the Blue States, but the United States. There's a reason why we call ourselves that-sometimes, it seems, we forget.

We voters have expectations of those whom we elect and those men and women, in turn, have responsibilities to us. We all also have obligations to one another: to speak clearly in articulating our wants, needs, and desires (and our ability and willingness to pay for them), and to listen to one another and the explanation for why, sometimes, a particular course of action was chosen (or not chosen). We have two ears and one mouth in that particular ratio for a reason: perhaps we could listen more and shout less.

In recent years, there's been far too little civility in our civic discourse with one another as we've opted to impugn character and denigrate integrity instead of debating, developing, evaluating, implementing, and improving one another's ideas. We've turned elections into popularity contests that no one seems to win. 

I can't help but fear if John Hancock and the Founding Fathers could see what we've made of this nation that some of them gave their lives for (even before we were a country), he'd insist on a bottle of Wite-Out while reaching for a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Right now, the first days after a national election, are traditionally the most hopeful time in the political calendar. At all levels of government, the next few mornings will be a little brighter because of the perception and belief in possibilities we created for ourselves yesterday. But we shouldn’t do more than pause before continuing to build the nation regarded as a beacon by so many around the world.

As that nation we may not, in the last decade or so, have been especially good at narrowing the gap between promise and performance. As we continue in this, our third century, as a democracy, we need to be mindful we could be approaching that moment when our "Missed Opportunity" becomes our "Last Chance".

We all have too much at stake to leave government to "somebody else"--we each need of us to become that somebody. Democracy is a contact sport-now that we’re suited up, it's time to get in the game.
-bill kenny