I offered this a couple of years ago on Earth Day as the COVID-19 pandemic was accelerating and the lockdown to mitigate it was taking hold.
I offered then as I will again now, that we shouldn't crap where we eat. My larger point is that plagues like COVID-19 and other ecological and environmental disasters we are inflicting upon ourselves will eventually kill us. Earth Day is as good a time as any to recognize our place in the world and acknowledge our world is so much more than just us.
Not that you asked but I accidentally ended up in the first-ever Earth Day Parade in New York City back in 1970 as a pimply prep school know-it-all. And now, a half-century later, don't know about you but I have clear skin and not only still know it all but now think I know it all better. Kidding with the last part of the previous sentence but you knew that.
I've organized a virtual walk for us from Chelsea Parade to Norwich Harbor because this is my space in the ether and that's what I'd like to do. I hope you're wearing sensible shoes, virtual or otherwise, and other items of comfortable clothing because we have some ground to cover.
Actually, you can stay right where you are, standing or sitting. I've walked this distance so often in the three-plus decades of life here I can do it in my sleep (more or less) and I have no fear of getting lost as so many people I've met along the route have told me where to go. I always grab photos, so let me share some of the places we would be walking to and past if we were walking at all.
Normally, or as close to it as I ever get, I walk down Washington Street using the Shoreline Access that heads down to the Yantic River behind the now-shuttered Christ Episcopal Church (and wouldn't that make a great [place for that community center we're always talking about but never doing anything to make happen?) as I make my way along the Heritage Trail under the Sweeney Bridge, with Thayer's Marine on the opposite shore over on Hollyhock Island, passing under the spur of Route 82 that takes traffic past the Intermodal Transportation Center to Chelsea Harbor Drive.
Mother Nature has reclaimed a lot of where the Putts Up Dock mini-golf course used to be facing the Marina at American Wharf where I remember the volcano being most especially overgrown. The Norwich Harbor stretches out to our right as we walk towards Howard T. Brown Park.
No matter the day, the time, or the weather, there's always a large gaggle of seagulls, ducks, swans, and geese near the boat launch, hoping none of us know how to read the signs posted by the CT DEEP to not feed any of the waterfowl. The gulls sail overhead on the wind currents from the harbor and all the other birds do that paddle-in-place thing while waiting for a dropped french fry or random piece of bread.
As you stand near the Chelsea Landing sign beyond the gazebo you can almost see forever down the Thames River, or at least as far as the Thermos Condominiums over on Laurel Hill as the river continues into the Long Island Sound and, in turn, the Atlantic Ocean.
I'd like to think that perhaps someone somewhere on a European shore is gazing upon that same Atlantic at the very moment we are so that in a way we're still all together, no matter how far apart we are. Be it today, Earth Day, and every day.
-bill kenny
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