All Hallows Even...

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 sociologists theorize 19th-century Irish immigrants brought with them that helped create our current observance/holiday/day on which to go gluttonous on chocolate. 

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 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 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 in that house later that same evening? Me neither.

My 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

Witness the Man Who Raves at the Wall

E=MC2
By Rosser Reeves

Some day, perhaps, some alien eye or eyes,

Blood red in cold and polished horny lids,

Set in a chitinous face

Will sweep the arch of some dark, distant sky

And see a nova flare,

A flick of light, no more.

A pinpoint on a photographic plate,

A foot-note in an alien chart of stars

Forgotten soon on miles of dusty shelves

Where alien beetles feed.

A meal for worms,

Sole epitaph

To mark the curious end of restless man,

Who for a second of galactic time

Floated upon a speck of cosmic dust

Around a minor sun.

(thanks to Charles Lutz)
-bill kenny

That's Why I Love Mankind

Though I walk through the valley of death...

As opposed to Hidden Valley.
-bill kenny

The Attitude of Gratitude

 Thankful makes what we have all that we need.

Pursue what captures your heart, not your eye.
-bill kenny

Music to My Ears

I have collected recorded music almost all of my life. Somewhere I still have a single I made my mom buy me when I was still in short pants, "At the Hop" by Danny & the Juniors. Knowing how my dad was about all things rock and roll as a kid, I can only imagine his facial expression whenever he heard me play that song.  

I am now half-past seventy-one years of age. I own thousands upon thousands of albums and nearly half as many compact discs. I don't care for streaming services-they rip off artists and they screw listeners. 

I mention ALL of this because this is my idea of an enjoyable read. 
-bill kenny

My Drone Sleeps Alone

I have a  cell phone that I use primarily to take photographs and to listen to music. It does many other things including making and receiving telephone calls. I just don't do either of those very well with it and have at times in the past handed the phone to passers-by while it was ringing and asked them to answer it for me because I lack the ability to do that on a recurring basis.  

I mention that because I wanted you to understand how desperately I want to have a drone camera. Not as bad as I'd like pony rides for my birthday but really close. I own two drone camera setups. One runs via an app on my phone and the other is a stand-alone with cards that you load into your computer. Both brochures and videos are very impressive. 

So impressive I'm afraid to take either one out of the box and try to use it. I have had each of them for well over a year or so and you've heard of the expression, 'when pigs fly'? I'm hopeful one of the porcine photographers will share their footage with me if you follow my drift. I'm afraid of crashing them into a house, a car, or a building of some kind, or losing them in the Uncas Leap Falls that I really want to get drone footage of from overhead, and never will because the drone is in the box it came in. 

And just today, I learned a whole NEW reason to be afraid of flying a drone.
Make me an offer.
-bill kenny

You Can Always Go

The days are shorter now and grow even more so with every passing week.  The darkness of the evening creeps quietly closer and the morning seems to take a moment longer before the daylight arrives. The crispness of the morning lingers a little longer into each day, reminding us that autumn is not so much coming as it’s already here. 

These weeks when summer has moved on, but the winter doldrums have yet to arrive can be a great time for projects, and as it happens, there’s a great project ahead of us here in Norwich. You may have seen Matt Grahn’s article in The Bulletin a couple of weeks ago, ”'Make it a safer and friendlier place': Downtown Norwich mobility study needs public input” 

I know, back to school, and other projects sometimes mean all we do is glance at headlines and mean to circle back. This would be a good day to do that; actually, it would be a great day to do that and a little more.

The article details a public information meeting slated for this afternoon at Otis Library starting at five with a presentation about the Chelsea Harbor Harbor/Downtown Mobility Study. Actually, the presentation is only half of the project, the other half is a project website, and (I think), most importantly, a survey that will take you less than ten minutes to fill out.

Opinions about downtown are very much like noses. We all have one and they smell. But what might happen if you decided to share one or more of your ideas about traffic, sidewalks, streetlights, or storefronts, among dozens of other items that are part of the mosaic of downtown, and in turn, it sparks someone else's idea and we have some spontaneous communication and collaboration?

Seriously, what if we stopped seeing downtown as an obstacle to race through on our way to someplace else with the windows rolled up, and instead, as a resource and destination for ideas, innovations, one-of-a-kind shops, and even forums-public spaces for different publics.    

Let’s back up for a second and think about this as well: when we say ‘downtown’ what exactly are we talking about? Where does downtown start and end? And don’t tell me you haven’t wondered about that from time to time.

I know, ‘yet another study?!’ Agreed. It’s not like we haven’t had enough of them right, and you’re correct to be wary of another bite at the apple. After all, in just the thirty-odd years I’ve lived here (and yes, they have been odd) if we took ALL the downtown Norwich studies that have been commissioned over the years and laid them end to end, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t reach a conclusion.

Trust me, says Lucy to Charlie Brown, this time it’s for real. I’m trying to be humorous, at a serious moment. The survey is critical to jump-starting a process we’ve allowed to languish and linger for too long. The comforting thing about never making decisions about downtown, or anywhere for that matter, is when it all falls apart, none of it is our fault. And we can keep blaming ‘them’ whoever they are.

Nothing holds us back like the fear of moving forward. Take a minute to look at the website, fill out the survey, and find a way to take part in this afternoon’s presentation. When it comes to downtown’s future, victim or victor: Our choice.
-bill kenny

No Parking in Lower Manhattan

If you stopped by today to see if I was celebrating the birthday of the United Nations, you are most definitely in a less-than-correct place. 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, (more likely not). Sorry natal anniversaries are happening a little closer to home in this case.

Happy Birthday to my brother Kelly whom you nearly knew a few years ago as His Holiness Pope Kelly I (and only, I'm guessing). I’m not sure ‘better luck next time’ is appropriate unless I say it in Latin, more or less ‘iterum felicius!’ Yes, I’m one of the reasons why Holy Mother Church went to the English language mass.  

Technically, he was almost the Pope but only because, as it turned out, not all bears do $hit in the woods all the time, and because of that technicality, the Curia decided otherwise. I hope they are still happy with Pope Francis ("I" sold separately).

It turns out, that two of the electors may have been monkeys and their antipathy towards my brother knows no bounds. Or is it the other way? I get confused sometimes probably because I have seen Kelly only sporadically since returning to the USA over thirty-two years ago, and yes, some of my other siblings are jealous of his good fortune why are you asking? 

But despite the time and distance of separation, we are, I think, still close in critical respects. We have the same slightly jaundiced view of the world; he is a Rangers devotee and I like Chuck Norris (as an example). I could go on but why, right?

So, later today, when you finally ransom your car back from the clutches of NYPD impound and 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, would've had to have been invented. Happy Birthday!
-bill kenny

Trading Luck for Skill

I came across that expression the other day and, literalist that I am, thought of the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of small and quiet decisions that households across this nation make on a daily and weekly basis as the economic tides continue to threaten to pull so many of us under.

A non-economist acquaintance once shared 'When you're out of a job, it's a recession; when I'm out of a job, it's a depression' and I suspect there's more to that than meets the eye. I look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ every day, including days when the stock markets aren't even open, and have no idea what any of the numbers mean, in a large scale or at my personal level.

I don't think I'm alone. We all assumed or did until it turned out the whole house of cards decided to reshuffle itself, that someone somewhere knew and understood what it was we were doing for most of the last decade. Like Wimpy, offering to gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today knowing full well we would have no money on Tuesday, we just kept adding days to the calendar and hoped Tuesday wouldn't arrive.

When we got things right, we had no idea what we did to produce those positive results so, not surprisingly we couldn't duplicate them, so when things started to go south, we went with them. It's hard to not be superstitious, in times of stress we rely more on routines, they offer us the appearance of the familiar, the known, and the comfortable and serve, in their way, as a mantra against a world we cannot otherwise manage.
-bill kenny

Short and Sweet Literally

Washed up in my spam filter, season to taste.

The world is a wondrous place, if you don't watch out. 

-bill kenny

Borrowing from Another Bill

 "Don't go changing to try and please me.
You never let me down before, mmm

Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far, mmm

I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

Look at these kids! 21 October 1977

Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair, mmm

You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard, mmm

I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew

Oh, but what will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you, that's forever
And this I promise from the heart, mmm

I couldn't love you any better
I love you just the way you are, right

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard, mmm

I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are."

willibaldo

Got Real Real Fast Forty--Six Years Ago

Holding on for life is easy when you know it's for life.

And I would do it again and again.
--bill kenny

 

Made the Scene

We've had a decidedly November chill to our days this October week here in Southeastern Connecticut. When walking I watch the trees fill up with all the birds who migrate as they get organized for their southern sojourn while the sparrows and blue jays and whatever some of the other year-rounders are called (right along the shore, there are sandpipers but that's the limit to my ornithological ability) sit around on the grass searching for food

The half dozen or so squirrels I used to feed during the dog days of July heat have been reduced to one lonely visitor who leaps from the ground to my back stoop and leans against the new stainless steel door (because he and his chums destroyed the old screen door)trying to peer through it to see what the peanut-dispensing biped is up to that he isn't throwing legumes out the window.

More often than not, he gathers two peanuts together (there's a market for squirrel shopping bags, I imagine, but I don't know how to collect their money) and scampers off, but not too far, to bury the nuts in the large front lawn (one of the nicer things it's been called in recent months) where he remembers where they are though I have no idea how. As the colder months approach, the squirrel seems more single-minded about this routine with every passing day. I'm trying to imagine what the animal uses in October to find the buried peanuts in January. Eco-location?

The squirrel hurries back to the kitchen door because he's in a race with the blue jays who swoop down, grab a peanut, and then give themselves a headache, I believe, standing on a tree branch holding it in their beaks while slamming it into the tree until the shell cracks. I can understand why they prefer bugs and slugs.

There was a day not that long ago that a squirrel and a bird had a difference of opinion that I joined, already in progress. The audio cue had been that annoying yell that blue jays never tire of. He just kept at it and kept it. No less incessant, but barely audible was what I at first thought was a bike tire losing air, a soft, low steady hissing. I looked out the window and saw a squirrel facing off with a bird over a thrown peanut.

One hopped while the other stepped. One cocked its head to one side and scolded loudly and the other stood on its hind legs as if to bow. I threw out some more peanuts hoping to defuse the situation but it was too late-they were captured by the conflict. It was on and gone. All I could do was close the window after promising to feed whichever one showed up the next day.
-bill kenny

Norwich Voter Forum Tonight in Slater Museum

What are you doing tonight? If you’re a registered Norwich voter Norwich your answer should read “Glad you asked! I am going to be in the Slater Museum auditorium at Norwich Free Academy starting at six to participate in both sessions of the debates among the Board of Education candidates followed by a session with those seeking seats on our next City Council.”

Considering, as of today, there are twenty-one (shopping) days until Election Day and we have had ZERO opportunities to listen to anyone seeking office in the Rose City say anything about how they would conduct themselves on our behalf, tonight maybe the proverbial one-time good deal.   

The forum is organized by The League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut (LWVSECT), in collaboration with Latinos for Educational Advocacy and Diversity (LEAD) and the students of Norwich Free Academy (NFA). My thanks to all of them for their generosity and initiative.

People, as you may have noticed, prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not. I don’t pretend to know what the ratio of words to action on any given challenge or opportunity is but I think it’s lopsided in favor of talk. Add to that, is what we in the Air Force used to call The General’s Rule, “Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it.” Strange how when you’re not doing it, how easy a task looks.

We all say, ‘Somebody should do something about…’ (our Grand List, our downtown redevelopment, our public schools-pick an issue. It’s a target-rich environment) and I deeply appreciate the time and talents of all those who volunteer to try to do something.  

I donate widely, if not wisely, to the campaigns of my neighbors because they are kind enough to offer themselves for office and to do those things that must be done for all of us as a community even if many of us in this same community think sometimes the way they go about is wrong.

I don't know how you vote or why and I don't care (and it's none of my business) but I try to choose (I'm not always successful) people who will use their best judgment to achieve a result that benefits the greatest number of those of us with whom they share this city.

Tonight’s forum is for each of us, and for all of us. If you have a question for anyone, be it the Board of Education or City Council, send it now to info.lwvsect@gmail.com.

Too often, candidate forums spend a lot of time rehashing the past-I know we’re a city with a lot of history but there’s no point as far as I’m concerned in looking back. That’s not the direction we’re headed.

I’d ask those vying for a seat on the Board of Education how they individually and collectively would specifically help revitalize the environment of excellence Norwich Public Schools enjoyed when our two were students two decades ago. No glittering generalities.

And I’d ask prospective alderpersons how they see the role and function of the City Council and define what their individual contributions to that Council would and should be.

Too often, very few voters turn out for these, and those who do roll around and make a noise like a marble in a box car. So, I hope you’ll find the time to come and listen, and, hopefully, learn where we’re going and who is holding the map.
-bill kenny

Signs of Trouble

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Patriotism is fundamentally a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born it." He was a real wise guy, wasn't he?  

I'm happy to be an American (sorry, Lee Greenwood) and very proud of my country's accomplishments, but I don't turn a blind eye to where we can do better. I like how Carl Schurz, an immigrant, repurposed the words of Stephen Decatur, "My country right or wrong. If right, to be kept right; if wrong to be set right." 

One person's patriotism can prove to be another's jingoism or xenophobia. Fear of the other isn't a uniquely American failing, but the virulence and violence of the sentiment especially when it becomes more than just an expression borders on a national trait in my opinion.

I watched the Tiki Torch March with its chants of 'Jews Will Not Replace Us' with some bewilderment since here in my corner of the Nutmeg State at the time I had seen no indicators of such baleful ignorance. 

A week ago, while I was out strolling around Chelsea Parade, less than two minutes from my house, I encountered this inanity.

The Meal Team Six YeeHawdists responsible for this obscenity hide among us and will never show their faces and scatter like cockroaches the second ANY light is turned on their activities.

They want to 'take back their country' but from whom, and for whom? Inchoate rage at all manner of grievances, real and/or imagined, can put feet on the street and lead easily to adding blood to it as well. But it takes more energy to be a light than a horn.

Yeah. I took your sign down, Tough Guy.

If you're looking for it, I put it where it belonged: in my trash can. I know, you'll be back. I'll be ready.

-bill kenny

The W(h)ine Aged like Milk

I'd overlooked/forgotten a personal milestone so I'm inflicting a catch-up piece of nostalgia on you. I'll pretend to be sorry about that and you can just shrug and indulge me, or not. 

A skosh over sixteen years ago, I started putting my screams onscreen in this space and have discovered a much larger universe of like-minded people than I could have ever imagined. Reading over this first posting, I'm struck by how the more things change, the more they remain the same. We need to stop laying traps for troubadours; it's not a panacea, but a start.

And to think that I saw it on Norwich's streets

Driving past Washington Street this morning, it looks like a growth industry is the hardware business, selling neighbors large plywood sheets and paint so they can erect signs to yell at one another on the issue of spot zoning.

New signs insisting on the right to do with their property what they wish, possibly from those who've sold options to developers, angry at 'the select few' (as their sign says) who insist this commercial endeavor be turned away.

Another sign boasts about the increase in tax revenues and the additional (service) jobs a new mini-sprawl, I meant mini-mall, will bring to Norwich (even though the pharmacy hailed as 'new' will be the existing one from across town).

Jobs, much like Einstein's matter, can neither be created nor destroyed, at least in development models. If we take six inches from the front of the blanket and put it on the back, the blanket is NOT a foot longer. 

Everyone's signs ignore or seem to, our inability to look ahead and plan accordingly.

When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
Right now, most of us think any movement, even the circles in which we are turning, is the same thing as direction. Most don't know the difference between smart growth and economic development (all ducks ARE birds but not all birds are ducks) and until we learn that, we're fated to waste a lot of time thinking we're having a contest between 'property rights' and 'NIMBY'. It's not really what it's about.

Meanwhile, those whose agenda is not and will NEVER be that of advancement and enhancement of Norwich's economic basis will prosper while residents remain reactive instead of proactive.
-bill kenny

Tomorrow Never Knows

"That ignorance and hate may mourn the day."

"All play the game existence to the end of the beginning."  
-bill kenny

Blue Lights on the Runway

The other day on Washington Street I saw a lady walking with two dogs-one barely a dog at all, in terms of carbon footprint while the other looked like a Great Dane crossed with a Brick House. I flashed on that expression always attributed to people from the South about 'it's not the size of the dog in a fight but the size of the fight in the dog.' while looking at the pair take their mistress for a pull.

She had her hands full. The big one, whom I dubbed Lenny, was slow and plodding just taking it all in. The tiny one, George, was pushing to get ahead and move on--possibly not even sure where he was heading, but making great time while doing it. He barked at every falling leaf while Lenny moved as if in slow motion while we were back up in the booth reviewing the replay.

It was entirely possible that one of Lenny's would probably weigh more than George with his leash and collar on and from the distance that George kept from Lenny it seemed, perhaps, he had come to the same realization. A chopped Honda with a rear spoiler, because that's what keeps the rear wheels on the ground when the nitro kicks in on the 1.8-liter engine, went Humpty-bumpy down Washington, windows wide open, the driver sharing his music with the world.

The microscopic rep from the Animal Kingdom was the first to voice his displeasure, I suspect because the bass was so overdriven it was probably painful for such sensitive ears. George, as befit his size, actually sounded like a squeak toy as he registered his protest.

Lenny, on the other paw, seemed at first to not notice or mind, as he plodded on oblivious to the SOHC of the Apocalypse heading in his direction, boom chakalaka boom. When the Honda could have been no more than ten feet from him, Lenny let out a HUGE bellow, the force of which may have actually slowed the Honda down, and stepped into the street, dragging his dog-walking companion with him.

The Honda hot rod stood on the brakes, which were at least as good as his subwoofers, and Lenny stood on his back legs with his front paws on the car's hood and howled in a piteously pathetic tone that simultaneously told you he was hurting and promised he wouldn't be in pain alone for much longer. Even I, who cannot tell which end of the dog to pet and which not to, knew there was no translation needed from the Dog Whisperer.

The driver fell out, more than exited, from the car frantic that he'd hit the dog. He should have had such luck; instead, he had the animal's fullest attention. The woman was struggling to control George who was doing that small dog classic barking while straining on the leash routine that translates as 'let me at 'im and I'll moider the bum!'

Meanwhile, woebegone Lenny yelped for relief from forces he could not perceive. The driver finally realized his sound system was the culprit and turned it down. The dogs quieted and he got back into his ride. I watched George, always quick to hold a grudge I suspect, christen the guy's front tire. I figured as angry as he'd be about that later, he should be grateful Lenny hadn't followed George's lead.
-bill kenny

Two Lost Souls

I had someone the other day, I'm sure with the best of intentions, tell me they liked to stop by and read this stuff, but I needed to understand 'people who tend to read blogs don't really like to read.'

That's okay.
I think people who like to write blogs don't necessarily like to write and especially don't like to write for people who don't like to read. Somehow that makes us even though I am often rather odd.

He suggested radically shortening everything, condensing it, and reducing it; sort of like haiku for cell phone messages. He is of the opinion we, the crown of creation in this food chain, are much akin to goldfish, with memories and attention spans that last all of thirty seconds. 

And when I read how we whine about our environment, our economics, our national and international relations (or you pick a subject), it's certainly popular to feel that way. Except that doesn't make it right. 

Bullet points: Stop being a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl year after year.
Never mind Wish You Were Here.
We are here now. Be. Do. Soon enough we'll be gone.

Hey! You said to keep it short and punchy. I did. Now go play in traffic.
-bill kenny

Wouldn't It Be Luvly?

We have a house full of IKEA furniture and I very much enjoy it. I understand it's fashionable to look down one's nose at it, and that's fine by me. It means less jostling in the checkout line when we go to the one in New Haven, Connecticut, where we start our shopping by hitting the cafeteria where it's praise the Swedish meatballs and pass the lingonberries, brother.

My idea of an evening hoot could be to sit on my IKEA sofa, watching my television which sits on an IKEA shelf, scarfing down a Big Mac after kicking off my rainbow Crocs. Some, part, or all of that sentence may be more than slightly embellished.
Or not.

And I think I've found just the mode of transportation for the next time me and the little lady (or more correctly, jag och den lilla damen) decide to take a jaunt down I-95, to Flatpack Heaven. Buckle up, buttercup.
-bill kenny   

WHAT?!?

Many of us refer to the World Series as the Fall Classic, while, for others, autumn is a time to watch professional football on television every Sunday, Monday, and occasional Thursday while high school football happens under the lights on Fridays and college football is reserved for Saturday afternoons, and evenings and, seemingly random weekday nights.

None of those, in my opinion, are what Autumn in New England is all about. 

What defines the season here is gassing up the old leaf blower, slapping on the Mickey Mouse earphones so the roar of the engine doesn't deafen you like those Iron Maiden shows of the early Eighties used to do (still have the tee-shirt, do you? Run for the Hills indeed!) and then gathering up the falling and fallen leaves, getting them together in large piles and placing them into your composter (I have two of them I got from Norwich Public Works in the corner of the backyard along with the active biologicals I combine with the cut grass and moisture to produce the enriched matter I used to work into my tomato patch in the spring). 

Or not.

Many people with leaf blowers have the gasoline-powered versions because they're just a lot louder than the electric ones and you can go anywhere with those bad boys, and they can blow any and all leaves they find on their property out into the street or onto a neighbor's property, because somewhere in an obscure codicil of the Bill of Rights or an addendum to the Articles of Confederation grandfathered into the Constitution is a provision about your right to arm bears and to be obnoxiously loud, befoul the air with gasoline fumes and poison your relationships with those living next to you.

Leaf blowers are uniquely American. To my knowledge, no one else on earth has them and most people in whose countries I've lived or visited cannot comprehend having a device as irritating and harmful to the atmosphere as a leaf blower. In many ways, it's a better symbol of the United States than the bald eagle, in my opinion, and maybe the closest thing any appliance could come to representing most of our recent Presidential election campaigns.

Except that it wouldn't work, because all successful sports have television contracts, I can see a new national sports craze with people in golf carts driving around (blindfolded? why not!), talking on a cell phone while their partner in the shotgun seat operates a leaf blower trying to coerce a small animal, perhaps a ferret dipped in iridescent paint (Fox Sports' experiment with the blue glowing puck some years back has made an indelible impression upon me), into a shoebox that closes down with a satisfying snap on the little furry fugitive. Points are awarded for the fewest passes required to herd the ferret into the box. And the winner gets to defend themselves from allegations they cheated. 

Ideally, everyone would be so busy trying out for a place on one of our local teams that the leaves might fall unnoticed for decades, renewing the earth and returning to it some of the nutrients and minerals we have thoughtlessly plundered from it as we evolved from the primordial ooze to the clad-head-to-toe-in-officially-licensed-team-paraphernalia we wear that differentiates us from the lower primates and others on this orb. Thankfully, like snowflakes (and leaves), no two of us are the same.
-bill kenny

Another Limited Time Offer

Ruth is stranger than Bridget. 

I know, you're wondering when did I get this good with Photoshop. I didn't.
This is all real to the point of surreal.

Lock him up and lose the key.
-bill kenny

I Said I'd Keep on Going

When we were kids, today, 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 real date of the holiday, October 12.

In light of so much I as a codger of seventy-one now know, that as a boy of twelve, I didn't about the Rape of Paradise which ensued after Columbus' arrival, perhaps blood red might have been a better choice of colors.

As a kid, 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 some rough days).

Looking at the world as it is and how all settlement and civilization 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, he wasn't the first. We've spent hundreds of years observing a historical event that is neither historic nor an actual event. 

Columbus was a proto-American before we ever existed: he didn't know where he was going, didn't know where he was when he got there, and when he came back, he was celebrated for something he never did. Guess whose running mate I think he's qualified to be?

And now, as it's the dot on the "i" in 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 there has been a steady stream of ads selling mattresses. 

Between you and me, 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.       
-bill kenny

I Am a Literalist....

 So in keeping with the spirit of the holiday...

And don't tell me it's 'it's heritage, not history.'
-bill kenny

Free As a Bird

The list of things I will never attempt, much less achieve, in my life, grows longer by the day. 

Today I've added something new, based on this report. 

https://starryai.com/app/my-creations/1021319031

Home (home) and dry.
-bill kenny

 

Girls That Don't Exist

I never saw the movie, Her. 

To be honest, I don't watch movies but that trailer scares the bejabbers out of me. Turns out, it was only a tune-up. 

Created with https://www.craiyon.com/

Do you think we are living in strange days now? Wait a microsecond and technology will make things even stranger. 

Talk about life imitating art.
-bill kenny 

Potato Days

None of the Major League Baseball teams I root for are in the post-season. 

The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA made it to Game #4 of the semi-finals before losing to the New York Liberty. 

The respective seasons of the National Football League's Giants and Jets (both of whom are called New York and yet both play in New Jersey) are going nowhere but are making great time while doing so.

I feared, aside from German soccer via ESPN+, my sports viewing for the next few months might be limited but as it turns out, I just didn't know where to look and was following all the wrong stuff.

The drama of Llama Rama Racing, the adrenaline rush of kiotoshi, or the thrills of Kaiju Live Monster Wrestling?  You pick. I can't make up my mind.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I guess that's why God invented The Ocho.
-bill kenny   

Answering the Ringing Bell

I'm typing this with my fingers crossed (which might help my spelling but will do nothing for my grammar, I fear) since, by the time you read this, I should have completed the radiation treatments in my fight against prostate cancer. 

I can't type 'successfully' in that previous sentence because there's still a long wait for the results of a series of blood tests that measure levels of the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) whose ceaseless increases almost three years ago signaled the start of this campaign.

It was a morning follow-up appointment with my urologist at William H. Backus Hospital when he dropped the "C" word into the conversation and outlined a proposed course of treatment. After he paused at some point I asked him if he would repeat what he'd just explained since, I had to confess, I had trouble hearing him over the screaming in my own head. He assured me mine was not a unique reaction to a cancer diagnosis. And so began my education.

I've always regarded myself as lucky. I met and married the girl of my dreams almost forty-six years ago while a guest in her country (our anniversary is the 21st of this month). Together we have two children raised nearly entirely here in Norwich. I had a career that brought me joy every day I worked (and my bosses most days when I departed). 

The house my wife and I share is within walking distance of Backus Hospital and we have in the course of the three-plus decades we've lived in Norwich had many, too many I might say, occasions to avail ourselves of the time and talents of so many talented healthcare professionals across a variety of specialties. 

Part of my good fortune includes, unlike almost twenty-eight million other Americans, having health insurance, with prescription benefits and hospitalization. In case, you haven't noticed, and touch wood if you've never needed to worry about it (yet), America is a very expensive place to become sick. 

There are currently seventy-two countries in the world with universal health care, including Albania, Mexico, and the United Kingdom but the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is not one of them. 

Health insurance provides for regular physician visits with as-required lab tests, and follow-ups to include diagnostic testing and prescription medication that contributes mightily to living longer and fuller lives. Botswana and the Maldives both also have universal health care so I'm always bewildered at how so many of us bristle with annoyance if not outrage when I wonder why we cannot  (will not?) create a healthcare system for every American. 

I'm sort of stealing a march on Movember which gets a lot of media attention and is an annual event when prominent public figures (usually men, joke intended) grow mustaches during November to help raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide. It's all well and good to emphasize a month but even better if we can do it every day of every month. Agreed?

I've sort of sleepwalked through most of my life, to be honest. When I look in the mirror I still see a strapping, handsome,, talented man in the prime of his life, a real dynamo and a two-fisted humdinger of a guy ready for anything (and modest. Did I mention my modesty?). Until the day my doctor said cancer, and then everything got very real, very fast. Don't sleep through your wake-up call.
-bill kenny

  

I Am a Passenger

I'm waxing nostalgic at the moment for no particular reason. Later this month my wife and I celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary (she says it feels longer; I think that's because the Germans use the metric system to measure. At least I hope that's why). 

For the first five-plus years of our marriage, my wife and I didn't own a car. We lived in a medium-sized city in West Germany (albeit a city that, by itself, in the middle Seventies had as many people as all of New London County, Connecticut had when I showed up here in 1991) with a bus, streetcar, and train network that made 'getting a car of our own' one of those 'nice to do' but not 'need to have' situations.

Today we live in a medium-sized city in Southeastern Connecticut with a whimsical, at best, local bus service and NO ferries, jitneys, trams, or trains of any kind so privately-owned vehicles move up the list almost to 'required appendages.'

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.

Ours is not a state, and this side of the Connecticut River most especially, is 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 get 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 hear you because we've chosen to not listen.
-bill kenny

Don't Touch that Dial

What's your favorite song? (Everyone has one, so don't try to put me off, okay?) Without a doubt, it's different from mine but to be honest, my favorite song right now, is different from my favorite song this time yesterday.  

I know, you're waiting to see my point, and I'm frustrating you by wearing a hat. Actually, and you've guessed it, favorite songs, foods, shirts, etc. are all pretty subjective and compilers of 'Absolute Best Lists' need or should need to tread carefully.

But they often don't, which gives the rest of us something to think about. Like 'The 50 Greatest Videos of All Time, Ranked."

It became a whole new day in the morning when visuals got added to the music, in this geezer's opinion (and I'm not sure in a good way). I still have my Sony Walkman hanging from the handles on my walker, so keep off my lawn, you whippersnappers!
-bill kenny

Equivocating over the Inevitable

 There are two unavoidables, and it's not yet April 15th so do the math...

Feel free to agree. Or move on.
-bill kenny