Too Soon Gone. Again.

In Southeastern New England we're at that point on the seasonal roller-coaster ride approaching the weightlessness of being. That is the moment after the moment when you've peaked and are nearly starting down the incline-in a roller coaster I've often suspected if we could actually float in the air, which would be the moment we would, but only for a moment.

It's the same with the weather. The calendar says summer is gone-some kids went back to school while others are going back even as you read this, but the warmth of the sun is both welcome and very real and there are plenty of mild days but (maybe just me?) they seem to take longer to start and they feel like they end sooner. 

When I get up in the mornings now more often than not, I have a light sweater or jacket on for the first time since, thinking back, I'm guessing the early part of May. It was nice while it lasted, right? And my after-dinner walk around my neighborhood has been moved up and shortened because the disappearance of the light in the evening disheartens me.

On an oh-bright-early Saturday morning walking around Spaulding Pond in Mohegan Park, a gem we have in Norwich that we really don't use enough (and I'm not just speaking for me), with wonderful hiking trails, wide sidewalks, and well-paved roads I could see far more autumn foliage in the tree canopies overhead than when I was there just a few Saturday earlier. 

In a couple of more weeks, lots more of the sky will peek through as the leaves turn brown and then fall off and the bare limbs will eventually win out. That's when I'll stop coming up there and, based on the number of smiles and nods I did with passers-by, I wasn't the only one adding memories to my end-of-summer scrapbook.

I'm preparing for the part of the year I dislike the most-real fall, not the Second Summer part which doesn't fool, or placate, me anymore but the slate gray sky and the chill in the air of autumn that makes it very clear winter is approaching. Winter (and you may find this funny and/or pathetic) I can deal with because I know spring and summer follow. It's fall that's the hopeless and helpless season in my book, a time of inevitable decline and deepening dark.

I've been in a hurry most of my life-always rushing to somewhere or away from someone. The pace is less frenetic now, the strides more measured and labored. I passed a couple on Chelsea Parade recently pushing a small child in a pram and could see in my mind's eye my wife and me with our children at a duck pond where Frankfurt am Main ended and Offenbach started. They/we looked so happy and the horizon was wide open. For us, that was over thirty-five years ago, gone in the blink of an eye.

The high school girl who jogged past me, in the opposite direction, earbuds (we would have called them headphones) in place and a solemn face like a mask could have been our daughter Michelle, the picture of concentration as she practiced for her audition for her high school's musical honor society (and blew the judges away). That was almost two decades ago. The memories fade but the scars from the passing of time remain.

I was there for all those moments and tens of thousands more but, like now (I imagine), I was thinking about other places and times. Just as we all do, I'm sure. "Now I sit by my window and I watch the cars. I fear I'll do some damage one fine day. But I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers-still crazy after all these years."
-bill kenny

For Those Who Dance Alone

As a kid in parochial grammar school, just about the saddest day on the calendar was All Souls' Day, November 2, which followed the Holy Day of Obligation, All Saints' Day which, of course, was the day after Halloween.   

On All Souls' Day, we were supposed to remember and pray for everyone we'd ever known who had died, the theory as I understood it (that Papal-at-home correspondence course never made it clear) was that many times everyone who had known someone who had died were themselves dead and with no one to pray for their souls the departed might still be in Purgatory (not to be confused with Limbo, or Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey (where I, to this day, believe Santa Claus lives in the off-season)) and not yet in Heaven.

However, as I've aged (admittedly more like milk than wine), I've expanded my limited worldview and realized, with somewhat of a shock, that there are many, many people here in the USA and around the world, who simply cease to exist, and disappear. No one looks for them because we don't realize they're gone.

That is why we have today.

You shouldn't have to be memorable to be remembered.
bill kenny

Monday Mantra

I've always thought of Monday as the start of the week and forty-nine years of getting up and going to work have led me to insist I'm right even as I argue with calendar makers everywhere. 

So, since I say this is the first day of the rest of your life, make it count.

When you have freedom of choice why would you want freedom from choice?
-bill kenny

When My Father Was a Hero

Despite the torrent of words I've produced in the decade-plus of cranking this stuff out on a daily basis, sometimes I'm better off just letting somebody else speak. 

Like today. 

Sometimes I forget the truth of that truth.
-bill kenny

Turn that Whiskey into Rain

By now, you've heard/read about President Biden's plan to address student debt. 

If, somehow, you haven't here's a pretty good place to start. 

Not sure I understand or appreciate the unhappiness of the GOP who gave billions upon billions of dollars to millionaires and billionaires with their Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that was supposed to increase tax revenues but did the opposite while sticking the rest of us with the bill and an increasing deficit.  

Now they're concerned about 'fairness.'

Get off the cross, we need the wood.
-bill kenny

Fass Ohne Boden

Thanks, Donald!

I can always count on Donald J(enius) Trump, 45th President of the United States, and first one to ever be impeached twice, and (fingers crossed) the only one to soon see the inside of a federal penitentiary to make me smile.  

In my spam folder (I know where else?), I had an offer from the Mango Mussolini that was hard to refuse, almost. 

"You’ve always been one of my TOP supporters, and now I have an EXCLUSIVE offer just for YOU. For TODAY ONLY, I’m giving YOU a FREE TRUMP GIFT to show you just how much you mean to me. This offer is meant for YOU, William, and is not intended to be shared. You have 1 HOUR to claim your FREE TRUMP GIFT before I release it to the next Patriot in line. Don’t wait. Just contribute $12 to cover shipping and we’ll send you a FREE TRUMP GIFT."

At twelve bucks a pop, I don't know how I can even begin to afford a free gift. It's not like I was one of those folks who got that tax break benefit at Christmas 2017. I guess I'll just soldier on. 

How lucky can one guy be? 
I'm wondering if they're waterproof as I sure could use them come hurricane season.

-bill kenny

Not Now, John

I reside in Connecticut, a 'blue' state. We have a Democratic Governor, a Democratic majority in both the upper and lower chambers of our state legislature, five Democratic Congresspersons, and two Democratic Senators. I'm not saying we're fortunate, just that we are what we are.

Somewhat farther south, in Georgia, it's a little more 'colorful' with two Democratic Senators and a Republican Governor (and Margarine Trailer Park Greene as a Congressperson). One of the Senators, Reverend Ralph Warnock is being challenged by the former NFL's Dallas Cowboys' and USFL's New Jersey Generals' (owned by Donald J. Trump who made them part of his collection of failed businesses), as well as the University of Georgia Bulldogs' running back Herschel Walker. 

Warnock, to my knowledge, has never played football of any kind at any level. Walker, on the other hand, often publicly presents himself as someone who may have played without a helmet a little too often and a little too long. 

He impressed me a few weeks ago with his understanding of climate change, though not in a good way, and now he's trolling the Joyce Kilmer Appreciation vote I guess. Somewhere, Roger Waters is most surely smiling.
-bill kenny  

The Circle Game

Routines and traditions help us make transitions from what is now to what’s next. I’ve offered much of what follows before at this time of year, so perhaps it’s on its way to becoming a tradition (I can dream, right?).

I know it’s hard to believe but a week from today, children in kindergarten through sixth grade begin a new year of classes at Norwich Public Schools, while Monday is the start of classes for 9th graders with everyone else returning on Tuesday at NFA. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn't we just wish everyone a great summer like last week? (Something about objects in mirrors being nearer, I think.)

I've been seeing back-to-school displays in stores everywhere and advertisements on TV for weeks as the retail sector has its own calendar that moves even more relentlessly than the ones we have hanging in our kitchens.

Speaking of back to school, we are smack in the middle of Connecticut Sales Tax-Free Week which, and should, have an asterisk because what's 'sales tax-free' is most apparel (to include square dancing clothes) and shoes (such as 'bicycle sneakers without cleats') costing less than one hundred dollars. And, no, I did not make any of that up; that's how it’s described on the Department of Revenue's Chart of Exempt and Taxable Items. 

We can combine our back-to-school shopping trips with money-saving while patronizing local businesses so that more of our dollars stay here where we live and continue to support those merchants who help make our community a better place for all of us.

As we head towards autumn, perhaps this is a good time to check those kitchen calendars to see if we can't find space and time that allows us to volunteer for one or more of the many activities we have across our city, like the Greek Food Festival, A Taste of Italy or Walktober and/or dozens (if not hundreds) of others. We all enjoy going to them, right? And while it's nice to believe they run on rainbows, they don’t. All of them rely on volunteer power, which is where you and I come in.

There's an 80/20 rule of volunteering about who does the work and who enjoys the fruits of that work, but my larger point is there isn't a single aspect of our community that would not be better if more of us got involved and engaged.

I mentioned the start of the new school year and not just for parents of school children but for all of us, a great place to lend a hand and stay close to home is our local Norwich Public School. We owe one another a thoughtful discussion about this November’s bonding initiative for new schools and you’ll be sick of reading about here long before I get tired of writing about it but that’s for another time. The children in my house and perhaps yours are grown and gone, but their graduations shouldn't mean the end of our interest and engagement.

Start by attending a parent-teacher conference or a Board of Education meeting and see what happens and what can happen next. Summer's ending and it's time to become a bigger part of where we call home. We are better together and always have been.
-bill kenny

Beastie Boys + Sanna

With everything (and more) that's wrong in the world at this moment, people are outraged, yes, outraged I tell you, that a video of the prime minister of Finland dancing (GASP!) has surfaced. 

There is such a tumult about this apparently that she has taken a drug test, to prove something though I'm unclear as to what that might be.  

Cynic that I am, I can't help but wonder if a video of Sanna Marin dancing at a party with friends can spark such a brouhaha what might a video of a president of the united states calling for a mob to storm the Capitol precipitate? 

Spoiler alert: a shrug in many GOP circles while the dance continues.
-bill kenny

What?

Sometimes the things we do speak so loudly I can't hear what we're saying.

Maybe a little louder for the people in the back.
-bill kenny

Primal Drive

The first car I ever owned was a 1962 Corvair Monza, part of the Corvair family dubbed by Ralph Nadar, 'Unsafe at Any Speed.' He was right, of course, as in the winter you had to drive it with a window rolled down or the carbon monoxide exhaust would kill you. 

My next car was a 1971 Ford Pinto. Mine was a brilliant car though that was not the case for far too many of them where the gas tank placement turned them into bombs on wheels. 

I mention those two because despite them I do love cars even if as I've aged I understand less and less about any and all aspects of motor vehicles. We leased a 2022 Subaru Forester in March precisely because I fear being overwhelmed by the mechanical and technical complexity of just about any vehicle I would drive, and the lease comes with bumper-to-bumper maintenance. 

I've owned a Chevrolet, a Ford, a Volkswagon, two BMWs, an Isuzu, a Mitsubishi, and four Subarus. I found an article that probably tells you more about who I am by my choice of cars than I'd like, but if cornered, I'd still insist I'm a gearhead, even if I probably no longer know what that means.
-bill kenny   

No Reason

Well, except that it's just lovely. 

And we can all use a little more lovely in our lives.
-bill kenny

Catch the Mystery

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been very much in the news over the last fortnight for many of the right reasons as far as I'm concerned. 

This, which showed up appropriately enough in my spam folder is not among them.

                                                 Federal Bureau of Investigation

                                  Field Intelligence Groups The J. Edgar Hoover Building

                            935 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20535 

Attention: Beneficiary, 

We sincerely apologize for sending you this sensitive information via e-mail instead of certified mail, post-mail, phone, or face-to-face conversation. It's due to the urgency and importance of the security information of our citizens. 

I am deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paul M. Abbate. We intercepted and seized two consignment boxes at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, NY 11430, coming from a foreign I checked the content of the two consignment boxes and found they contained the sum of US$4.1 million dollars in value of certified payment bond.

 Also, the two consignment boxes had documents with your name on them as the receiver of the package. After questioning the diplomat that accompanied the two consignment boxes into the United States, we learned that he was to deliver these two consignment boxes to your residence as an inheritance/winning prize payment due to you. 

The two consignment boxes' paperwork lacks the PROOF OF OWNERSHIP CERTIFICATE AND LEGAL DELIVERY PERMIT CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE forms. We confiscated the two consignment boxes and released the diplomat. According to section 229, subsection 31 of the International Commerce Regulators Code Enforcement Guidelines, the sealed envelope lacks PROOF OF OWNERSHIP CERTIFICATE AND LEGAL DELIVERY PERMIT CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE. 

Since the content is valued financial material of such an amount by the joint team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security, you're to reply for direction on how to procure the two consignment boxes and be relieved of the charge of tax evasion, which is a jailable offense under section 12 subsection 441 of the tax code. We will also be asking the IRS to launch an investigation into money laundering if you do not follow our instructions. 

You are required to reply within 72 hours. At that point, I will walk you through the process of clearing and claiming the money. Failure to comply may lead to your arrest, interrogation, and/or you being prosecuted in a court of law for tax evasion and/or money laundering. 

You are also instructed to desist from further contact with any bank(s) or person(s) in the United States, the United Kingdom, or any part of the world regarding your fund because your payment has been confiscated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation here in the United States.

Yours in Service,

Paul M. Abbate

The Deputy Director of the FBI

I almost feel bad for tearing them away from Mar-A-Lago. Almost.
Who comes up with this stuff? And as goofy as you or I might find it, obviously enough people think it credible enough to respond and make it worth the scammers' while. Kind of makes me feel that quarter in my pocket might just burn a hole if I don't give it to someone real soon for a chance to paint that fence.   
-bill kenny

From Lad to Dad

My father and I had a very strained relationship when I was growing up. It wasn't the only one, as near as I can determine as all six of us had relationships with him that sometimes were difficult to put into words. 

It was only after I was a father myself that a lot of what he didn't say at the time started to make sense for me, not that I ever shared those insights with our two children (tradition is tradition and the Irish and their secrets must be respected at all costs and times).

My father was a far more complex person than I, who, by comparison, is very much the simple shit I always strove to avoid becoming. His words, both what he said and how he said it, commanded attention and respect, and the way he lived, much to my dismay as I enter my dotage, has been my example of how I, too, have lived. 

Not so much the path I've chosen as the path which chose me.
-bill kenny

Ice Cream Day Dream

I was just settling into a parking space at the Norwichtown Commons when I watched someone in sweats with a gym bag walking towards the far side where the fitness center is. She was smoking a cigarette and finished it off about a half dozen strides before hitting the center’s entrance.

I’m not passing judgment, nor should I. I smoked two/three packs of cigarettes a day for twenty-two (plus) years and have my own definitions of insanity and dependence, as does each of us with a vice, but for Kafkaesque humor, you'd have to go some to top that.

It’s a little like ordering the deluxe cheeseburger with bacon along with large fries but asking that our diet soda have no ice. Do you think I’m silly to worry about the health effects of ice? Ask the captain of the Titanic. Now, who’s silly?

We like the routine, the assurance of the rote drill (I think) and maybe that's where we believe the benefit accrues. It's like small children learning the Pledge of Allegiance long before they have any idea what allegiance means (for some of us that's still true through old age). 

A whole generation now hits the fitness centers in the same way previous ones frequented the bars and clubs on Saturday nights or the churches on the Sunday mornings that followed. But for what purpose, and to what end?

Behaviorists refer to an obesity epidemic in the United States (though obesity is now a worldwide problem) and it bubbles up on all manner of media, usually with a pitch for some sort of breakthrough product that will allow us to eat as much as we want and still lose ten pounds by this weekend’s high school reunion. The vendor has operators standing by and if we call before midnight tonight, they’ll get our money faster.

And while we have adult Americans gaining on average 45 pounds in the course of their lifetimes (I’m an over-achiever, if you were wondering), the World Food Bank in a champion understatement noted in a report last month that ‘food insecurity'  continues to accelerate.

Instead of studying and attempting to learn the lessons behind research like this, we watch reruns of Oprah and her talk-show sisters and dream of the day when we, too, could have been in a studio audience and under our seat was a pair of Nike Running shoes(?) I think not. There may not be a free lunch, no matter how many believe otherwise, but at least you can go to Oprah’s website for healthy eating tips. Bring your own napkins.

I'm wondering if we're not better off just eliminating the middleman and cutting out the white space. Put a cigar bar in a fitness center--or set up one of those luxurious dessert places in the lobby; call it "Cool Whip and Curls", no one will snicker. 

Those who wish to indulge can, and the rest of us can pretend to not see any of it as it'll all be behind closed doors. Look at how often we use that trick to manage world events that should and could have numbed us. Besides, it’ll keep us from walking around with our eyes closed; people get hurt going through life like that.
-bill kenny

Another Childhood Myth Comes Crashing Down

As kids, we rode bikes without helmets, ate bread that had gluten (and may still do), drank water from the hose in the backyard, and basically did tons of stuff that when we were parents we rarely allowed our own children to do. 

Helicopter parents, I think, are what we were called. Mom and Dad are what our kids called us.

But one thing that survived the chasm of generations was the five-second rule (minus that half a beat when you stare at the food item that's just been dropped on the floor in sort of disbelief). That was sacred and tradition. 

And as science would have it, a lie.

Grab your piece of golden calf. And hold on tightly.
-bill kenny

Next Stop: Twilight Zone

Fell across this yesterday. Can't understand the outraged and surprised comments from folks.

I'm thrilled people so inclined would find one another and leave the rest of us alone.
-bill kenny 

Coals to Newscastle

When we lived in Germany, Wal-Mart purchased a big box Germany-based chain, Wertkauf, as it established itself in the most prosperous Western European country.  I was always impressed with how German merchants. large and small, operated, and wasn't especially surprised that the Germany experiment for Wal-Mart went sideways in a very few years and they walked away from the market. 

It's not like Germany didn't have American operations. My wife and I went to the first McDonald's that opened, in Stuttgart, and I stood behind a German who ordered a 'kaseburger aber ohne kase' along with a beer (something stateside Mickey D's to this day should consider)

Germany also had Wendy, NOT Wendy's (no idea why) and I always smiled when I saw a Pizza Hut restaurant because Auf Deutsch, hut is a hat and the visual cracked me up. 

As a nation we're kind of convinced we have all the best stuff and that we're the envy of the world because of that. And that's as may be except, in this case, it's as may not be. And that's just science; well, sort of.
-bill kenny

Breakfast of Champions

I was cruising the aisle of my local Stop 'n' Shop yesterday (at my age not nearly as salacious as I'd like that to sound) and in the frozen foods aisle encountered an offering from Stouffers, apparently as an entree, though I always remember it more as a bleary-eyed breakfast staple, chipped beef, described as being 'A classic dish you can always count on to satisfy.' 

That's as may be but in my case, nope. With toast, without toast, Still Nope. 

I spent eight years in the USAF and after being introduced to it at Lackland Air Base as part of  Basic Military Training (along with haircuts that were closer to my head than far away and 'police call' which was a fancy term for picking up discarded cigarette butts with your fingers), I studiously avoided it for the remainder of my time in blue. That and 'chicken-fried steak,' a specialty of the Army Consolidated Dining Facility up the street from the Frankfurt Post Exchange, that was in reality breaded, fried liver and was even more awful than it sounds. 

Every once in a while I come across advertising for survivalists (I guess) that feature great buys on pallets of meals-ready-to-eat (technically, the use of 'great buys' and meals-ready-to-eat in the same sentence is the definition of an oxymoron) and cannot, for the life of me, having imbibed in these kinds of repasts because little to nothing else was available imagine anyone freely choosing them, much less enjoying them.  

I know, 'you are what you eat.' And the possibilities are staggering.
-bill kenny

Hiding in Water Spouts Everywhere

I understand, intellectually, the importance of spiders (and all insects for that matter), but will be the first one to concede that when I'm surprised by one my visceral reaction is to stomp on them. 

I've found a story suggesting they may actually sleep; actually, let me re-work that by noting that scientists are studying the possible sleep patterns of jumping spiders.

I know, my first reaction, too: jumping spiders? What's next, snakes with legs?  
-bill kenny

Consistent, If Nothing Else

If you wait at the banks of the river long enough you will see the bodies of your enemies float by, Even if, at times, they are you, yourself.  

Wednesday in Trumpworld, more business as usual.

And yet, as always there's a moment from the past.
-bill kenny

We're All Bozos on This Bus

Mom had a rule in our house growing up, "if you don't ask, you don't get." 

And, at the risk of sounding even more cynical than I'm often accused of being, looking at how American Rescue Plan, ARP, dollars have been disbursed, it looks like a lot of people's Moms had the same rule. 

I smile when I read online reactions to some of the investments that have been announced by all levels of government, as many of the same folks who were online epidemiologists and virologists in the earliest days of COVID-19 and became international relations experts when Russia invaded Ukraine are now economists when it comes to fretting and hand-wringing about the 'dangers of free money.' 

It's not free money, they point out, and they're absolutely right. The dollars that are flowing from ARP initiatives belong to all of us and that's why it's heartening to me (at least) to see the thoughtful decision-making processes that have characterized the investments/expenditures throughout our communities.

Admit it, we're not all going to agree on every single project and with every dollar amount allocated. But for those who feared ARP money might be like the old Oprah Winfrey Show where 'you get a car, and you get a car, and ad infinitum,' that's not what's been happening at all. 

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I'd submit we've been putting our ARP money where our mouths have been for many years but have always come up short because 'budgets are a little tight this year,' or 'we'll take a look at that when times improve.' 

So a lot of programs have gotten short-changed for years which then becomes a decade or more until it seems like forever and the next thing you know, doing without is more than just a tradition, it's a way of life.   

Those who know me are aware of my relentless (not to mention tongue-in-cheek) lobbying for pony rides for my birthday and I'd be remiss if I didn't use this opportunity to continue to press my case for them, but attempted humor aside, why not make an investment in mass transit, such as it is here in Connecticut, and make buses and trains free for everyone all the time?

Operations like CT Transit as well as SEAT have seen bus ridership rebound from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and I say good for them, better for all those riding the bus, with even better outcomes environmentally for all of us. 

A vibrant and robust mass transit network would reduce congestion, traffic, and pollution, to name three immediate societal concerns while also putting discretionary income back into the pockets of those who most often depend on mass transit better allowing them to allocate their dollars for housing, food, and other necessities. 

And I don't mean one bus an hour from some point in Norwich to another in Griswold, for example, but multiple buses with a variety of routes across the region. Create a viable and dependable alternative mode of travel that doesn't require a privately owned vehicle; in essence, build a better mousetrap. 

ARP dollars invested in buses and trains is really an investment in ourselves and for ourselves (and if we have a few bucks left over for pony rides, well then Hi Ho, Silver Away!)
-bill kenny

Circle of Life

I've mentioned that we feed the neighborhood squirrels peanuts we buy at BJ's. We grab three five-pound bags of peanuts every couple of weeks and toss them by the handful out the backdoor of our house into the yard, between the stoop and the garage.

We attract quite a few squirrels, some more forward than others who are willing to take peanuts out of my hand or climb up on the handle of the screen door to attract our attention. We also draw quite a crowd of bluejays and crows, both of whom also enjoy peanuts. 

I made a disturbing discovery yesterday evening while putting the newspapers into the recycling bin. Atop the garage was a squirrel carcass. It took me a moment to get it off the roof and into a plastic bag for disposal and then I racked my brain thinking about what had happened. 

This morning I had the confirmation of my theory: a HUGE hawk was sitting on the handrail of the rear fire stairs, staring through the kitchen window and curtains, looking at me. Feeding the squirrels is also feeding the animals that feed off the squirrels. 
-bill kenny  

Cancel Culture Might Really Be Can Sell Culture

To be clear, I do not watch Fox News. If you've stopped by here at any point in the last nearly thirteen years, that's probably not a bolt out of the blue.  

What little I've seen on the few occasions I've caught it (non-Carlson/Hannity timeslots) has convinced me to seek other perspectives elsewhere (here's NOT looking at you, Newsmax, and One America News). That said, if you watch it, I'm fine with that. That's what, as I remember it, freedom OF choice is supposed to be all about.

People who like to organize boycotts of broadcasters, newspapers, businesses, whatever, are in my opinion (and mine only) wasting their breath and time and they're welcome to do that as long as they don't waste mine. Don't like Hobby Lobby's stance on equal rights for all? Neither do I but I'd never encourage anyone else not to shop there because I hate the notion of freedom FROM choice. 

I mention this because early last month (it's already been a month?!?) we road tripped to Virginia to see Michelle and Kyle and then headed south to Florida to see Patrick and Jena. Got to be experts on where not to stay, looking at you Red Roof Inn and Day's Inn, and nice places to call a halt, LaQuinta and Holiday Inn Express as well as imbibed at some fine regional scarfing establishments to include one of my favorites, when I can find it, Cracker Barrel. 

That's why this story stung just a little bit and proves yet again it's never eaten as hot as it's served, 
-bill kenny  

I'm Not Alone

Our children had to endure my truly awful jokes as they grew up; it's a rite of passage that every generation forces onto the next. Sort of a laugh or grimace or die moment. 

Anyway, I have found, too late for anything other than my own amusement, a motherlode of Dad Jokes that because of my selflessness and sacrifice I am delighted to share with you.

And at least for today, I'll show myself out.
-bill kenny 

Oppenheimer's Deadly Toy

As a child learning American history (I think it's part of something called 'civics' now for reasons surpassing my understanding) I was always struck by how World War II began for America with airplanes. Actually with swarms of planes, low over the horizon, out of the sun over Pearl Harbor Naval Station in Hawaii.  

Today, seventy-seven years ago, from the belly of the Enola Gay, a B-29 Super-Fortress, the US Army Air Corps dropped the world's first atomic weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and while a second bomb was dropped a matter of days later on Nagasaki to 'seal the deal' the harnessing of the atom into such a terrible weapon of destruction delivered by an airplane effectively ended the second World War. 

As a fan of symmetry, even as a wee slip of a lad, I was impressed by the bookend effect of beginnings and endings.

I've read accounts where some of those who worked on the devices were relieved that the first actual use did not trigger, as they had feared, an unfettered chain reaction they could not stop, destroying the planet. 

Except, as I look around a somewhat beaten and battered world that's lived in the Atomic Age (and in dread of its consequences) even longer than I have been on earth, I wonder about that road to perdition, the slippery slope, and the law of unintended consequences. 
-bill kenny

An Auto-Biography?

When I was a kid, I was car crazy. And as a child coming of age in the Sixties, I had plenty to be crazy about: the original Mustang, Pontiac Firebird,  Dodge Charger, Oldsmobile 442, the list goes on and on.

I never drove any of them and never possessed the requisite mechanical aptitude to be allowed under or near the hood area of any of them either. But still, to this day when I'm out walking and one of the classics passes me I stop and turn around (and sigh with a mixture of yearning and regret). 

Not sure anyone, anywhere has ever felt this way about the P50, though why not? 
-bill kenny

Emotional Calisthenics

A picture is worth a thousand words, whether you take it, make it, or find it on the internet.

Follow me for even more great tips on saying things without moving your lips.
-bill kenny

Talk Is Cheap

My family, when asked, will tell you I don't like small talk when, really, it's actually the other way around: small talk doesn't like me, at least not very much. Let me offer a painfully recent encounter as an example and concede in advance it was my fault because I forget I'm so concentrated that a little of me can go a very long way.

I parked near one of our local grocery stores and with (conservative estimate) two hundred bajillion empty parking spaces from which to choose, I was surprised when a thirty-something or other guy, in a grey wife-beater tee-shirt, driving a light blue Ford pick-up pulled in alongside me, sort of slopping over into my spot. 

It was a middle eighties model truck, with lots of character (= missing paint, a crumpled fender, a ding in the door) used as a work vehicle before pickups became trendy and everyone except me started driving them.

I often discover I'm using my outside voice when I think it's my inside voice--usually when someone about whom I'm making a personal and silent observation to my evil twin, Skippy, points out that he's heard me and isn't happy. Like this time.

Tom the Truck Driver (I have no idea what his name was. By the time we were through he had many names for me, though none I normally answer to-but I was unable to ascertain his) had a very large (actually visible from space with the naked eye, large) sticker on the back window, 'Proud to be an American.' That my ability to read it almost got me punched out I will forever blame on that Literacy Volunteer back when I was a kid.

I had just finished telling my evil twin and imaginary friend, Skippy, big American trucks handle like double beds, which is why some of this guy's truck was in most of my parking space when his baleful glare and flared nostrils caused me to realize I had transcended the sub-vocalization level. 

Remembering Will Rogers' suggestion that there are no strangers, only friends we haven't met, I complimented him on his sticker saying it 'really makes a statement, even if I'm not sure what the statement is.'

Skippy, who doubles as the Imp of the Perverse, was taken aback (as was I) when he opted to not exchange badinage and banter but rather 'what the fire truck is that supposed to mean?' ('Fire Truck' is the word I suspect he meant but pressed for time, he shortened it). 

Not appreciating I'd already left the city limits of Leave Well Enough Alone, I inquired if he was born in the US and he assured me, loudly, he was, noting emphatically, 'fire truck, yeah-and you?'

I smiled as I explained how pride in an accident of birth was a little out of the ordinary since, as George Bernard Shaw observed 'Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.'' I always get the quotes right--it's my timing that needs work. In this case, I was playing to an oil painting.

Tom the Truck Driver took half a step towards me, almost afraid to get nearer in case I had some contagion and demanded 'What are you? Some kind of a wise guy or just an a$$hole?' (but without the $, if you follow my drift). Oooh, I sighed, multiple choice. I much prefer true or false--I'm really not very good at multiple choice. I watched his eyes glaze over ever so slightly. He snorted derisively as he stormed off and into the grocery store.

Deciding my quotient of human interactivity had been exceeded for the day and whatever it was I thought I wanted to purchase could keep for now and maybe forever, I opened the passenger's side front door because I was now too close to the Ford truck to use the driver's side door, slid across the seat and behind the wheel. Invoking the spirit of Carl Schurz, I returned home, more or less in one piece. 

People say the art of conversation is dead. Absolutely. I was nearly at its funeral.
-bill kenny

The Seaweed Is Always Greener in Somebody Else's Lake

"About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. Water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers, and even in you and your dog." To say nothing, of course, about the horse you rode in on (we are if nothing else, discrete around here).

Even as a kid, when we were heading towards the moon, I wondered, standing on the beach at Gramma and Grampy's summer bungalow in The Highlands (decades before Sandy Hook became a national park and a great travel destination) waving, as Grampy encouraged me to, at people I couldn't see on the other side of the ocean, about what was under the waves. 

I was far too cowardly to ever venture, Lloyd Bridges style, beneath the surface and now I'm too old and frail, but I'm thinking that's why The Harvard of the West, Stanford, has been working on OceanOneK, my new most favorite definition of Special K.
-bill kenny

A Numbers Game

I've never paid a great deal of attention to golf, subscribing as I do to Mark Twain's observation that it's a good walk ruined. I covered golf as a sporting event back in the Stone Ages when I worked in television and it's a tough sport to cover well (one of the reasons I no longer cover it) but cynic that I am, I think I prefer bowling because you can have boneless chicken wings and drink beer at the same time.

Over the weekend LIV Golf was hosted at the Trump National Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. I've never had the pleasure to visit Bedminster, much less pay my respects to the final resting place of Ivana Trump, the first wife of the former President and not-yet-indicted co-conspirator and insurrectionist, but there's a chance I have to believe their luck will run out. 

From what I read, there wasn't quite the demand by spectators for tickets that might have been anticipated especially since the host was a larger-than-life (and most objects in it) orange impersonation of P. T. Barnum, and while a sucker may be born every minute, the mugs stayed away in droves.

Apparently, a not inconsiderable number of folks have terribly accurate and absolutely horrible memories associated with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who more or less owns LIV Golf and the educational pursuits, especially aeronautical training, of some of their citizens a little more than two decades ago. Not surprisingly, everyone's Favorite President (at least in his own mind) had a curious but delightfully profit-driven motive for his own perspective on history.

And there's also the small and uncomfortable matter of the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi and the alleged involvement of Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud making me wonder if those who competed at Bedminster were expected to have both a sand wedge AND a bone saw in their golf bags.

My most favorite fun fact about LIV Golf is the origin of the name which "is a reference to the Roman numeral for 54, the score if every hole on a par-72 course were birdied and the number of holes to be played at LIV events." 

I'm impressed. I thought for sure they'd call it CMXI especially since no one on this side of the sand trap would have noticed.
-bill kenny