The Need for Things to Change

Everywhere we live can be as large (or as small) as we wish it to be. We control the definition and depth of what, between ourselves, we call 'my little town.'

Norwich, as cities go, isn't especially large, if your frame of reference is a Bridgeport or a Hartford, but it can seem that way when you live in one of our neighbors, all of which are far smaller though they probably prefer ‘cozy’ or ‘intimate,’ and those are fine descriptions as well. 

My point? When we in small cities speak of 'them' in our city government we're really talking about 'us', since many of the elected and appointed leadership in municipalities of 75K and less are likely acquaintances, friends, and neighbors.

On the second Tuesday of this month (seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it; but it was just three weeks and a day) across these United States we participated in elections that altered, or, at the very least, had the potential to alter, nearly every aspect of our local governance and by extension our daily lives

All we had to do was choose wisely and well (something we're not always known for as a species; see seersucker jumpsuits and porkchop sideburns as just two examples of what I mean), but too many of us let others make our choices on election day and prefer to stand on the sidelines, lurking with a pseudonym in the comments section of local newspapers and social media platforms, or be a blinking telephone hold button to call-in show rather than take the time to own the decisions we’re so comfortable criticizing others for making. 

Here in Connecticut, if you remember, we were choosing a new governor, as well as both houses of our legislature. In case you forgot, that was our skin in this game.

I defer to the bloviating blowhards of The Left and The Right (caps in these cases are a given; the gowns, not so much) on all the chatter channels to tell me why the residents of Moosejaw, Montana, voted to outlaw sippy cups and what that means for healthcare reform. (And yes, that’s a made-up election outcome (I hope) and I believe, very possibly, also an imaginary place.)

I’m aware of the butterfly effect, that is, how small things can have unforeseen impacts on complex and far-removed systems and all I can say is it’s about time that it started to happen, so bring it on. What we should have learned from all the campaigning and voting is how much there is yet to do across this country, our state, and here in Norwich, to better fulfill the promise of the Founders and realize the dreams we have for ourselves and our loved ones.

We need to continue to press on, one brick at a time, not through a plate glass window, but on top of the previous one, to build the foundation we will use to construct the bridge that takes us from the here and now to the where we need to go. Every one of us can do something; that's the greatest joy of local government. Each of us can not only make a difference but help be the difference.

Don’t you get tired of waiting?
What’s stopping you from being the change you want to see in the world?
-bill kenny

Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us

We are, says Herschel Walker, Republican Party candidate for Senate from Georgia, "the greatest country in the United States." Mr. Walker, it seems as that quote demonstrates, may have played almost as much football without a helmet as he has had sex without prophylactics. 

Having driven through Georgia in early July and marveled at the "Repent Jesus is Coming!" billboards lining the interstate, I think The Lord will be spending some extra time at Herschel's house before the last trumpet blast is sounded.

As a nation, we are painfully self-absorbed, and with my seven decades here as my frame of reference woefully uninformed and nearly criminally disinterested about the rest of the world. 

This weekend news story should resonate with us more than it has or will.    

When I was a kid, we were the country every other nation aspired to be. What happened?
-bill kenny

Feeling Smitey

Maybe because yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, I'm feeling a little biblical and more specifically Old Testamentish (which I'm pretty sure is not actually a word but, my space in the ether, my rules). 

I'm not especially well-read on The Bible but when it comes to the Old Testament, I Noah a guy.

I cannot believe you sat here and read all of that for such a Henny Youngmanesque payoff.
But thank you and enjoy Monday.
-bill kenny

Not All Calendar Days Are Created Equal

It's been a pretty hectic week, hasn't it? 

To review. Last Sunday's World Cup 2022 start, Thanksgiving on Thursday, who could ignore Black Friday, and yesterday, Small Business Saturday with Cyber Monday tomorrow waiting in the wings (or buffer, to remain within the realm of ITdom).

Let me become more than slightly OG when I note today is the First Sunday of Advent.
Yeah. Between us, I knew one of these things was not like the other.
-bill kenny

That Used to Be My Thug Name

Everyone has one, I'm told. 

I suspect the ones that other people give you are more meaningful as well as mean, at least in my case. I'm now called Stumblebunny and not always behind my back but at one time I heard derisive whispers of Yawning Potato Fairy. But now that's ruined. 

And for the record, I could still be a prince, if you knew where to kiss me.
-bill kenny

Blemishes on The Beautiful Game

The United States men's national soccer team (USMNT (yeah, I don't understand where the initials come from either)) meets England, the motherland of soccer, sorry, football, this afternoon at two (EST) in Qatar as World Cup 2022 continues. 

The action on the pitch has been terrific but the tumult away from it has been a little darker in tone and texture and in some instances even more breathtaking.   

We should all always have ideals and also be human enough to understand that sometimes on the way to wonderful, detours that lead to other destinations can occur. 
-bill kenny

Too Many Blessings

Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2022, United States of America

Well, a lot of things have happened
 Since the last time we spoke
 Some of them are funny
 Some of them ain't no joke.

 And I trust you will forgive me
 If I lay it on the line
 I always thought you were a friend of mine.

 And sometimes I think about you
 I wonder how you're doing, now
 And what you're going through.

 'Cause the last time I saw you, we were playing with fire
 We were loaded with passion and a burning desire
 For every breath, for every day of living
 And this is my Thanksgiving.

 Now, the trouble with you and me, my friend
 Is the trouble with this nation
 Too many blessings, too little appreciation.

 And I know that kind of notion, well, it just ain't cool
 So send me back to Sunday school
 Because I'm tired of waiting for a reason to arrive
 And it's too long we've been living these unexamined lives.

 'Cause I've got great expectations, I've got family and friends
 I've got satisfying work, I've got a back that bends

 For every breath, for every day of living
 This is my thanksgiving

 And have you noticed that an angry man
 Can only get so far?
 Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
 With the way things are.

 Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
 In learning how to give love, how to receive it
 And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
 Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.

 And I don't mind saying that I, I still love it all
 I wallowed in the springtime
 Now, I'm welcoming the fall.

 For every moment of joy, every hour of fear
 For every winding road that brought me here
 For every breath, for every day of living
 This is My Thanksgiving.

 For everyone who helped me start
 And for everything that broke my heart
 For every breath, for every day of living
 This is My Thanksgiving.

-Don Henley

-bill kenny

In the Gift of Loving Kindness

Some have unkindly suggested my last original thought died of loneliness. Neither confirming nor denying that statement, let me help begin the Thanksgiving celebrations with some words I've offered in this space previously. 

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

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

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

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

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

But every day was a challenge and frequently, often without a victory. They were isolated, decimated, and left to their own devices. It took extraordinary hospitality and courageous kindness by one of the long-time residents of the established community to extend a helping hand and organize support so that as the following fall approached the new people had reasons to hope and believe.

How fortunate there wasn't any strict security at coastal ports of entry, or any security of any kind actually. Fortunate for us, who followed in their footsteps that is. 

We, the direct and indirect descendants of those first arrivals five hundred and two years ago at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, tomorrow will celebrate Thanksgiving, only because Samoset ignored the arguments and fears of so many of his fellow Abenaki and welcomed the Pilgrims to the New World, establishing even before we were a nation, our national legacy of welcoming all to our shores. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

-bill kenny

A Singularly Cold November Day

Today is the 59th anniversary of the murder in Dallas, Texas, of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. As I type that sentence I'm stunned to realize over half a century has passed since that day. 

For you, quite possibly this is like reading about the first walk on the moon's surface or the Fall of Saigon. For me and my generation, this is a part of who we are because we remember all of these events, because and/or despite what followed them.

JFK wasn't a better person than those whom we have chosen since to occupy the White House (with one painfully recent and noticeable orange exception) nor was he worse-if events and circumstances make a person who will master them than he was a man of a different time and all of us can't pretend to be able to compare and contrast then to now.

We were and now we are. And those we lost along the way have only us to bear their witness. That so much of then looks a lot like some of now is as much a function of perspective as it is of situations.

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

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

Video on demand? I guess but that's not what we called it.

What we had was when Dad turned the set on, you heard the vacuum tubes humming and warming up. Slowly the picture grew larger and clearer. When it didn't, he would smack the set on the top or the side, one short, sharp blow. That was your on-demand back in the day.

A lot of people, perhaps one whole generation and portions of two others, did a decade's worth of  growing up "in winter 1963 when it felt like the world would freeze."
-bill kenny

More than a Day Late

I offered this thirteen years ago and never thought of it again until just now. Just in time to again miss The Great American Smoke-Out which was actually last week. I think I may have forgotten to set my calendar back when we ended Daylight Saving Time. Speaking of time this is from 2009 and called it: 

(No) Smokin' in the Boys' Room

Because I stopped years ago (on 30 September 1996) this year's Smoke-Out Day went by in a puff of --well, you know what kind of puff. I smoked three packs a day for about twenty-two years. I started out smoking Pall Mall Reds (my father had smoked them for all the years growing up as a kid that he smoked before he quit). 

They were a cigarette other new smokers (we were all college kids and let's just admit that smoking tobacco was akin at times to a palate cleansing exercise and leave it at that, okay?) were reluctant to bum as they were unfiltered so you needed to dry lip or you flossed to remove tobacco from between your teeth.

I'm not a former smoker-I'm a recovering smoker. I don't know if it was the nicotine or the tobacco or whatever chemicals were supposedly put in cigarettes, but I was, and am, addicted to and always will be. Even to this day, I miss smoking a cigarette, despite everything I know and believe to be true about the health dangers associated with it. 

And, hand on my heart but also on my wallet, smoking now is a danger to my precarious financial health. (Now sounding like an old codger, mainly because I am) I can remember back in the day, at the Air Force commissary at Rhein-Main buying a carton of cigarettes for (maybe) six dollars. By then, I'd traded up through Pall Mall Golds to Benson & Hedges. Now, if I'm reading the signs correctly, it's north of eleven dollars a pack with over $4.50 in taxes, federal, state, and whatever anyone can get away with.

I was in the last generation to watch TV ads for cigarettes and remember slogans like "I'd Rather Fight than Switch!", "A Silly Millimeter Longer, 101" and "Come to Where the Flavor Is". Look at the kinescopes and gyroscopes of old TV shows, including newscasts, and you'll see Chet Huntley (of Huntley and Brinkley) smoking on the news set, on camera. Cigarettes were everywhere-there were "Show Us Your Lark Pack" commercials that eventually provoked the genius who was Stan Freberg to respond as only he could.

I stopped completely because I knew if I didn't, I'd die from some health condition created or aggravated by smoking. That my health is so poor now makes me smile, albeit ruefully, at how the Lord's sense of humor is so often puckish (and 'p' isn't my first choice for the first letter).

The biggest challenge after I stopped was what to do in the car while driving. It was the most natural thing in the world for me after putting the car in gear, just to light up a cigarette and for many months after I stopped smoking I struggled. It was odd, too, to get used to how food tasted when you finally descended from the cloud of smoke. 

On the other hand, I didn't miss that 'licked an ashtray' feeling in my mouth when I first awakened. And oddest of all, and to this day I don't get it, all the years I smoked I couldn't smell cigarettes on someone else, simply unable to detect it, and now, I get almost ill when standing next to someone on an escalator who was just smoking.

I try to take it easy on people who continue to smoke, because I appreciate how hard it is to give it up, even for a day even with all we know about what happens to us if we can't stop. So if you struggled with the nicotine monkey last week and were able to keep him at bay for the day, good on you, and maybe today, you can take another step. 

And if you tried but couldn't do it, don't worry-you have the power to make any day you want your very own smoke-out day. Nowadays, you can kick the butts in the butt, if you so desire and save your Zippos for concerts assuming Ticketmaster can figure out how to empty your pockets to pay for them.

-bill kenny

Days of Miracles and Wonder

We live in a most amazing but frustrating age.

As residents of a planet where around the world via the electric fire of television, we watched the murder of a President, a walk (actually more like a skip) on the moon, the tearing down of a Wall that divided a continent and a nation, and the destruction of buildings and thousands of lives in a flash of jet fuel, steel, and glass, it's sometimes easy to forget we are, each of us, skin-covered miracles.

Helping underscore this assumption (actually for me, more like an article of faith) I can offer you only one item as 'proof', conceding I don't know that it proves anything but that every day we get up and amaze and amuse, often in unequal parts, the other eight billion of us on this ant farm (with beepers) we call home.

Somedays are so hard, it's almost impossible to celebrate yourself, no matter how important that is to do--it's okay, watch this, and celebrate someone else, and know we can do this, too.
-bill kenny

Despite Popular Demand

I didn't watch the Petulant Peach's announcement Tuesday night. I mean, of course, I knew he was going to run again for the office of President; his ego will not allow him to concede that he lost in 2020. And I would've learned nothing new by listening to him though I did learn a word the day after his speech that belled the cat, recrudescence. It's a word from the 17th century meaning the return of something unpleasant after a period of relief. Bingo (or Donald).

I'm still struggling with the fact that he promised us when/if he lost, we'd never hear from him again, And yet what happened? We've heard from him practically every God damn day since. I mean, some of us suffer in silence. Why couldn't Trump have tried it, too? 

I was hoping folks from the Department of Justice would walk right up to the dais and slap the cuffs on him right then and there and then frog march him off the stage and into a police car. 

That the response, so far to his announcement, has been underwhelming means nothing. Huge numbers of those 'in the know' thought he was a joke as he rode down the escalator in the Trump Tower to announce the last time and look at what a car crash that turned out it be. 

 

He's sort of like syphilis on the body politic and no amount of of antibiotic will cure us. How can we miss him if he never goes away?
-bill kenny

 

OTD

This might have fallen through the cracks if not for CNN's 5 Things.

On November 18, 1928, Disney icon Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in the short film “Steamboat Willie.” That means Mickey -- and Minnie -- are 94 years old. 

HBD! 
-bill kenny

Jayna Ledford's Journey

Four or five hundred years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth I worked for American Forces Radio, headquartered at the time, in Frankfurt am Main, (West) Germany. I had the easiest job in the world and some of the most fun you can have with your clothes (you had to be there, trust me on that). 

As part of the NATO shield protecting Western Europe from those Commie bastards trying to enslave the world, all of us in uniform were dedicated (more or less) to defending everyone no matter who they were, or as I used to say on the air every evening, '...you may be whomever you wish to be...'

Fast forward forty years. We're a little more than halfway through Transgender Awareness Week, so I apologize for being late to the party, but am sincere when I insist that equal rights for all means just that, Equal Rights for All, no matter who you choose to be. 

If you still have questions, you probably need to find another briefing.
-bill kenny 

Keep Your Hands to Your (S)Elf

Now that ‘real’ November weather has arrived (meteorologists, seemingly, also have ‘supply chain disruptions’ who knew?) and who among us believes it was a coincidence that the balmy temperatures and most especially the hot air disappeared right after election day, we can finally get suited up for The Holiday Season (THS).

If you’ve been watching TV, scrolling online, or reading newspapers, it can’t have escaped your notice that we’ve already entered the city limits of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Caroling and Eggnog Sold Separately).  It can’t be just me, but doesn’t it feel like the year is accelerating? Perhaps because the clock hands shifted, the days are all shorter and more packed with activities. 

I’ll admit I wasn’t feeling the Spirit of the Season when the marketing barrage started in the run-up to Halloween. I am not a fan of shopping at any time of the year but especially now. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the holidays but get overwhelmed by the Schlep to the Mall, being elbow (and other body parts) deep in crowds, and hunting and gathering presents that, instead of hoping for peace on earth, leave me wishing every person between me and the cashier would end up in a place so warm there’s no need for scarves or sweaters.

I’m in search of the gifts of craftsmanship, originality, and proximity, and (just in time), I can find all three in abundance this Saturday from nine until two at the 14th Annual O’tis a Festival at (where else?) the Otis Library. 

And if you’re someone who does enjoy the hunt for that just-right something for Someone Special, Otis will be packed to the rafters with crafters and many local area artisans offering some pretty amazing items suitable for gifting to others (and, truth be told, maybe keeping for yourself) to include a variety of handmade items ranging from artwork, clothing, jewelry, pottery, and woodworking together with events and activities all day long for children and the young at heart.

I know you get tired of my saying this, but I do it because it’s true: Downtown Norwich looks to Otis Library the way the fingers of the hand look to the thumb. Located practically in the geographic center, Otis is the heart of Down City and events like Saturday’s are an important part of our city’s lifeblood. 

A decade ago, there was very nearly nothing downtown, aside from potential. And now, after a lot of work from a small army of folks, there are many businesses of all varieties lining the streets in every direction around the library with even more on the way. 

Some say our downtown is small; I prefer ‘compact,’ with restaurants, shops, and scenic harbor locales all within easy walking distance of one another and conveniently near acres of free municipal parking that step-for-step places you closer to it all than if you went to a mall. I’d strongly encourage you to bring along a discouraged expert who’s convinced ‘there’s nothing going on in Norwich’ and then listen to them change their tune. Sort of like a holiday miracle. 

We talk a lot around here about ‘shopping local.’ Saturday’s O’tis a Festival is a golden opportunity to not just talk the talk but to walk it as well.
-bill kenny

Declare the Pennies on Your Eyes

I'm smiling but I'm also quaking (not 'quacking' Congresswoman Margarine Trailerpark Greed) reading this email I received the other day. When despite all odds and some oft-voiced wishes you've reached the age of seventy stuff like this does creep you out a little bit.

Hi William,

Most people don't plan their own funerals.

I think that should change.

So my Direct-to-Consumer startup Titan Casket is offering a first-of-its-kind deal this Black Friday: Buy a casket for your future funeral, get a $50 discount now, and save your family from spending thousands of dollars more at the time of need (hopefully) many, many years from now.

I call this our "Pre-Plan-Your-Casket" Program. The $50 Black Friday discount can be unlocked on our website with the code FUNERALRULE - in reference to the FTC law requiring funeral homes to accept our cost-effective caskets.

I can talk to Norwich Bulletin about my pre-planning program.

I'm also happy to chat about the crazy experience two weeks ago of having Taylor Swift pop out of our casket in her Anti-Hero music video.

Cheers,
--
Joshua Siegel
Co-Founder & COO
Titan Casket

1-501-420-3990
josh@titancasket.com
titancasket.com

I'm wondering if I'd be able to talk him into a commission for every sale I steer his way.
-bill kenny 

Leaf Well Enough Alone

One of the downsides to living where there are four seasons is the transition from summer to autumn, especially for the trees and their leaves. I am very much of the 'live and let live' persuasion which translates to the 'lie and let them lay' position on leave gathering, especially since I have NO trees on my property and so I refuse to get involved in this leaf-sweeping operation. 

I've noticed in my neighborhood, some of us have gathered so many, it's as if we're waiting for them to fall from the trees and nab them on the first bounce. In many places, I've seen these VERY large paper bags filled with leaves-in theory because the paper is biodegradable, all of it can go directly into the landfill--or do you think they're headed for incinerators? Around here we have trash to power incineration units though I've no idea how much energy we get from such an operation. 

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

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

I think leaf blowers are a much more accurate and contemporary symbol of America in the 21st Century than either the Bald Eagle or the Stars & Stripes. There's nothing that says "Screw You!!" more than a guy on a Saturday afternoon working a leaf blower wearing dark shades with Ibuds in both ears. 

I'd ask him why he's doing what he's doing, but he's as oblivious to me right now as I am to him for the rest of the year. Ahh, Sweet Suburbia. We've got Mother Nature on the run--now what?
-bill kenny

Java Jive

I don't remember who it was, but at some point in the recent past, an instant coffee maker advertised that its coffee was freeze-dried before they stuck it in the glass jars and shipped it to the grocer.  

I dimly recall drinking it for some period of time because when you get up at 0300 for work basically six days a week, you have to reach some point more or less in the middle of the morning before you're awake enough to actually appreciate freshly brewed coffee from beans. 

Having had the freeze-dried stuff, I found this story on deep-fried coffee vaguely appealing. 

Not enough to try it, mind you, but interesting enough to watch as I let my cuppa grow cold.
-bill kenny

Already Have the Bod

Here's something you may not know, but trust me it's true. After your children grow up and start on the adventures that are to be their lives, you will always see them as small children. 

We have tons of photos but I don't need any of them as I tell myself that I remember every day of their growing up even though I suspect I'm kidding myself about that. I'm assuming to make room for all those memories I've had to delete a lot of formerly (in an earlier lifetime) useful stuff like how to fix cars and throw a perfect spiral pass. 

Which leads me to bad and then good science news. First on the face of it, bad news. On the other hand, who wants a wrinkly brain, anyway? 

But that grey cloud is wrapped around this silver lining. 

Dad brain? Yes, two servings, please!
-bill kenny

The Nation Which Forgets Its Defenders

I wrote what follows a dozen years ago. I think it bears repeating.

Today began as Armistice Day, marking the end of "The War to End All Wars" also known as World War One, but sadly, failing to achieve its goal, hence the numerical suffix. For most of the thirty-five nations who fought in it, it lasted the better part of five years, from 1914 to 1918; we in the United States didn't become a combatant until 1917 but made up in ferocity of engagement what we lacked in the length of deployment. 

The world one hundred or so years ago was very different than the one in which we live and is so unlike today that it's as if it were another universe. If we survive as a country and culture for another one hundred years, what will now look like to those here then, I wonder.

There are many observances around the country today. Like ours in Norwich, Connecticut,  the ceremonies are often simple with little pomp and circumstance as is probably most befitting to celebrate a well-shared national experience. In 2020, the last year I could find verifiable statistics, there were about eighteen million veterans among us. 

We honor all those who serve in our nation's armed forces, living and deceased. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the size of our veteran population, the imperative and importance of taking care of all those who are wounded in body and/or in spirit, grows exponentially. 

Veterans Day remembers and recognizes all the characteristics embodied by those who serve as well as those who wait for them which allows us to remain the freest nation in the history of the world.

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

The elections earlier this week both capped and sparked a lot of discussion and more, that fixated on attempting to determine what's wrong with our nation and who is responsible. Today is a day to remember all that is right with us, and with one another.
-bill kenny

Never Have I Ever

I think no matter where you live you've played a variant of Truth or Dare at some point in your life. Looking back at seven-plus decades I'm reconciling myself to the idea that I've been involved in a very prolonged game of it for decades at a time it seems. As a matter of fact, I'm so good at it I may not always realize I'm still playing.

Got stuck early on in the verse about 'please her, please him, buy gifts, don't steal, don't lift, twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift.' As it happened, I was a bit light on the education but made up for it with the shi(f)t work. 

However. Something I've told myself I'd love to do is check out hot air balloons like these, except even while typing that statement I will also acknowledge I don't like flying in airplanes and some of the longest moments of my life have been in helicopters while either shooting video or just being a passenger.  

And yet, the attraction remains. Maybe it should be called Truth and Dare?
-bill kenny 

If You Can Believe in Something Bigger than Yourself

This Friday, Veterans Day is a day off, and maybe an opportunity to get a head start on Christmas shopping for many of us. Yeah, I know most of us have more wishes than wallets but we're getting to the point of the calendar where events seem to pile up on top of one another. 

I'd hope you could spare the time Friday even if you are shopping to find an observance, there will be more than conducted across the region, honoring some, most, and actually ALL of those who've worn the uniform of our Armed Forces just to make note of their sacrifice and of their service. 

Veterans Day gets confused often with Memorial Day, but from its beginnings, as the pause at eleven minutes after the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 to mark the end of World War I (the war to end all wars-who says The Lord has no sense of humor?), it's much more universal and more all-encompassing.

Veterans Day, if I'm being honest (and savor this because it doesn't happen that often) is one of the few days of the entire year when I remember my family's ties to haircuts, uniforms, shoe shines, and open-rank inspections. I served eight years in the Air Force; everyone who served with me has often (and very loudly) said it felt longer and then I worked for the Department of Defense for another thirty-five years. 

I think about my dad's two brothers, Uncle George (his older brother, Michael's real name. No one ever told me why he was called George. George was in the US Army stationed in Germany and went home to California to work for Sparkletts (who bought drinking water in the 1950s, Los Angelenos, that's who) with his braut, Mitzi)) and his younger brother, Uncle Jack, who spent almost a career in the USAF before his wife, Alice, died of cancer and he was left to raise their tribe of children by himself.

I recall my mother's two younger brothers, Uncle Jim (on the US Army CISM swim team. Jim served in the Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He smoked Camel cigarettes that he opened from the bottom of each pack) and Uncle John (who was wounded at Pork Chop Hill during America's nearly-forgotten war, Korea).

John should have never been in the Army because he could only see out of one eye. When the doctor administered the vision test, he covered his bad eye with his left hand and read the chart. When the doctor told him to 'change eyes', John switched hands but continued to cover the bad eye. 

All of them were ordinary men, as were all of those with whom they served. The famous people who are mentioned in our history books are only possible because of all of those whose names are NOT in them. All made extraordinary sacrifices for generations unborn and never to be known by any of them. That's what Friday is all about.

There will be a small event Friday starting at one o'clock at the Richard Hourigan Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 594 in the Norwich Business Park, sponsored by the post and the Norwich Area Veterans Council (NAVC). 

I always try to attend even though I don't know anyone from either the VFW or NAVC. They don't seem to mind that I tag along and I'm pretty sure they'd be okay if you came, too. You could sit near me, as oddly, there's always plenty of room.

The ceremony is not so much somber as respectful usually with guest speakers who do what they can to help us to remember to say thank you to anyone who ever wore a uniform, wherever and whenever that might have been. As times change and we age, memories are sometimes our most precious possessions, and observances like the one Friday help keep them alive and part of our shared experience. I hope you'll remember to attend.
-bill kenny

It's Frighteningly Simple

I live in a town with a population of slightly under 40,000 residents and just over 20,000 registered voters. 

When all is said and done today, I'll be dancing on the ceiling if 40% of all those who are eligible to vote have decided to do so. It's not usually that large a turnout around here, or anywhere it seems to me unless we're talking a Presidential election year even though the last time I checked, the President didn't have a vote in either the upper or lower house of our state legislature, whose members we are choosing today, or is also one of our Senators, any of our five congressional representatives or our Governor. 

But we'll all still stay home because complaining about problems is a lot easier than attempting to do anything to fix them.  And besides, why bother, right? 

Sort of a choice of cancer or polio, ain't it? Sorry, no it's not. 

You have these azzholes, and every and any variation of them you can imagine (picture the last days of the Weimar Republic but with lots of red baseball caps) with my personal favorites being the ones who want me to move on or attempt to 'whatabout?' all of their shady shit at every level of government for the last six years with me. It's called gaslighting. Look it up.  

The choice on any ballot is the same on every ballot everywhere and everywhere today.

Now stop reading this stuff and if you haven't already voted, go do that now, please.
Subject to your questions, this concludes my briefing.

-bill kenny

Awaken from this Illusion

By now you've almost discovered all the clocks and assorted timepieces you didn't set back an hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning when Daylight Saving Time ended. Don't be sheepish about it; I have it happen every time we do this leap forward or fall back dance. 

You glanced at the dashboard display in your vehicle and your pulse raced for just a moment this morning as you feared you were late for work or perhaps an assignation only to catch yourself and remember, perhaps smiling ruefully in your rear-view mirror.

Think of all of the beasts of the earth and name me another who has created the artificial divisions of time we have. I'm hard-pressed to think of another species wearing a wristwatch and who among them has an opposable thumb to hit the display button on the cell phone and learn the time? Just us-the only species with the ways and means to destroy ourselves and the entire planet. Would seem to be a built-in incentive to invest this 'extra' hour in some manner of self-improvement or benefit to the planet.

Between now and March 12, 2023 (assuming we're all here at that time), when we 'spring forward' again we will have lived through 127 days, 3,048 hours, 182,880 minutes, or (gulp!) 10,972,800 seconds (Talk about blink and miss it.).

Do you have plans for even one percent of all this time? Would you share those plans with me, because all I have is what I'm doing right now, fretting at a keyboard in a kind of motionless glide.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."  

Perhaps nothing more than the time to awaken from the dream of life and live.
-bill kenny

A Generation of Still-Breeding Thoughts

This time today was yesterday when it was already yesterday. This morning in the wee, dark early hours, we fell back an hour (I've always liked how we keep that straight, 'spring ahead' and 'fall back' and that 'wander stupidly like a drunken lemur' I hear so often is, I guess, only used to describe me) all across the country.

I've never been clear how much of the rest of the world does this time-travel-but-standing-very still-stuff although daylight saving time is utilized across significant portions of the earth's Northern Hemisphere. 

I've always wondered about hourly employees working overnight shifts when the clocks change directions....do they work seven and get paid for eight in the Spring and then work nine and get paid for eight in the fall? Is there a law or a workplace practice that covers this and why on earth is a seventy-year-old retiree, pecking away at a keyboard in Norwich, Connecticut, worrying about stuff like this? When you have no life, interest in the obscure becomes a crusade.

The why we move clocks forward and back is the part I will NEVER understand no matter how erudite the explanation. Science makes my hair hurt. And that's another thing I don't understand.

We share the planet with a nearly infinite number of other life forms from single-celled amino acids to the full scale and scope of the abiogenesis catalog (now available for only three easy payments, and if use your credit card right now...), and none of them have watches much less the concern for time and its division and measurement that we, Homo sapiens, have.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day/Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. And then we look up in surprise and dismay at the time and wonder where it's gone when it hasn't gone anywhere. The end of a television program, a movie, a radio serial, or other entertainment, a relationship with another person or business, or a political alliance. All past tense now.

You don't have to be Richard to have misgivings about time and what we do with it. Merely being human will qualify. "I'll leave the sun behind me and I'll watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by....I can see the world and it ain't so big at all. This time tomorrow."

-bill kenny

Move It to the Exits

Probably NOT just me, but (so far) this year has been, for the most part, another shit show just like the more recent ones we've had (a pattern I find distressing) so why do we continue to do the forth and back with our clocks and watches, as happens tonight (technically tomorrow morning) at 2 AM is beyond me. 

Show of hands: who's happy about getting an extra hour, a heaping helping, and a double-dollop, of 2022? Yeah, That's what I thought. 

I'm already trying to guess which clock I'll find about this time next week or so and whose hands I completely forgot about during the great Fall Back of 2022. 
-bill kenny 

Jimmy Webb to the Red Courtesy Phone

If the title is a puzzler you are either younger than I am (a very dangerous place to be emotionally, trust me on that) or you didn't pay enough attention to the little records with the big holes (45 rpm) when we were all kids going up.  

Here, let me save you some time. Yeah, pretty amazing stuff. I was introduced to him with his work for Glen Campbell and then, of course, MacArthur Park (prefer Richard to Donna but to each his own) but I will always love his work with, and for, The Fifth Dimension. 

He may or may not have commercially peaked (I was going to type a different turn of phrase but this is supposed to be a family-friendly space) by the time he collaborated with Frank Sinatra but who am I to say? 

I think if you were to wonder why I thought of him when I watched this clip, we'd both agree it probably means (fingers crossed) absolutely nothing.
-bill kenny

Four Legs Good

More and more of us around the world are struggling to make ends meet. Somehow, someone has moved the ends and the means that we had are no longer even close to sufficing. 

But so many suffer in silence that I'm encouraged to try it myself. 

At first, I found this news story funny. But now I think I'm pissed. 

I'm so angry in fact, I'm gonna re-read Animal Farm and this time I'm not gonna cry when Boxer gets into the van.
-bill kenny 

Somewhere Between the Soul and the Soft Machine

I wanted to write about where we could be a week from today, which by my calendar is the day after election day, when, depending on your politics, the world will have either been saved or ended. 

Except, I think we’d agree in the heat of the hyper-partisan atmosphere in which we are all trying to live, neither outcome will be true. And I apologize that’s not a more cheerful insight to offer you while also exhorting you to use your vote as your voice next Tuesday.

Lost in the trick-or-treating, costuming and who-knows-what is that Monday’s Halloween began as All Hallows Eve (Vigil of the Solemnity of All Saints), a reference to yesterday's Feast of All Saints (which in these commercial endorsement times, you may be surprised is NOT an extra value meal offered by a fast-food chain).

As a grade schooler who found himself a pupil of the Sisters of Charity (not that many of us saw much of that) at Saint Peter School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, we knew All Saints' Day was a holy day of obligation.

I came of age, if not reason, in the Catholic Church as Vatican II was just beginning so things like celebrating the Mass in English rather than in Latin or, more significantly, being able to attend Mass on Saturday afternoon to satisfy the Sunday obligation simply did not exist. I know, what a kid remembers, right?

Today, All Souls' Day, however, was for me the saddest of all the dates on the calendar (ours in the kitchen had the names of saints in the date blocks for every day with sometimes more than just one saint’s name in the block).

Considering what a hash I have made of the faith into which I was born and baptized, I will not be amazed if I got this part wrong tool but in my memory, we have Three Churches: The Church Triumphant (those who have died and gone to heaven), The Church Militant (those of us still on earth) and The Church Suffering (those who have died in a state of grace but who still have penance to do for their sins and so they are in Purgatory).

That last group was the people we always prayed for in Catholic school and the part I used to find especially sad was the notion that there was no fixed amount of time a soul stayed in Purgatory. So, you could be praying, I thought pragmatically, as a child of eight, for someone who either had made it to Heaven or was still suffering. I suspect His Holiness and the Curia would shake their heads in bewilderment at my concerns

The part I never understood was what happened to souls in Purgatory when everyone they had known while on earth had also died because now they had no one left who remembered them and who could pray for them. Being abandoned for all eternity terrified me, and it still does. That we always had All Souls Day just as daylight saving time was ending and darkness fell everywhere and earlier made it all that much more frightening.

I'm not sure what happened to my childhood faith but on this one day of each year, and I'm not certain I'm helping anyone with any prayer I could offer (considering the source), I still say one anyway, just in case.
-bill kenny