Dip a Toe in the Ocean

The first full week of Autumn is approaching its end (which means, since I'm a half-full-glass kind of guy, winter is closer now than it was last Friday, BUT the end of winter is also a week closer) and with baseball playoffs nearing (not so fast Red Sox, Mets, and Yankees fans!), and high school, college and pro football all battling for our attention while the gridlock in Washington DC (Disruptive Contention) continues, there's the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other of daily life on this Big Blue Marble to which to attend.

And we're the ones who do it; and sometimes, inadvertently (and other times maliciously) do it to one another. I tried one day last week to count all the local elections going on this November across these fifty mostly United States and gave up as the number was staggering. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care or that we should become passive; on the contrary. "I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Part of what makes this country this country and not somebody elses' are the tens of billions of hours of volunteer effort that we invest in making where we live a better place. Do you doubt my number? Go to your local town hall and see where the notices of meetings are posted-then find out how many of your neighbors are involved in the various groups that are meeting, and calculate the amount of time those meetings take (And don't forget to add the prep time and the follow-up time). How's that calculator doing now? Yeah, that's what I thought.

And there's always a need for more help, never less. I know, there's band practice after school and the falling leaves will not rake themselves, though how cool would that be? And there are a hundred other reasons for leaving all the lugging and tugging to someone else, but I suspect Washington had better things to do a long time ago on a cold winter's night when someone said 'There's a rowboat across the Delaware in ten minutes, George, be on it.' 

There will always be another river to cross so let's hope it's always standing room only in the boat as we all put our backs into the oars.

-bill kenny