Boo! (Reprised)

Another blast from my past which probably won't be the last (see what I did there?).
When I first offered this years ago I called it: 

All Hallow's Eve

It's amazing how a religious devotion, commemoration, and remembrance really, evolved into an all-the-candy-you-can-eat-without-barfing exercise all the way to an adult party hearty event. Greetings and salutations nevertheless. 

There was an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain that some sociologists theorize 19th-century Irish immigrants brought with them that helped create our current observance/holiday/day on which to go gluttonous on chocolate. It certainly caught on in the United States, but we are no longer alone. Far from it. 

Halloween is celebrated in about a dozen countries around the world, gladdening the hearts, I'm sure, of candy manufacturers in the days leading up to it as well as the bottom lines of dentists in the days and weeks following it. Alas, poor Linus, I knew him well. We can always content ourselves that Strongbad doesn't do candy, I guess. Did you have Trick or Treat for UNICEF in your neighborhood? Sign of the times now, I fear, I haven't seen or heard about it in years and years. 

Remember how our Moms used to go through the goodies making sure that the apples didn't have unpleasant surprises and then throwing all the unwrapped candy away 'just to be safe.' Would it have killed them to pretend the Mary Janes were unwrapped (talk about a dentist delight-it could take fillings out)--a candy that I don't think I even see at any other time of the year except now. 

And what about candy corn (and I loved it, btw)? If scientists are correct that cockroaches would survive an atomic war, I believe they would do it munching on candy corn, indestructible, indescribable, often imitated but never duplicated. One of the many things I surrendered once my doctors made me understand, as an adult, I couldn't be a part-time diabetic. And I miss it more than I can say.

As a parent, I can recall some of the worst weather of the season always seemed to start about two hours before the kids got organized to head out. So I'll keep my fingers crossed for all the goblins tonight. And every child, no matter how young, wanted to trick or treat with her/his friends. Only a baby goes out with a parent. 

So with a heavy heart and a quiet footstep, the trick was to figure out how far back to trail them as they went from house to house, and no matter how many times a child was told 'no running', what happened? Yep. Why was I always surprised when mine paid as much attention to me as I had to my parents? 

And every neighborhood had a trick-or-treater without a bag-usually one of the hyperactive kids from down the street who ate the candy as quickly as he got it. Can you imagine how much magic it was to live in that house later that same evening? Me neither.

Our own children long ago outgrew the doorbell ringing and candy-collecting aspects of the evening and we don't play anymore at my house. But the Dream Children and ghosts of ghouls past sometimes encounter one another on my porch when "Open locks, whoever knocks!" 
-bill kenny

Bouzouki Sold Separately

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has been in the news A LOT in the last couple of weeks and the discussion about the perils and genius of releasing what's proving to be millions of gallons of oil from it just drones on and on without any form of a conclusion (much like what happens around here on a daily basis). 

Based on what I paid for heating oil this past Thursday (5.64 a gallon for a total of over a grand's worth of heat that will last about two weeks), I'm thinking I should apply for membership in OPEC. I could argue my admission would further their goals of diversity (after all, infidels are people, too) and would point out I rarely if ever, read the Washington Post which might help me get in. Or not.   

As it turns out, here in the Land of the Round Doorknobs Where Seldom Is Heard a Discouraging Word we have a weapon far more potent than the SPR, even if it lacks an official (that strikes fear into the hearts of baddies) name. 

Good to know that if you come over all peckish while skimming through "Rogue Herries" by Hugh Walpole, Uncle Sam has got you covered.
-bill kenny

Quartet Is Reunited

I'm old if not in many parts decrepit but I'm old when I talk about rock and roll only in terms of The Beatles and all those who crossed the bridge from Britain that their success built here in the USA. 

I had no older brothers or sisters so I never had to endure the Kingston Trio, Glen Yarborough, Gale Gordon, or Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Nor did I have any appreciation for Fabian, Paul Anka, Paul Peterson, or any of those who lept to fill the vacuum when Elvis Presley joined the army. 

I developed an appreciation for the contributions of all the folks I've just named and busloads more as I grew older, if not wiser, and as I researched my history my appreciation for Sam Phillips grew (and continues to grow to this day). Without ever picking up an instrument or singing a note, he helped shape the music I will love for the rest of my life. 

At one point he had under contract the legends: Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley, the Million Dollar Quartet. Over the years, the legends revealed themselves to be far too human, shuffling off this mortal coil, leaving finally only Jerry Lee Lewis. Yesterday, "The Killer" left the building. I'm guessing rehearsals for the reunited quartet will start shortly,
-bill kenny

Timeless and Yet Clueless

We have so many more, and more powerful means of gaining and sharing information than at any time in the history of our planet. And yet here we are, screaming into the voids of our own echo chambers, allergic and intolerant for the most part to opinions and perceptions that differ from our own. 

Present company, sadly and pathetically, included.

It's both sobering and scary to concede we did this to ourselves. Screw you, Walt Kelly.
-bill kenny
  

Don't Pet Schrödinger's Cat

Somewhere between Donovan Leitch and the Firesign Theater is a familiar space and place (that's also neither at the same time) we each (and all) can just about state with certainty that 'yes, I have been here before,' but without definitively being able to do just that. 

Sort of Precis Vu meets Deja vu in a two-out-of-three cage match. 

We've experienced these spaces all of our lives and yet we probably don't even recognize them to say nothing about knowing anything about them, and maybe even less about ourselves. Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. Meet Physical, Emotional, and Temporal Liminal Spaces. 

And good luck.
-bill kenny

Book Your Weekend in Down City

As we hear more talk more often of a possible recession I was wondering when municipalities have less money to spend on programs and services (as so often do their citizens), why it is that public libraries whose operating hours are usually one of the first things to shrink as a money-saving move, tend to become more popular for those seeking entertainment and information.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel to find sources to support the level and breadth at which this has been happening across the USA, thanks to Google. At the time I entered my query, "use of public libraries in a recession" into my browser, there were 17.6 million mentions identified in less than a quarter of a second.

Adding to the irony is an observation from an acquaintance about the power of the smartphones most of us now carry and their ability to research material and sources of information in the blink of an eye.  Because that, in turn, led me to wonder why people still go to the public library, in our case, Otis.

Those motivations and needs are, I imagine, as diverse as those of us who patronize libraries. I’d like to believe people look to a public library in an urban landscape the way the fingers of the hand look to the thumb. There are so many services and so many products available and everyone meets in the same space and place.

Public libraries, like Otis in downtown, by accident or design, may well be the most distinctly iconic symbol of American democracy, up there with Old Glory and the Bald Eagle (which is NOT my nickname, yet).

Norwich (still) doesn't have an especially vibrant downtown though there are a lot of individual efforts by small businesses and property owners with more arriving, if not daily, than with a frequency I find heartening. But if you’ve been telling yourself fables about why you don’t go downtown, you’d have no way of knowing how much Down City has gotten better. Yeah, I know, you’ve been meaning to go, but it’s hard to find a suitable time or a great event. 

But this weekend (starting this Friday), you have the perfect reason as the Friends of Otis Library holds their annual Autumn Book Sale. There's a sneak preview Friday morning from nine to ten attracting collectors who pay $10 for a head start on searching for great deals ranging from books of every genre to magazines, video and compact discs, and more. 

But no matter how many collectors attend, I can tell you from previous experience there’s still plenty of great stuff when the doors open at ten for the general public (I already have a lot of their previously-purchased bargains at my house and will have to invent a new reason to give my wife after the weekend is over).

Book sale hours for both Friday and Saturday are from ten until three and from noon until three on Sunday, which gives you tons of time to wander across downtown (and admire the only Roundabout no one is angry about. Yet.) as well as pop into the shops and eateries, etc. that line the sidewalks.

You’re always saying you wish there were more going on downtown and now there is, so be here when it happens. And be part of why it happens, so that it keeps happening. 
-bill kenny

Wiedersehen Macht Freude

I enjoy circling the bridge twice, with my apologies to Captain Yossarian. What follows is closing in on being almost a decade and a half old. Almost. At the time I titled it: 

Almost a Backseat Driver

If you believe in evolution and the triumph of survival based on innovation in a species, when you look to your left or right around your workspace on any given workday, or when wandering the aisle in a supermarket, or (in my case) just looking in the mirror, you have to be getting sweaty palms when you read a local newspaper or check out the evening TV news.

We're watching the world try to break its dependence on fossil fuel as a source of energy (we could quit anytime, we tell one another as we scout for gas stations with the cheapest price) and perfect alternative technologies such as electric cars or hydrogen fuel vehicles. 

The turmoil this type of challenge produces is evident in the marketplace where familiar names like Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Plymouth have all already gone the way of the dinosaur with more to follow making room for new products from new manufacturers--intentional or not.

Into all of that, comes this. Part of that Motorized Lounge Chairs Don't Kill People, Drunks Who DriveThem Do ad campaign that the home furnishings people have been muttering about for most of the last decade, I suspect. The report's note about the cup holders is, I think, why I fell in love with the story. 

The only things I can't figure out are the top speed of the chair, how many miles per gallon it gets (regular or super), and what the opening bid at the police auction will be for it. You don't suppose the La-Z Boy folks are hoping to snag it for their museum, assuming they have one (if not, what an incredible first acquisition). 

And if so, in addition to recruiting Al Cowlings and OJ Simpson to sit on it, do you think (hope) they'll drive it back to corporate headquarters, maybe in a motorcade of armored ottomans? Assuming such an event is televised what should we be sitting on to watch it?
-bill kenny

Time After Time

I come from a large family. I say that as if it were some kind of a personal achievement even though I know it's not. Today one of my numerous brothers is celebrating a birthday. Let's pretend I know how many and, in the interest of gallantry, choose to not share that with you. While we're at it, let's pretend I'm gallant. Anyway. Here's something I offered on a previous birthday and called it: 

Difference between Nuclear and Unclear Thinking

Today is the birthday of the United Nations. The Hallmark store was fresh out of UN Birthday cards the last time I checked though they may still have some (or lots of) Keepsake Ornaments. 

Why anyone thinks Star Trek, Tom and Jerry or Agent P have anything to do with a Christmas tree is beyond me but I'm not the one trying to sell stuff at an exorbitant markup for the holidays. Call before midnight tonight and we'll get your money faster!

Actually, if you want to drive into lower Manhattan today and double park in a fire lane, in honor of the UN's birthday I'm sure the NYPD is very understanding. Or not, especially not.

More importantly, though the UN Secretary-General may disagree, at least for me, is that today is my brother Kelly's birthday. Kelly, as you may recall my mentioning was, briefly, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Okay, technically he was only almost the Pope but only because, as it turned out, not all bears do $hit in the woods all the time and on that technicality, the Curia decided otherwise.

And, it turns out, two of the electors may have been monkeys and their antipathy towards my brother knows no bounds. Or is it the other way? 

But despite the time and distance, we are still very close. We have the same slightly jaundiced view of the world; he is a New York Rangers devotee and I like Chuck Norris, Texas Ranger. 

So, later today, when you finally ransom your car back from the clutches of the NYPD impound lot(s) (kind of like a treasure hunt, where it's your own treasure you seek) find a place to watch cartoons and brace yourself for Bugs Bunny who, if he did not already exist when Kelly started to watch TV, he would've had to have been invented.
Happy Birthday!
-bill kenny

All We Are Saying

One of my favorite expressions is 'to a man with a hammer, the whole world is a nail.' And not just because the guy in the Ace Hardware Store told me that. 

It's a universal observation that works at nearly any level I can imagine and encompasses a scale and scope, as you'll read here, that many of us, even in altered states, still couldn't imagine.    

Sort of like a trailer for that yet-to-be-made movie, "Honey, I Stung the Cops."
-bill kenny

Word Up

How many words do you suppose there are in the English language? Are you surprised that there's no hard and fast answer? 

I should point out with all due respect to whichever word counter you decide you wish to use, none of them are including the Bozo No-No Words. The 'do you kiss your mother with that mouth?' words. The 'were you raised by a Sailor?' vocabulary enhancers.

None of the words that might pop up in a Readers Digest Towards More Perfect Speech article. 

The kind of stuff that made George Carlin (in)famous. 

These words, right here. 

I see that map as a cautionary tale to be careful with words, any words. Once they're said while they may be forgiven they will never be forgotten.
-bill kenny

All Those Years Ago

My last original thought died of loneliness so here's something I wrote some time back for what has proven to be the very best decision of my entire life. And if you think you've read it before, you have; it's a sentiment that bears repeating, over and over again.

Today, on this date in 1977 at 1020 in the morning in the Offenbach am Main Rathaus in (West) Germany, Sigrid Schubert and I were married. 

Forty-five years ago. 

Sigrid often says it feels a lot longer than that but that's because the Germans use the metric system. Right? I mean, what else could it be?    

How lucky can one guy get, eh? I've never known what she saw or sees in me (aside from a great personality, rapier-like wit complementing a puckish sense of humor, and a body like Adonis (Joey Adonis from West Orange near Prospect Plains)), all hobbled by a nearly crippling sense of modesty that is my lifelong cross to bear; oh, and delusions, almost forgot those) but she is my entire world.  

She is everything I have wanted to be or to do and she makes me a better man by knowing that she loves me, often despite who I am. I can remember the most minute of details of that day and have driven her and both of our adult children almost to distraction by recounting them incessantly AND on an annual basis, so I'll skip them here, but they know what will happen, just not when.

I hope with all my heart wherever in this world you find yourself that you also have and keep someone who will hold your heart forever as she has mine. I don't remember often enough to tell her I love her though I will today and vow to be better every day we have together for all the days that remain. Happy Anniversary, angel eyes. 
-bill kenny

WOFT

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For My Next Trick.....

If you have any interest at all in improving this part of the state we call home, you should already have plans to be in attendance at Slater Auditorium on the Norwich Free Academy Campus tonight starting at six for debates between and among the candidates seeking our votes next month for the 19th District of the State Senate and, following at seven, those for the 46th, 47th, and 139th representative districts.

I’m so old I can remember a not-too-distant time when each of our two daily newspapers would sponsor and organize these forums and often attendance, minus the candidates and their families might almost reach triple digits.

These days I’ll be delighted if a report from tonight appears in even one of them. 

As for attendance, considering the abysmal turnout for the Norwich City Council informational meeting on EnVision360 (I counted five adults and two children; I’m guessing the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics were all playing that night. Probably.), I tell myself the advantage of being a pessimist is I can only be surprised and never disappointed.

But, if for no other reason than on behalf of all the folks who are working to make the debate happen, the friends and neighbors who are offering their time and talents in seeking office for our common good, and most importantly for all the opportunities and challenges facing us for the next two years and beyond, it would very fitting if we filled Slater and came prepared to listen to and consider the positions of all those running for office.

When you look at a map of the area for our Senator and State Representatives, you can’t help but be impressed by the diversity and differences of the towns and villages across the districts and the disparate issues and concerns that any office-seeker needs to familiarize themselves with to be an effective advocate on our behalf in Hartford.      

Did you know there are 36 Senators, each representing a shade over 99,000 residents, and each of the 151 State Representatives answers to 22,600 inhabitants? That’s a lot of vox populi, especially if we all talk at once and since we rarely, if ever, agree on what one another is saying.

The debate should be an opportunity for us to add to our knowledge of the issues and how those seeking our votes feel about them. I’d suspect we’ll hear about the cost of goods and services (from the gas pump to the grocery store) as well as topics like the police accountability law, proposals for affordable housing, gun safety, as well access to health care, and broadening public education initiatives.

All significant issues, hopefully for all of us, and you can add your own questions for consideration by the moderators by sending them to info.lwvsect@gmail.com. Would you be surprised to learn I already have?  

Here’s what I’d ask EVERY candidate to start the evening: “In light of headlines across the country for the last two years alleging unproven voting irregularities, conspiracies, and rigged elections, do you promise all of us here tonight, and one another, that, no matter the outcome of the November 8th vote, you will accept and respect the results of the election as the voters’ decision?”

Not a 'gotcha' question but anyone answering ‘no’ should be asked to leave the stage.
-bill kenny  

Always in the Top Twenty

As we slide inexorably into Autumn, I start my transformation into Mister Morose. I've told you before and repeatedly that I don't like Autumn mainly because f what I know comes next. However, I will also admit that given the opportunity to relocate somewhere where the winters aren't so harsh or even more like rumors than realities, I wouldn't.

I grew up in New Jersey where we had all four seasons and Frankie Valli as well (I have waited my entire life to type that joke, and now I have to lie down) so the weather in Connecticut isn't all that different aside from not having morons ask me 'which exit?' 

But I was yesterday old before learning that there's actually a ranked compilation of the fifty United States by worst winter. Why do you think I'd make something like that up? You cut me to the quick. 

Right there, anchoring the Top Twenty is the Land of Steady Habits, but I love the (entire) comment, "All of the brutal parts of the New England winter with none of the ski perks. And yes, we’re counting Mohawk, Ski Sundown, AND Mount Southington."

And I'd always assumed some people liked the downhill stuff.
-bill kenny 

The (Non-Existent) Dangling Conversation

I have a very inflated sense of the job I've done as a father, I suspect. 

Between us, I am in no hurry to open up a dialogue with either (or both) of our now adult children to ask as the late Mayor of New York City Ed Koch became famous for, "How am I doing?" mainly because Mom taught me many years ago to never ask the question if you can't stand the answer. 

I've mentioned previously my recollections of my relationship with my father aren't as bright and shiny as some of the ones I read about and as an Irish Catholic whose sense of guilt rivals, if not surpasses that of any of the twelve tribes, I've often wondered just how much of that is my responsibility. See the previous paragraph's last line for why I don't pursue a more strenuous line of inquiry in that direction.. 

Offered, without comment or alibi masquerading as a reason, is this nugget of (k)nowledge that, after a cursory review, I believe I can safely say I never once asked ANY of the questions contained therein.

So why I remain haunted four-plus decades on by an absence of answers, I suppose, shouldn't be a mystery to me.
-bill kenny

I Guess Haystack Calhoun Declined

Celebrities make headlines and heroes make a difference. I say this to myself so often on a daily basis that my inside voice is dangerously close to being my outside voice in this issue. 

I live in a country that seems to like getting its medical advice in combating a plague from a podcaster but that should come as no surprise as we elected a "C" List celebrity host of a pseudo-reality show to the office of President and may send another TV star to the Senate from Pennsylvania while joining a college football coach already in the Senate might be another former collegian who, judging from his public utterances, hit the tackling sled once too often without a helmet (or a condom if the news reports are to be believed). 

But breathe easy, and inhale deeply so you can smell what The Rock is cooking.

Where's that Giant Meteor when we really need one?
-bill kenny

What Used to Take Two Hours....

One of my favorite TV spots a million years ago was from Greyhound. 

I loved, and still do, buses and trains. Strangely enough, my enjoyment of by-others-operated transportation does NOT include airplanes as I am a terrible flier, especially since I no longer drink alcohol (and assume neither do the pilots).

Over this past summer, to break in our new car and because I've wanted to do something like it for seemingly forever, my wife and I Road Tripped down the Eastern Seaboard, stopping in Virginia to visit our daughter, Michelle, and Kyle, and to catch up with dear friends, Roger and Darlene, and then headed south to Florida, for our son, Patrick and his fortieth birthday (a surprise brilliantly organized by his lovely wife and my genius daughter-in-law, Jena).  

By the time we returned to the Land of Steady Habits, we'd clocked 3,025 miles in nine days and think I cured myself, forever, of the notion of doing something like that ever again. Never eaten as hot as it's served, but in this case, pretty close. 

And then I found this story and smiled a little Sammy Hagar road-warrior grin. And in honor of Florida, left my turn signal on for an additional two weeks.
-bill kenny

Feelin' Froggy

As it turns out you can't always believe your own eyes.  

Some backstory in case you missed this on the first go-round.  

I had to click through and look at the Tik-Tok video to fully appreciate what was going on and even then I'm not sure I did but I think that has more to do with not my understanding Tik-Tok rather than photography and frogs.  

Tell you this, Dumpy ain't got nothing on Kermit, that's for sure.
-bill kenny

Chuck Connors and Brian Kelly Would Be Amazed

We live not all that far from the Mystic Aquarium and over the course of our three decades in Southeastern Connecticut have visited on more than one occasion. I tell myself the visits are educational (and they are) but they're really entertaining as well (which is why I mostly go).

I don't spend a lot of time in their gift shop and am hesitant to ever visit their cafeteria lest I discover they have a fish filet sandwich on the menu adding a whole new meaning to Finding Nemo, but I'm a huge fan of the exhibits with the seals, the beluga whales, the orcas. and the dolphins though I do have a gnawing sense of guilt at how we hold these creatures in captivity ('but it's so humane,' we say to one another). 

That might be why this caught my eye, and a little bit of my heart, too. Faster than lightning.
-bill kenny 

Time Has Come Today

I know we consider the rose to be symbolic of our city, claiming as we do that Norwich is the Rose of New England, but based on the thirty-one years I’ve lived here, I think a more accurate representation of our city, sadly, is a watch with no hands because whatever it is and whatever you want, now ‘is not the right time to do it.’ Ever.

Hear me out.

Without fail, every year there’s at least one (and more often more than one) issue or concern our elected leadership wrestles with, usually at budget time, that gets kicked down the road for next time because ‘this just isn’t the right time.’

I got thinking about that watch with no hands earlier when chatting with an acquaintance whom I encountered who sort of warned me off from writing about “that really expensive school construction bond item” on the ballot for our (I hope) approval on November 8.

Well as we all know, the road to a very warm place is paved with the best of intentions (roundabouts sold separately, I’ll wager), and I’ve always been more of short sleeve shirts guy myself, so here we are.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen a whole lot about this construction project, which will fundamentally reinvent how we deliver education to every school-age child in the Norwich Public Schools System for probably the next three or more decades.

There was a report in the pages of The Bulletin after the City Council approved sending the bonding proposal to us, the voters, but that was back in August and here we are, checks watch (oh wait, never mind), twenty-seven days before we cast our ballots and there’s been hardly a peep on any (social) media platform I can think of.  

Don’t let the dollar figure scare you, although $385 million of anything is certainly a lot; after state reimbursement and grants, our share is about $150 million (which ain't chump change by any means). You can visit the city’s website and click here for a quick summary. And since you’re clicking on stuff, here’s a PowerPoint presentation detailing where the dollars and effort are going

I know, ‘Can’t we just fix up what we have?’ We’ve been repairing our schools since my kids were in Buckingham, and that was three decades ago. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re patching the patches.

Over two decades ago we approved two ten-plus million-dollar bonds to finally install technological infrastructure in our schools and expand two of them instead of utilizing capital improvements because (you’ve guessed it) ‘the time just isn’t right for spending that kind of money.’

It may not be ‘right’ now, either, but it’s a lot cheaper than continuing to maintain buildings decades past their best-by dates. And money expended on repairs cannot be invested in people and programs for our schools to maintain our education system as a shining attraction for anyone looking for a world-class school system.

Here it is: There’s never going to be a right time to do this right thing if we don’t do it right now.

There are but two moments in each of our lives, now and too late.  And as irony would have it, you don’t need a watch to know which one is which.
-bill kenny 

Finally! Somebody on My Side

This is the time of year, whenever we're in a supermarket anywhere, without fail I walk down the candy aisle or hit the sales island because it's also there, and squeeze very hard a kernel in a random bag of candy corn. 

Invariably, I almost break my thumb and pointer from squeezing because the stuff is as hard as a rock, but every once in a while, fortune smiles and I find a fresh bag in the bunch and buy it, regardless of whatever else I walked into the store to purchase.

I can feel your pity mixed with contempt. Candy corn, seriously? Yes, I can shout it out loud!
And, I am not alone. Finally.  

I don't expect to convert you, nor do I want to. After all, your aloofness means there's more for me. Can your Mary Janes or NECCO wafers say that?
-bill kenny

And He Never Saw Ohio, Either.

When I was a kid, Columbus Day was a big deal. In New York City, the Department of Public Works used to paint the white line on Fifth Avenue purple for the annual parade that was always held on the actual date of the holiday, October 12. 

In light of so much more I, as a man of seventy (plus tax) now know that as a boy of twelve I didn't, about the Rape of Paradise which ensued after Columbus' arrival, I wonder if perhaps blood red might not have been a better choice of colors.

Growing up, all I ever cared about was the day off, just like kids across the country. We all recited the rhyme because that's how we knew what we did know about Columbus and since there wasn't a snappy couplet about genocide we didn't hear anything about that aspect of discovering the New World (I also don't remember the Arakawa natives part but some of the little gray cells have had rough days).

Looking at the world as it is and how all settlements and civilizations have developed, I'm not sure it's just Old Chris we should be putting in the defendant's docket and charging. I'm thinking a look in the mirror, as well as a glance out a window, might increase our catch significantly.

And to compound the cacophony of facts clashing with opinions is the realization that not only did Columbus not discover the New  World, but he also wasn't even close to the first. We've spent hundreds of years observing a historical event that is neither historic nor an actual event. 

And now, as it's the dot on the "i" in the Monday holiday, we have another excuse (and sale opportunity) to buy bedding, or is that just me in the last couple of days? Sandwiched between the 'My candidate is on the special advisory committee to Gawd while yours eats bugs" commercials have been a steady stream of ads selling mattresses. 

I'm not sure there's any more of a connection of one to the other than there was to India from Bermuda back in the day. But that's a better-kept secret than was previously ever realized.

-bill kenny

Found Your Sunday Pursuit

 Actually, I found someone online who found it and I'm just passing it along.

Type in Hugging Face Stabile Diffusion (caps or no caps, your choice) into any browser and you'll come up with this. 

And then use your words.
I typed a midget riding an alligator over a bridge into a fire. Yeah, pretty cool.

Talk to you tomorrow. Don't bother getting up I can see you're busy.
-bill kenny

Sebastian (but Not Cabot)

I have a memory from childhood of sitting in "the doctor's" office (kids have no concept of specialists and malpractice suits hadn't yet gotten out of hand I suspect) surrounded by every issue of Highlights Magazine ever published (I loved Goofus and Gallant) and along one wall there would be a massive fish tank that (realized this years later) some staffer of the doctor spent an hour or so at the end of every day wiping all the fingerprints off the glass. 

Sometimes that fish tank was the high point of the visit, especially if Mom said 'he doesn't need a lollipop,' to the physician as we were leaving (made for an even longer ride home). I can't claim to have ever seen any of these guys floating around in the tank (and I think I'd have remembered at least two or three of them).

Sorry to tell you but we're all out of lollipops, but the good news is you can have as many root beer barrels and Mary Janes as you'd like.
-bill kenny

Six Months Later

Maybe as a kid, my memories were different but I grew up believing we played and rooted for one sport at a time per season. We had baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball over the winter, and homework in the spring.  

I never warmed to hockey basically because it seemed, in addition to being played for most of the year when 'the season' was concluded and the playoffs started, that almost everyone who had played during the interminably long regular season played all over again in the playoffs. 

My childhood favorite sport, baseball, has apparently concluded that A Season That Never Ends is the best idea to help the sport retain fans and maintain relevance since the 'let's put a guy on second base to start the tenth inning if the game is tied after nine' suggestion.  That's as may be though I think a home run derby or perhaps a spelling bee has a certain charm as well. 

Anyway. 

Opening Day when everyone's team starts out in first place and the start of the campaign when your hometown heroes would go undefeated (hey! you never know) was April 7. Today, six months to the day after that Opening First Pitch, the playoffs begin that will conclude, eventually (one hopes) with a World Series Championship. Assuming anyone still cares.
-bill kenny  

All Rise

It's weird, there's no Major League baseball at all today.
I can't be the only one who thinks it feels strange. 

Ok. Now I feel better.
-bill kenny

Notes on Votes

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to exercising my right to vote; I always do, whether at a polling place on Election Day, an absentee ballot or just voting with my mind (very popular in some circles I’m told). Not so popular I suspect are observations I’ve offered previously as we prepare to cast ballots.  

There’s a good bet the only space on your front lawn NOT covered by autumn leaves will, or already does, have a sign urging others to vote for a specific candidate for everything ranging from Governor, through members of the Senate and House of Representatives to seats in both chambers of our legislature in Hartford. I like to think in my next life I’m going to be the person who makes the wireframe legs that the signs fit on. That looks like quite a growth industry even in tough financial times.

Living here in the heart of New England (suggested motto: “Where American History Comes From”), I wonder what Sam Huntington would make of all the signs (and especially the television advertising) -or Benedict Arnold for that matter. Both are Norwich Native Sons, though we're all more than a little ambivalent about Benny.

I believe, after a little bit of adjustment for the tenor and times in which we live, they’d be the first to point out that citizens offering to serve (which is what we’re voting for (and/or against) in November is as old as our nation and so long as we have neighbors willing to offer themselves for office, we’ll have a healthy democracy.

If you’ve read this far and are waiting for me to attempt some form of endorsement for any of the candidates on all sides of the aisle, you can skip the rest of this and check out Garfield in the comics section (wow! That cat sure likes lasagna, doesn’t he?).

My point: it’s none of my business for whom you vote nor is it any of yours as to how I cast my ballot. What is important and I cannot stress this enough, is that if you are eligible and registered to vote, then you owe it to yourself and to the rest of us to cast an informed ballot.

Our city, state, and nation are run (only) by those who show up and vote. No one and nothing else counts. We live in times of strident partisanship and finding a balance between sometimes dramatically differing perspectives on everything from vaccination to taxation can be an often-thankless task. We’ve reduced our election color wheel to red and blue for reasons that, when you consider it, have nothing to do with the way any of us think about ourselves and our lives.   

Look at everyone offering themselves as candidates and, if you must do some (more) research to learn enough about someone to make a decision about support, don’t be shy or lazy about doing so (that’s why God invented Google, right?) and keep asking questions of the candidates, and of yourself, until you are comfortable with the answers that will shape your decisions.

Elections are open book quizzes if you wish and despite campaign literature to the contrary there are no right or wrong answers. But remember, poor leaders are always elected by good citizens who chose not to vote.
-bill kenny 

Always Remember

I first offered this, or something very much like it, a decade ago, and am returning to it today because the world does move in a circle even if that circle seems to be a straight line.
At the time I called it: 

This Is the Way the World Will End

Today at sunset is Yom Kippur, for those of the Jewish faith, the day of atonement. It is a day of repentance and fasting for personal and community/communal sins committed in the course of the last year in the hope of forgiveness-with forgiveness being the critically important aspect.

I was raised a Catholic who was taught to see Jews as (also) people of the Book (the Bible) but who limited themselves to the Old Testament and a God of Vengeance and Punishment. Jesus, as I remember, came we were taught to fulfill the Old Testament and by so doing and living, and dying, create a New Testament. I think my problem with my church became reconciling the New God with the Old Testament one-after all, what kind of a loving Deity would crucify His own Son?

All those years on and music such as this (All Vows) to mark the commencement of the Day of Atonement, has convinced me that while I may have lost faith in my church, I'm not sure I've abandoned a belief in God if that's Who inspired such beauty, majesty and ineffable sorrow in one piece of music.

Present-day Israel, surrounded on three sides by enemies and on the fourth by the sea could not be in a more precarious position than the Jewish people themselves have been since the start of The Common Era. And yet, countless persecutions later, they stand, as self-anointed as God's Chosen, and regardless of your own religious beliefs or depth of your persuasion, you have to admire their devotion to Him and their belief in His providence for them.

Yom Kippur ends tomorrow evening.
There's this prayer to mark its end, a version of which I found online many years ago but has now disappeared as produced and recorded at a synagogue, perhaps the only synagogue to this day (I actually don't know), in Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

It's a house of worship I can still see clearly in my memory from the strassenbahn fenster (streetcar window) as I passed the Sud-Bahnof on the trip back and forth to work for many of the years I lived in Deutschland. I assume it is still there.

I traveled a long way to some nearly-forgotten point in my own past I thought I had passed out of and all it took was an act of faith, though not mine or my own, to return.
-bill kenny      

Ransom Notes Keep Falling Out of Your Mouth

It's not every day or even every lifetime (for those into reincarnation) when I'll devote one of these missives to something as incredibly personal as music. 

But we're both in luck because I've found a song of such shimmering, glimmering, translucence, and beauty you'll now be hearing it all day, assuming you click on this. 

I knew you would and that you're glad you did.
-bill kenny

No Fuel Like an Old Fuel

Staring at the overcast when they weren't actually raining skies for most of yesterday, seated on my porch watching all manner of vehicular traffic race up and down the street (the best thing about the broke-ass pavement we had for years in my neighborhood was it cut down on folks speeding. Those days am over now, by jingo, by gum.) made me realize how grateful I am to have a car. 

Let me bend your eye for a moment on the topic. The capital of the State of Connecticut, Hartford, is about an hour's drive from Norwich. I have no idea if you were to attempt a journey by 'mass transit', how you would do it but I daresay it'd take more than an hour and perhaps more than a day. I've read some interesting articles on the impact of the automobile on the American Way of Life (the right to keep and bear cars should have been included in the Bill of Rights, seriously). 

When you look at our older cities and neighborhoods anywhere across the nation, you can see from the center to the outskirts, like the rings of a tree, how the internal combustion engine became the infernal comedic device in so many instances, with us as the punchline.

If you don't think God has a keen sense of humor and a delightful sense of irony, why else would he have installed every insurance company known to man (and a couple to the beasts of the field, according to their logo) in and around our capital city making Hartford Ground Zero for the insurance industry? What a crack-up He is! Can I get an Amen (with a collision waiver? Alleluia!)

Ours is not a state, and this side of the Connecticut River most especially, not a region where relying on buses and trains gets you anything more than frostbite and long hours of travel. Sort of helps you get a better understanding of how people get addicted to a variety of controlled and uncontrolled substances--and you can make a short movie of mobility junkies, getting a hit off the gas pump--taking a deep drag off the high octane bong and snorting a line of Ultra 93. Talk about Mercury Blues.

In Connecticut, our idea of addressing issues like soaring energy costs and greenhouse gases is to build MORE roads, with more lanes so people can drive to where they're going even faster. As for arguments that an investment in mass transit will yield economic development benefits as well as improve our urban and suburban quality of life, we can't you hear you-we've turned the radio up. All the way to Eleven.
-bill kenny

I'd Guessed Fife or Miller

We get more television in my house than I have the ability to watch (much less attempt to enjoy) so when I saw the CNN headline about a "Barney" documentary, I clicked the link before my brain had fully absorbed what the words on the screen said.

Well.  

The glow from the electric fire doesn't feel quite so warming anymore.
-bill kenny