Equal Goes It Loose

Our two children, one of whom turned forty earlier this month (!), were both born in West Germany. I met and married their mother while I was stationed in Germany as a slick-sleeved member of the US Air Force and I remained in-country as we used to say for a number of years after leaving my uniform days behind me. 

We spoke, for the most part German, in the house when the kids were small. Except for me. I spoke German badly (practically a separate language I should point out) but I don't think the two of them actually noticed the difference between the way their dad spoke and how Oma and Opa or their mom spoke. I'm grateful for their indulgence and forgiveness on that count.

When you are astride two language horses (metaphorically) like that, you create your own space. After we relocated, somewhat abruptly, from Germany to Norwich, Connecticut, our children's German became more passive as the actual language was used less and less every day, especially outside the house. 

Our daughter often said 'dunkel night time' to describe the evening's darkness while our son slalomed between the two languages (being a full-time third-grade student at the time accelerated his progress). As they grew up, they outgrew their German but both still retain a better than the average grasp of the language to this day.

I was thinking about them and the vagaries and similarities of idiomatic paths of different languages such as the English expression 'watch and wait' which in German is 'abwarten und tee trinken' (wait and have some tea) while digesting a fascinating (to me) article on how our brains cope with speaking more than one language.  

I think, in my case, just speaking one is too often a bridge too far.
bill kenny

Some Days You Eat the Bear

Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. Other times, it's better to have been both. 

This is probably one of those times.  

I concluded that in some instances Rihanna may be more effective than Lyle.
-bill kenny

The Birds of Heaven

One of my favorite New Testament passages is where Jesus compares the chances of a rich man entering heaven to be about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. 

As children enrolled in a parochial grammar school we assumed and believed (and the misnamed Sisters of Charity allowed us to continue to persist in our mistake) that this meant (ha! ha!) God loved the poor and that no one of wealth was going to heaven. Or not. 

In a little more than two thousand years, we went from "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin" to Religions, Inc.

I, of so little faith, can't help but wonder what Jesus might make of a list like this, or how He'd react to His servant, (Bishop) Lamor Miller-Whitehead (together with his wife) who was a victim last weekend of a seven-figure armed robbery. Mysterious Ways, meet Render Unto Caesar.

There is no truth to reports that the Bishop smokes Camels. 
-bill kenny

Guessing He Caught It

Traveling earlier this week after the heat wave broke, I was heading from Norwich to Waterford via Route 32 (we can also go 395 but there's such a level and pace of traffic it wears me out trying to keep up with it).

It's not really the road less taken, though the volume of traffic pales in comparison to 395 which is just as well as it connects Norwich and Montville and New London as you travel around the not-so-glamorous back entrance to the Mohegan Sun casino.

The only tricky part is just as you're hitting Quaker Hill because 32 blends with an exit of 395 and I know from experience on both sides of the merge, that it's not a day at the beach. For a driver on 32, the merge involves a reasonably extreme over-your-right shoulder scan of your sector, so to speak, as cars entering far faster than your speed are (in theory) trying to slow down as they merge and before they hit the traffic signal (or you).

If you're coming off 395 at this exit, all the turtle drivers are to your left, and to make it interesting for both of you, at that traffic signal I just mentioned, there are always a lot of people making the right at the light which means they need to get into that lane, and if they cross in front of you, well, stuff can happen.

Which it did yesterday, but funny stuff. It was a guy in a dark Saab, the sedan model (I think that means four doors, right? Anyway, that's what I mean) and he's looking to go straight and get into the left lane on 32 coming off from 395. There wasn't a lot of traffic and it was a pretty easy maneuver.

So much so that I had more than enough opportunity to eyeball his shotgun partner, his dog, a big brown one, window rolled down, head out the window (I'd love to know what they are thinking about aside from 'here, kitty, c'mon Kitty') wearing wraparound sunglasses, just like his owner. 

For a moment, I was watching the SPCA version of the Blues Brothers movie, with the part of a trimmer, and far more hirsute, Jake, played by the dog. My turn was approaching and as I put on my blinker, I murmured a short prayer, "Our Lady of Acceleration, don't fail us now."
-bill kenny

Out Here in the Middle

Cynicism is pretty much part and parcel of our lives in nearly every interaction everywhere in this country (state, city), as you've probably noticed. (Quite frankly, how could you not?) and a couple of days ago, I’m thinking because of the sentiment if not the actual words used in this space last week, someone dropped me a note to tell me how ‘hard life must be for a Ted Lasso wannabe.’

Yeah. That introductory offer for Apple TV+ at a dollar a month has already paid for itself, as I appreciated immediately the rapier-like wit of that observation. Except, I suspect (and not just here in Norwich), we have more starry-eyed optimists than we know (but not as many as we need).

Let’s face it. Personally, professionally, and even politically, it’s perhaps better to be a pessimist; that way you can only be surprised and never be disappointed. Except, who would want to live like that, and why? That whole ‘a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ first expressed by Robert Browning wasn’t just words strung together but, if you will, a call to arms for each of us and all of us.

The thing about the Ted Lasso comparison that chafes I’ll admit is that I would describe myself philosophically as a relentless pragmatist and politically as Out Here in the Middle.

In terms of the former, I’m proud to say I can do anything but would concede I can’t do everything. And as for the prism of partisan politics through which so much is viewed, I appreciate both a left and a right wing, especially on an airplane, but while it’s never been accused of being sexy, working to find common ground for the greater good is very much how we’ve gotten as far as we have. At least until now.  

Too many, the Salt of the Earth, forget about how a prayer is said for us, 'the stay-at-home voter, dull-eyed though a strange beauty shows'--or how we endure a 'passing parade of grey-suited grafters, a choice of cancer or polio.' Instead, we wait for the perfect moment and for someone to rescue us and have forgotten we are all we have, but also all we need.

Isn’t it time we embrace the tools and techniques of the 21st Century, (admittedly late to the game, but still) and stop talking about improving Norwich and start doing it? You may be like me, whose last original idea died of loneliness, so perhaps together we two could assist private and public efforts striving to improve where we live and work, instead of standing around with our hands in our pockets, shaking our heads and waiting for things to end badly.

I've lived here for a shade over three decades and think we need to find out how much we can accomplish when no one is keeping score or claiming credit. I think dreams, voiced and shared aloud, can and should be what drives the public dialogue that’s essential to creating consensus that fuels transformation and change.

In the coming weeks, we’ll have a new platform and community outreach to help us help ourselves be the city we keep telling ourselves we want and can be. This is our chance and our time. Be ready.  
-bill kenny

Brave to the Grave

As kids, some grownup somewhere would always say to us as we were getting loud or somewhat unruly to 'act your age!' I'm still getting that which is sort of embarrassing and confusing as I've never been seventy before and have no idea how to act that age. 

It could be even more awkward, I suppose than being an elderly American.
I could be a British senior.

<Sigh>. I remember when I could pull all-nighters. Now I struggle to pull all-dayers.
-bill kenny

Sort of a Miniature Arbor Day

Not sure if I've told you, we have a new car. It's the first new car I've owned since my second car, ever, back in 1971, which was a Ford Pinto. Don't snicker. Mine didn't blow up or break down. Mine ran forever until I sold it and moved to Germany; what happened with them after that? Not my circus, not my monkeys. 

Anyway, we have a 2022 Subaru Forester (I offered the monkeys reference in the previous paragraph for my brother Kelly who has a deep and abiding unhappiness with monkeys that I'd like to think I helped start but that's a story for another time). We don't actually own the Forester, we're leasing it. I was 70 in April and in my prime, I had no mechanical so don't get me started with a state-of-the-art automobile in my advanced years. Better someone else worries about all the stuff that can go wrong especially when that someone else is not me.

I concentrate on the big picture stuff like keeping the car shiny and clean. I visit a car wash in Groton that offers those 'if it rains within' x amount of days afterward free rewash guarantees even though I will never use it (and I save all the receipts from the car wash). I'm just too embarrassed to even try to hustle someone in the business of washing cars out of a free one for something neither they nor I can control.

Instead, I collect the little tree air fresheners, in search, between you and me, of the perfect new car scent. I've never found it and I suspect it doesn't exist though I am always overwhelmed at the variety of choices confronting me when I turn and face the wall of 'free car scents,' that the wash folks have. I could probably try a different tree every week for I'm guessing close to a year and never repeat the scent.

And then very recently I had a Joyce Kilmer moment when it came to the origins of the little tree air fresheners, sort of like Saul on the road to Damascus but let's not speculate where he might have hung the little tree, shall we? 

I'd like to think somewhere Alex, Geddy, and Neil are smiling (or grimacing; from this distance, among all these little trees, it's hard to tell).
-bill kenny

  

Another Natal Anniversary

I'm the oldest of a large family of brothers and sisters and enjoyed reminding my siblings that I was older so much more when we were all younger than is the case these days. Petard sold separately, I suppose. 

My middle sister, Kara, (I have three, Evan, Jill, as well as Kara) marks the completion of another orbit around the sun today. This sepia-toned dash of nostalgia from some years back on the anniversary of her nativity is offered as a reminder that I do indeed love her to the moon, and back.  

At the time I called it: Hey Stella!

I penned this some time ago on the occasion of observing her natal anniversary and wouldn't you know, the earth orbited the sun, and here we are, back again. Now you know the past, here's the present. Complete with a joke that I am not actually privy to (nor do I understand), yet undeterred and undaunted..... 

Today is my sister Kara's birthday. It's a holiday in her house and probably should be one on her block and across both the State of New Jersey where she lived for so many years as well as Florida where she now resides, though, in light of the summer heat budget shortfalls everywhere, your mileage may vary.

The world is a much better place because Kara is in it and our family is fortunate that she is our relative even if, as Einstein insisted everything is relative. (Could that mean everything is Einstein? I'm asking because it would explain the bramble that is often my hair when I awake.)

Kara and I shared an overlapping childhood. I was transitioning away from home and hearth (perhaps with what later might be seen as unseemly haste) as she was becoming her own person. 

And in a sense, I suspect, she sees herself more often as Jill and Adam's older sister than as the younger sibling of me, our brother, Kelly, and sister, Evan, with whom I spent far more years only because their luck wasn't as good as Kara's.

Kara and her husband, Russ, have their own family that is more than already grown in many instances though not growing apart. Their sons, RJ, Randy, and Jordan are young men on a mission, in different directions at maximum velocity.

I've discovered the easiest way to track the passing of time is to look at and to our children as they are better indicators of how far we have all come than any mirror can ever hope to tell me. I imagine I am not the only one who has made that discovery.

Kara should actually be our ambassador to the United Nations as she has a genius for talking people into doing things they would otherwise never, ever consider and, while so doing, convincing them that it was all their own idea in the first place while she is pleased and proud to help them.

I believe she (and my) youngest sister Jill can actually pull off Tom Sawyer's paint the fence trick, but it's Kara who organizes the trip to the hardware store to get the brushes and the drop cloths. And she'll even help you muscle them into the van.

I wasn't around when our Mom was a kid or a teen or a young woman. I caught up with her as a young mother (and technically was the first reason why she was a young mother) but I have always thought Kara most resembles what our Mom must have been like when we were too small to really remember.

You cannot help but smile when you are with Kara-I am smiling now as I type this, thinking of her because she is relentlessly cheerful no matter the situation. Her children reflect the values she and Russ have instilled in them and are sallying forth into the world, and by thus engaging, improving it, all by themselves. 

My brother-in-law, Russ, has impeccable judgment, excellent taste, and superior good fortune; they happen to coalesce in one person, his wife, my sister. 
Happy Birthday, Kara!

-bill kenny  

Plane Wrong

Despite serving eight years in the United States Air Force I'm not what anyone would ever mistake for an 'avid flyer.' Based on ZERO adverse incidents in my own life's experiences I bring new meaning to the term 'white knuckle flyer' and if we hit any turbulence at any time in the course of a flight, you can get a full set of my fingerprints from the seat armrests without any effort at all. I don't like to fly. 

There's no special or particular part I dislike; I dislike ALL of it. The waiting to get on the plane, the actual getting on, the bumpity bump as we take off, the really boring bus ride effect except at 35,00 feet once we are aloft, the seat backs NOT returned to their upright position by the bozo in the seat in front of me, and then the bumpity bump crunch we've landed conclusion. All of it. 

I've read over and over in recent months for any number of reasons that air travel has become even more of a travail because of delays and cancellations. However, I came across a news story on a flight cancellation that is certainly memorable if not also execrable, at the same time. 

I'm so old and set in my ways I would never dream of even attempting to use my cell phone on a plane, any plane anywhere at any time, and turn my device off while waiting to board because I don't want to be responsible for interfering with the plane's navigation system. I also believe if we sail a ship too close to the horizon we'll fall off the edge of the earth. 

As some (though not me) used to say in the USAF, 'any landing you can walk away from is a good one.' Not sure the Heathrow Hikers would agree.
-bill kenny

When It's My Ox Being Gored...

I tease many of the physicians who treat me for the ever-lengthening list of maladies that pass for my medical condition in my seventh decade that I have a very high threshold for pain, as long as it's other people's pain. I can watch YouTube videos of excruciatingly painful and bloody surgical procedures for hours on end because none of it is happening to me; however, when I go for a blood draw, I look away AND close my eyes.  

Like many in this hemisphere, I attempted earlier this week to register for the opportunity to purchase tickets for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band when they tour in the USA next year. I was not successful (not that I had any confidence I would be but it's like the lottery, right? You cannot win if you do not play.). I was only a little disappointed that I wasn't verified as what seems to have happened is the laws of Supply and Demand have been introduced to Darwin's Survival of the Fittest. 

Here's what I'm talking about, Willis:

I can say Bullshit in a number of languages and that's what this is all about. 

The explanation, apparently, is something called 'dynamic pricing.' (Excessive demand dictates exorbitant pricing). I'm not saying TicketMaster invented it (just the outrageous 'additional fees' part that's tacked on to EVERY ticket purchased anywhere by anyone at any time to include my favorite, the charge for paper tickets that don't actually exist as anything other than email on your phone (usually at $12 or more each)).

This is churn on news sites and Twitter for the last 48 hours. Yeah, sorry we don't have supplies of baby formula for your infant; gasoline is about to drop back below four dollars a gallon and bread is starting to cost more than the circuses it's supposed to distract from but, by all means, let's rage against the machine we (our generation) built to sell us tickets for live entertainment. Are you not amused? Wasn't that the whole point?

So much of post-pandemic American life is overshadowed by 'supply chain disruptions' as the explanation for elevating costs in every aspect of goods and services in our lives. The reality is that 'supply chain disruptions' is a new phrase for a very old concept, greed. 

Check with Gordon Gekko on just how good that actually is.
-bill kenny

And What Do I Get for My Pain?

As kids, we went to a dentist in East Brunswick, New Jersey, who had a large aquarium in his waiting room (along with a collection of incredibly old Highlights magazines (Goofus and Gallant were always my favorite part of that magazine)). 

The office had wood paneling (very popular in the 1960s on all kinds of surfaces and items including Ford station wagons and Jeep Wagoneers) with thick pile carpeting. The aquarium was, at least for me, the best part of the visit even though I never had cavities or needed braces so I had nothing to fear. 

It might have been my introduction to developing an appreciation for nature. 

Maybe that's why I found this report on Monarch butterflies entrancing, especially when considering the technology used to capture and compile the imagery.
-bill kenny 

Aus Der Traum?

I was out walking last Wednesday evening, enjoying the additional after-dinner daylight I think of as Summer’s true gift (now that I’m retired, I don’t get up early enough to appreciate the extra light at the start of the day), with much of the heat of the day having already passed.

I gave some thought to walking from my house to Howard T. Brown Park and enjoying the music at Rock the Docks but having hiked that route earlier in the heat and humidity to welcome the return of the Farmers Market, my legs persuaded my brain that a few circuits around Chelsea Parade was a much better idea.  

As I walked towards Monument Park (what I call ‘the first turn,’ because I break almost every project into smaller pieces), on the other side of Washington Street, my eyes caught an A-V project of sorts with two large (one considerably more so than the other) video screens expressing various degrees of unhappiness towards the current president of the United States.

It wasn’t clear to me how much of that displeasure was ideological and/or philosophical and I really didn’t have much to work with since “Buck Fiden,” and “Let’s Go Brandon,” were, I concluded, as close to cryptic and clever as the messages were going to get (without being either)  

I thought about those whose sacrifice we commemorate with the various monuments at Chelsea Parade to the wars in which they fought and died, and how they’d react to the messages across the street, as well as to the athletes who take a knee during the National Anthem (I’m thinking they’d support BOTH) and it dawned on me we have injected such coarseness into our civil discourse in recent years (if not decades) we can no longer disagree without being disagreeable.

As Edward R. Murrow (in this era of Tik Tok you can be forgiven for not knowing his name, so I added a link), noted, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

 "We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation, we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age.

"We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Earlier this month, we celebrated our nation’s birthday but now more of us say they’d be better off if their state seceded from the United States.

I fear this is a consequence of speaking AT rather than TO one another and listening, not to reason and relate, but to rebut and reject and I wonder if I’m living through the last days of the American Dream.   
-bill kenny

Sorry I'm Late to the Party...

In recent years, some (= people other than myself) have suggested we've had fewer and fewer reasons to celebrate events and one another. 

I hope they're happy now. 

Yeah. It's what's for dinner, among other meals.
-bill kenny

Putting the Rocket in Rocket J. Squirrel

There are things in life you just know you'll never do. You can enjoy them at the intellectual level or vicariously, but it doesn't change the fact that you will never do the deed itself, whatever the deed is.

Here's what I'm talking about. 

Talk about exhilarating! 
-bill kenny

Go Ask Alice

As I've aged, more like milk than wine, I've discovered the only part of me that is getting thinner is the hair remaining on the top of my head. I tell myself I'm as active now as I was when I was thirty but I'm a great liar and I also concede that the older I get the better I was.

Some have suggested I should concentrate on attempting to become taller; a bridge quite frankly just as far out of reach as suggesting I should become smarter (but that's a story for another time). I grew up hearing the slogan, "Better Living through Chemistry," and while I'll confess to believing at one time that was an endorsement of Owsley, recent headlines have caused me to not only reassess my first conclusion but also encourage me to dream of leaner, meaner days ahead.  

After all, it's a short hop from a skinny mouse to a svelte rabbit.
-bill kenny

To Fish or Not to Fish

I'm pretty sure I know how my brother, Kelly, and his bride, Linda, would answer that but with my apologies to The Bard of Stratford on Avon, that's not actually the question. 

And don't get me started on "whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by this opposing end them." (Because the answer is 'what are you? Stupid?')

Rather, let us address a legal nuance that any school child who has ever brown-bagged a lunch has long since understood about the relationship between bees and fish.

California's Third District Court has ruled that bees can legally be considered fish under specific circumstances (NONE of which include mayonnaise, elbow noodles, and two pieces of white bread). An attorney for REO Speedwagon has already cautioned me on the perils of citing one of the band's album titles. 

Luckily (for me) Monty Python doesn't have my number (but still counts down anyway).
-bill kenny

Channeling Lance Bruyette

I thought at first it was a news story from the pages of those pranksters over at The Onion but nope, it's even more bizarre and proof positive(er) that Ruth is indeed stranger than Bridget. 

We might not ever be able to find a cure for Cancer, Covid, or the Kardashians, but dammit, Janet, we can have ketchup-flavored popsicles. 

Forgiving student debt? Concealed carry gun laws? Pshaw! Let's stick to the lowest of the low-hanging fruit, okay? Actually, the Frenchsicles, as they're called, may have already gone the way of high-button shoes since the press release suggests they were for a limited time only and the sands of time have run out on that hourglass. 

More's the pity since "The savory tomato flavor of the popsicles comes from 100 percent Canadian tomatoes." As if any other flavor, like moose, would do (looking at you, Labatt). 
-bill kenny

On the Just and the Unjust Alike

Here's something I did not know until just now when I found it out looking for something else.

This is that something else I started out looking for. 

Geosmin and petrichor; Can you hear me?
-bill kenny

Signs and Wonderment

I visited an acquaintance in their office not that long ago. Now that I’m retired, I enjoy visiting people who aren’t, probably for the same reason people used to visit me when I worked.

They work in a very nice and relatively new building (that is, less than twenty years old) with that pressure-blasted formed concrete exterior taggers see as a challenge and a taunt while folks my age see it as a 'nice' building.

You can park in his company's lot just around the corner from the building and hardly ever step in any dog poop on the sidewalk, which is especially nice if you're barefoot (I wasn't but it’s the thought that counts) and rarely encounter any homeless people, or as I've heard them called, 'urban indigents.' I wonder if homeless people were all perfectly attired and impeccably coiffed would we call them urbane indigent?

From the sidewalk to the main entrance it's nine thick, high steps--when you have bad knees and killer math skills like I do, you notice this stuff. The normal height of a step into a public building is seven inches, trust me on this, and at least in homes, for interior stairways, it's more like six inches and has been for the last fifty years or so (it was closer to five inches when our parents were our age, but all those vitamins and the fluoride in the water have made us taller and a lot of changes in our environment have been made to accommodate the new 21^st Century Human).

As for width, or depth from the base of the next step to the ledge on the one you're on, about seven inches is average. The steps in this building were closer to twelve inches tall and at last fourteen inches deep--the kind of steps that tempt you to try, neither gracefully nor successfully, to take them two at a time. Instead, you walk like a toddler, always almost teetering and tottering but never quite falling over. Not an arduous Everest-like ascent but not pleasant either.

At the top, two signs flank the two glass doors that open out onto a relatively short landing (which, I assume, if you have packages in your arms as you're exiting could help you tumble down the nine stairs) and the signs note "No Handicap Access" in white letters with a little pictogram of a person in a wheelchair.

I know there are mandates, municipal, state, and federal for these signs. I paused longer than the person in charge of putting them up, I suspect, trying to envision what someone whose mobility was challenged would make of them at the top of the stairs rather than at the bottom. Just checking the box, I guess.

The cherry on top that made my visit a perfect parfait was, as you make the right coming out of the parking lot, and then a sudden left to get back into the flow of traffic, that someone had thoughtfully placed an overly large 'Dead End' sign on the brick wall at the end of the cul-de-sac removing any doubt that I was headed in other than the wrong direction. I was grateful they hadn’t gotten a deal on a large Stop sign instead or I might still be there. 
-bill kenny

Not Just Jersey Girls

I was born in New York City but raised to adulthood or what passes for it from a distance in New Jersey. That revelation invariably leads to a question like, 'what exit?' from some half-wit. 

The correct answer in my case is Exit 9, on the New Jersey (what else would you call it? New Mexico?) Turnpike. Your mileage may vary if we're talking about the Garden State Parkway.  

There are a LOT of people living in New Jersey and the state sort of looks like a bow tie stood on its end physically. There are MANY differences between North and South Jersey but one of the similarities seems to be neither one thinks Central New Jersey exists which is kinda awkward in this case as I consider myself to be from Central New Jersey (Franklin Township near New Brunswick). 

So I am more or less, to other New Jerseyans (Jerseyites?), a man without a country. Neither Pork Roll nor Down the Shore but I take solace in that no matter how different we are, or may prove to be, from one another the same sun warms us while the same rains cool us, and at least at the moment, especially at the current prices, I never need to get out of my car to pump my own gas.  

And while Brian and the boys warbled in glorious high harmonies extolling the virtues of California Girls, Tom Waits knew whereof he sang.
-bill kenny

I Notice We Didn't Interview the Husband

Just how close to nature do you like your Great Nature Adventure to be? I'm not asking for a friend; I'm asking to satisfy my own curiosity. 

I know people who do the hiking, camping, and living off of the land stuff (remember Euell Gibbons? He's dead, so you do the math on that one)) on a regular basis. In my case, 'roughing it' is staying at a hotel that only has basic cable.

Then you have Brighton Peachy (I am NOT making that name up) and her family of power walkers, wilderness wanderers, and very nearly bear appetizers.  

There was a moment when someone could've asked about Charmin' but it passed too quickly.
-bill kenny 

Picked the Right Time of the Year at Least

We are the funniest species on the planet, hands-down. 

A walk through any daily newspaper's police reports will prove to be as amusing as enlightening (and maybe even more so). Here's one from a couple of weeks back that I originally attributed to 'crazy from the heat' but suspect it was more likely just crazy. Period.   

I love that "he was eventually released on a written promise to appear" (no pinky-swears in Plainfield, not that I would have any first-hand information on that) though I suspect the published details of Ryan's encounter with the police made for some strained and awkward moments of conversation within his social circles. 

But on the positive side, I'll bet seat cover sales for Ford trucks have sky-rocketed.
-bill kenny  

My Two Cents

We pass the signs at the gasoline station pumps every day and the only direction the prices are heading is up. I sometimes wonder in countries other than ours where the cost is considerably higher how they can blame Joe Biden. Yeah, I know "Let's Go, Darwin!"

Because I am small-minded, I devote my energy to small thoughts since they fit more comfortably in my brain. So, while some of us are wrestling with the impact of unused oil leases on market volatility, I wonder about gasoline prices ending in 9/10ths of a cent. As it happens, I'm not alone.   

Somehow, I don't feel better about all that new knowledge. How about you?
-bill kenny

Revisiting a Long-Ago Memo

This is something I first wrote fourteen years ago about someone who is considerably older than that today. I called it: 

Memo to My Son

Today is the 40th birthday of my son, Patrick Michael. When I type 'my son' or 'my daughter' (when speaking of his sister, Michelle Alison) or 'my wife', Sigrid Katherina, I smile, not because of a pride of possession mentality but because I am truly the most fortunate person on the planet.

If we've not met, count your blessings-I am NOT likable. Take my word on this-and be assured I could send you a list of folks who could attest to this fact, and that this list would vaguely resemble the census in size and scope, which helps underscore my point. 

I was afraid to have children--the actual, 'here's a small human to take care of and worry about for the rest of your life' portion of the program seemed more daunting to me than I could ever handle. I didn't have a lot of happy experiences being on the receiving end of Dad and Lad interactions. 

When Sigrid shared with me that she (and we, by extension) was pregnant, it was the early winter of what had been a rough year. Having successfully placed half a world between us, I discovered more guilt and anger when my dad died that Spring than sorrow at his passing. 

Sigrid went into labor in the middle of the morning and we drove across town to the Offenbach Stadtkrankenhaus. German physicians in the early Eighties were pretty much an unknown species to me (Sigrid's frauenarzt was cool enough-I still have the black and white Polaroids of Patrick in the womb) and I was to them as well. 

Their luck came to end with my son's birth and they were pretty good sports about it. As Sigrid's labor continued and the contractions shortened and the delivery preparation's tempo quickened, I was asked where I would be during her stay in the geburtsaal, and I assured the doctors, 'right there with her,' which surprised them. 

I attempted to explain in what was better than decent German (I thought) that I had placed the order and had every intention of taking delivery. Maybe my German wasn't that good-it was like playing to an oil painting, no smile, no nothing, gar nichts.

When Patrick was born, after what's considered a spontangeburt (for the male doctors who can NEVER experience pregnancy, in their opinion, the childbirth was accomplished without labor. Sure it was-from your lips to God's ear, Herr Arzt), Sigrid looked she had just run a marathon and was utterly exhausted. I watched while the midwife cleaned up my son and, as she swabbed off the blood, he peed on her. Crying, basically blind, totally helpless in an alien world, he was my son and I laughed out loud in amazement, joy, and thankfulness for what I had just witnessed. 

The midwife placed Patrick Michael on Sigrid's chest, for mother and child bonding and my disappointment knew almost no words. At that moment, I was so jealous of the woman I loved. I asked as politely as I could if, after she had 'had enough of holding him,' if I could, and was stunned when she picked him up and fixed me with a stare that bordered on a glare (leading me to suspect that the geburt wasn't quite as spontan as the wizard in the white coat had thought-and just because it was spontan hadn't meant it was schmerzfrei) handed Patrick to me, saying 'I've carried him for nine months, it's your turn now.'

Patrick Michael was, and is, my deal with God. From the moment I held him, I no longer cared what happened to me-and that's saying something. I know, your children are beautiful, and smart and talented and handsome and sorry-they're not my children, and my son and my daughter are the absolute best not only in the world but in the history of the world (there's a barn behind a hotel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (I think), that might want to argue that point but no chance, sorry). 

I walked him around that delivery room for the next two hours or so, singing I've Been Working on the Railroad (the drum and piano would have cluttered the delivery room) and really working those Fie-Fi-Fiddly-I-Os, making up in volume what I lacked in pitch. 

I don't know why I sang the song--I'm shaking my head in bemused bewilderment as I type this. It seemed like a good idea at the time, actually, it was a perfect idea.

In many ways, his first forty years seem to have sped by at that same clip. He and his sister, have overcome the handicap of being my children, mostly because they've had the good fortune to have the love and devotion of my wife as their Mom. And, yeah, he's made me crazy, angry, frightened, delighted, and every emotion in between--because that's what children do. And when he met and married his Jena, I discovered as someone who made his living with words that I had none to describe my joy.

And as long as you remember to make sure your children always know that sometimes they will do things you will not like, but that you will always love them, they will be able to do anything, even leave you when they grow up to be adults of their own. 

There'll be moments in the living room watching the ballgame when words aren't needed as you both reach for the pretzel rods. Other times, there will be phone conversations that start out about one subject and become all that and that infamous bag of chips. 

And your eyes will fill with tears as you watch them end the chapter of their childhood and begin to write their own novel as the life you always wanted for them finally begins. And it hurts, and maybe the keyboard blurs as I type this because it's really warm and my eyes are perspiring-yeah, that's what it is I'm sure. 

Sorry if the folks you work with razz you today for having a dotty dad-you knew that long ago. Happy Birthday, Patrick! Love, Dad.

The Past as Prologue

We've all heard or read this: 

Except what's also true is that if there's one thing we've learned from history is that we don't learn from history. I lived in (West) Germany from 1976 through 1991 and never understood how the nation that gave the world Rilke and Beethoven also gave us Goebbels and Endlösung. I fear that means I will never understand how it can be possible when it all happens again. 

You've got to be carefully taught.
-bill kenny

The Allure of the Familiar

I've been fortunate in the seventy trips around the sun (so far) I've made to have encountered some remarkably talented and intelligent people (who might not be well pleased if I name-dropped here so I won't) whose patience and persistence in trying to teach me things have on occasion overcome my mental inertia and inability to learn. The faintest glimmer of comprehension in one eye is all the reward they've ever received for the time and talent they've devoted to trying to make me smarter than I am. 

And one of the precepts they've drilled into me is a fundamental fact of human nature true everywhere and anywhere but most especially right here in the Rose of New England: People prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not.

In the last three(ish) weeks, we here have had opportunities to attempt to control events that we've talked about for almost as long as we've discussed the weather (and to just about the same effect). 

We had the next installment of that long-running soap opera I like to call "As Route 82 Turns. Or Doesn't" sponsored, as always, by local collision insurance companies and auto body shops that featured well-meaning people from the Connecticut Department of Transportation armed with a lot of statistics to support their plan to construct (sooner and later) six roundabouts within a radically reconfigured Route 82, relegating they sincerely believe the sobriquet, "Crash Alley," to the dustbin of history. 

A considerable number of residents, drivers, and business owners (though nowhere near what I'd have hoped to see turn out) shared their reactions, which, as someone who technically doesn't have a dog in this hunt (though I do have a car on the street), sounded to me a lot like 'can you do something without actually doing anything?' I'm wondering if there might have been a more positive response if the roundabouts were vertical like Hot Wheels Racing Loops instead of horizontal. I fear we may now never know.

Meanwhile on the last Tuesday in June was a public forum on a $381 million proposed school construction project (Norwich taxpayers' share would be $149 million) that reimagines and reengineers how public education will be delivered to our children for decades to come. Two things: yes, you read the numbers correctly and almost no one attended the meeting.

There have been efforts, somewhat fitfully over the last twenty-five years or so, to invest in our schools but this proposal is a big swing for the fences where, in the past, we've tried to bunt our way around decaying buildings, inadequate facilities and obsolete technology supporting outdated curriculum by telling ourselves 'When times get better, we'll see what we can do.'  You'd think the last two years of COVID, and its consequences might have added some urgency to the process. 

It doesn’t matter if you have children in our schools, you have a part in this. We all do. For our schools, our children, their teachers, and our city, the time is now for a serious discussion about the limits of making do as opposed to what we could and should do next. 

Put this Monday evening at six on your calendar now because the City Council will hold a public workshop to discuss the project, its scale, scope, and costs with the architectural firm Drummey Rosane Anderson Inc., DRA, upon whose master plan the school construction project is based (you can see a presentation given to the Board of Education last month here (it's certainly not an IMax movie, but it'll do). 

If you can't be in council chambers, then watch it on the city's website, or on Comcast's Government Access Channels (either Channel 182 or 1084). There are important decisions to be made and you’ll need every bit of information.

Every decision has a price and a cost. And when you decide to NOT make a decision, don’t kid yourself; that decision also has a price and a cost. We need to open our eyes and see what we need to do and then put our money where our mouths are.
-bill kenny 

I Was the Traveler

One thing leads to another. I found this online and it triggered a memory from somewhere inside that must be the better part of sixty years old.

When I was a primary school student my parents had a house on Bloomfield Avenue in what became Franklin Township (it started out as New Brunswick but when the population burgeoned, the area was redesignated). It was a ranch-style house that proved to be too small for our ever-growing family and Mom and Dad were to add three bedrooms and a hallway to it in the ensuing years, but hadn't at this moment made that decision.

Just around the corner from us, a whole new set of houses, actually a different development from ours, were being constructed and I can recall one after-school day wandering the now-quiet sites where I and my chums would play soldiers for hours on end (or until the winter daylight abruptly stopped).

This was a day when no one was out playing and I traipsed around the sites some with framing, some with just excavated holes in the ground. I recall it was a cold day and one of the excavated holes had collected a great deal of water from the seasonal rains and snows we'd already had. I (seriously) misread the thickness of what I perceived to be the ice and the depth of the hole as I walked out on the frozen surface.

I was no more than three steps from the dirt wall on the far side when the crinkling and crackling that had dogged my steps became a roar as the ice broke and I crashed below the surface. I came up under the ice about a foot away from the hole I'd made crashing through. I had (and to this day still haven't) experienced anything quite like the sharp, sudden cold of the water. 

I struggled to get back to the hole and slowly maneuvered myself across the still-breaking ice on my way to the far wall, gasping both in fear and from the iciness of the water, and eventually pulled myself up and out of the hole. I was soaking wet and still numbed more by the closeness of the call I'd just had than by the chill I felt. I knew when I got home there would be a massive lecture from Mom that would conclude with the always dreaded 'wait until your father comes home,' followed by warm, dry clothes. In retrospect, a fair enough trade. 
-bill kenny   

The Mystery of History

I wrote this originally thirteen years ago today. Yeah, I probably know even less English now. 

A lot has happened in the world between then and now including our son marrying his Jena three years ago today. I wish I could take credit for his having had the presence of mind to pick our national birthday as the way to remember his anniversary but he came up with it all by himself. 

Happy Anniversary Jena and Patrick!

I should have pointed out earlier they were not engaged thirteen years ago or, in other words, what I mentioned at the very top of the first paragraph has everything to do with what follows, our nation's birthday, rather than with Patrick and Jena who are, to my knowledge still both living in this nation whose birthday we observe today. 

Meanwhile back at our nation's independence and my sem-historic thoughts on the same from all those years ago. I called it:: 

Greetings from Exit Nine

You already know it's the Fourth of July--the calendar told you that. And we  Americans (how arrogant are we that we share this American continent with people from Canada and Mexico-not even mentioning the other American continent, but we are Americans and everyone else is, well, everyone else) can, I hope, find the time today to reflect on who we are and how we got here (the good parts. We beat one another up way too often the rest of the year on who has warts and where they are. Let's have a truce, okay?).

Photo by Brian Swope of Norwich fireworks, July 5, 2021

I consider myself a Jersey Guy--I wasn't born there, but we moved there when I was very small and I moved away (not realizing it was forever) back in1975. Now, when I visit relatives--actually that's code for when I visit my brother, Adam, and his wife Margaret, I'm aware 'this is not my Here' (because I've felt it everywhere I've been my whole life). But wherever I lay my hat comes to mind.

2019 Norwich fireworks from ground level

And, because if you've read me more than once, you know while you can take the boy out of Jersey, you can't take the Jersey out of the boy, you had to guess I'd close with a quote Joyce Kilmer. Or not. 
-bill kenny

Channeling George Bernard Shaw

I can smell the brats on the grill from here and can admire that superlative collection of star-spangled beer cans they had on special at the liquor store. What is it George Bernard Shaw once said, "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." That guy is such a downer, amiright?

We're thisclose to Independence Day but I'm actually thinking, as a nation founded on the idea of fun, or what do you make of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (thanks, Ben, and not just for the stove; and all this time I wondered Are Friends Electric? And will they now cost more because of rate hikes on the first?) when did we become Me-Firsters on everything? Yeah, we can take turns checking out at the grocery, merging into traffic, getting a hot dog at the ballgame, and you can start the line behind me.

We have become a nation of 'what's mine is mine, but what's yours is negotiable' even while we promise in the next few days to think about those whose service makes our way of life possible. At the risk of sounding less New Age and more like the relentless pragmatic curmudgeon that I am, I'd point out to sunshine patriots that those in the US Armed Forces will fight for their country (= you + me) but they will die for one another. 

'Liberty, Fraternity, Equality' were the watchwords of the French Revolution and despite the purest of intentions, that little episode went off the rails in rapid order. We, on these shores, were still such a young and fragile democracy. We were struggling with problems of our own and never became involved in a revolution that boasted it was modeled on ours. Somehow we knew mirrors were not windows and reflections were only true to themselves and not the originals. Good for us--better for everyone else.

I don't want to harsh your buzz as you buy ice for tomorrow's picnic or pick up the steaks for the grill for the afternoon barbecue or maybe oil up the glove for the softball game that's always part of the weekend's activities but maybe in the next three days, you can find the time to think about hundreds and hundreds of thousands in every uniform of every branch of our armed forces scattered around the globe many in places the rest of us have never heard of. Maybe, just maybe that will help us remember the pursuit of happiness is an essential freedom, but as with all freedoms, it comes with a cost. 
-bill kenny

Sociably Social

I admire persistence, at least in theory. Actually, I admire my own persistence which, from a distance looks to others like 'this guy's really dumb,' but it's an act (okay, not all of it and not all the time, but I like the idea of being a man of mystery and you'll have to guess the exact when).

I am active on a number of online social networks including Twitter, Facebook or whatever it's called now, Instagram, and LinkedIn (from back when I was employed; I almost said 'working,' but one of my former bosses might have asked, 'when was that?'). I never warmed to using  MySpace because I had the distinct impression old people are not warmly welcomed and as an old person, I know I'm not the welcoming type, so we're even.

There are scads of these sites though how any of them make money is beyond me (and possibly Elon Musk if the stories about his acquisition of Twitter are true). It is so "oldest child" of me, to fret how total strangers who may not even exist, will make a living as if they would ever return the favor.

Meanwhile, on the 800-pound gorilla in the room, Facebook, do you, too, have a process where their algorithm suggests people who might be your new friends? I have 70 years of living in this skin, and for the most part, my answer to their question is 'I don't think so.' 

There's a reason why I have no friends in the F&B, Flesh and Blood, World and it carries over to the virtual one. So for Facebook to keep suggesting the same someone, over and over, seemingly because she, too, went to Rutgers University (it's the STATE University of New Jersey, there are tons of people who went and still go there) is not especially insightful. It's just a variation of 'do you like apples?' without the payoff.

A while back, perhaps in frustration with my lack of engagement, Facebook, pitched the late James Gandolfini as a suggested friend. I suspect this was because he also went to Rutgers. Heck, I interviewed Journey and nobody got shot. so we had TWO things in common. Actually, three things if you count the onion rings.
-bill kenny

Things Thay'll Tremble and Cry for Pain

Every organized religion, and a couple of the somewhat disorganized ones, has sacred writings, scriptures if you will. No matter the region, or the religion, it's part of our human genome, the need to be a part of something bigger. 

Be it the Koran, the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the latest roman a clef by Danielle Steel, there's a narrative-a place to go look for details. When you argue a matter of theology and someone says, 'you can look it up!' the texts are what they're referring to.

There's the blood of the Lamb, the descent of the dove, the tongues of fire, the burning bush, and an almost unending number of symbols and signs that The Lord (however you perceive S/He to be) uses to get our attention and pass along the Word.

What if we're the first generation of people on this planet who had a Deity? I don't pretend to know what all of those before us had, I'm just saying we're the first and Our God uses the tools we have today in much the way as in the days of old we've read about. Someone I recently met speculated on how would God communicate the Ten Commandments if S/He had to use text.

Perhaps:
1.   no1 b4 me. srsly.
2.   dnt wrshp pix/idols
3.   no omg's
4.   no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5.   pos ok - ur m&d r cool
6.   dnt kill ppl
7.   :-X only w/ m8
8.   dnt steal
9.   dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl. ttyl, JHWH. ps. wwjd?

What would you ask if you had just one question?
-bill kenny