You Had Me at Hello

If we're being honest with one another, we've been in holiday savings mode since shortly after Labor Day.

Of course, with so many operations and establishments joining in the Black Friday celebrations (it's a miracle we don't have greeting cards for this, available (of course) at knockdown prices), what's really newsworthy about this holiday season is who else, next, will clamber aboard the BFB, Black Friday Bandwagon. 

Quest Labs would like a word. "Gobble up these savings." 

Stan Freberg would blush at the tasteless tackiness of the promotion, except, of course, hucksterism is as American as apple pie and this time of year every time there's a holiday promotional tie-in, an angel kills a reindeer. 

Operators standing by but have your credit card ready. 
-bill kenny

Today Is Different

Today is the day, sixty-one years ago that President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. I was barely eleven and a half years old and in 5th grade at St Peter School in New Brunswick, NJ (in Sister Thomas Anne's class in the basement of what was still a brand-new building).

The announcement came over the PA from the Principal's office, Sister Immaculata, through the speaker in the corner of the room near the end of the school day, and in the blink of an eye, not just for me, but for my entire generation and perhaps all who followed us, the carefree innocence of childhood was over.

As children, we couldn't fathom what would cause anyone to want to kill anyone else (the violence on our streets and in our homes now was very different back then) and how we gathered and processed information was different as well. 

We headed home to houses with mothers and fathers and siblings gathered around the radio, there were only three TV stations in those days, and 'live' broadcasting was a cumbersome operation, radio was faster and newspapers rushed out 'special editions', 

I think we all had a dim awareness something had changed, but we didn't know what and how much. A lifetime later, many of us still don't.
-bill kenny

Almost in the Nick of Time

I found this rummaging through an old basement trunk and realized I needed this today.

Hugs Not Drugs

We live in a most amazing 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 who-knows-how-many-billions of us on this ant farm (with beepers) we call home.

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

An Attitude of Gratitude

If you've been a little slow to get your holiday season started, there's no time like the present (that's both a hint and a play on words, btw) to pick up the pace, my friend, because the festive occasions are coming thick and fast and nearly non-stop between now and the beginning of the next year. 

Let's face it, the autumn days continue to grow shorter giving way to darker skies; the newspapers get a little plumper as merchants boost their advertising hoping to catch a shopper's eye while halls and other stationary objects are bedecked in holly and garland.

As you should know, the annual O'tis a Festival is this Saturday from nine until three (with Santa scheduled to visit and food trucks throughout the day, though none serving reindeer burgers I'm told)). Naysayers to the contrary, there's plenty of free parking, and again this year helpers to guide you to the primo parking spots. 

There promises to be music, merriment, and entertainment for the whole family. Two floors of handmade arts and crafts from dozens of regional vendors will also be on display, with ideas and offerings to help jump-start your annual gift-gathering and giving. If you haven't attended in previous years, you've picked a good time to come and enjoy.  

One of the bonuses, I think, to the O'tis a Festival is the added hustle and bustle it brings to downtown, not to mention the extra feet in the street (and on the sidewalks) to check out not just the fest but what downtown businesses have been added and improved since last year. There are a lot, so come early to stay late.

While the O'Tis a Festival is a terrific time (and reason) to get started on just-right gifts for loved ones and others on your list, there are also opportunities to give and share the spirit of the season, especially with those in need right here in our backyard.

With Thanksgiving a week from tomorrow, Connecticut Foodshare will also put to good use any donation of food or cash that you’d like to offer, and don't forget Feeding America. 

We can help make this a happier holiday season for both friends and friends we’ve yet to meet. Open your heart and know whatever you share is both needed and appreciated.

-bill kenny

Memo to My Grandchildren

Today's title may have startled my adult and married children as well as their partners. I'm not known for subtlety (or anything else, for that matter) but I'm not suggesting or intimating anything. If I caused you to spill your coffee in consternation, I apologize.

Whenever I encounter an infant or toddler in a shopping trolley or pram, I always make it a point to welcome them to earth. Seriously. This place is pretty much a shit show and we adults made it that way, but the small ones don't know that, at least not yet. After all, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression and perhaps they'll remember that (or not).

Babies are not miniature people, but, rather, very nearly an entirely different species from us adults. 

And I suspect any resemblance to any other living person is not only purely coincidental but nearly miraculous. 
-bill kenny

Blink of an Eye

We're all familiar with the phrase 'I can't believe it's been THAT long' where the passage of time seems to have ambushed us. 

I've discovered as I decline, not age, the speed of that process increases (to my horror and chagrin). 

Here's an example to give you an idea of the speed of thought.

"And the best that you can do is to take whatever comes to you."
 -bill kenny

Talk to You Later

I was trying to explain to an acquaintance the other day that everyone, everywhere serves a purpose even if they don't think so. He'd had a rough week and I think his self-esteem was at a low ebb. 

I'm never sure how people like this always seem to find me. There must be some kind of an invisible mark on my forehead or something. Maybe I need to comb my hair differently or wear a bigger ballcap.

The funny part (not necessarily hilariously funny, though thanks for that thought) is that I try to be as supportive as I can which, since I have 'issues' (shall we say) with most other people on the planet, is more challenging than it needs to be.

I lack social grace and/or the ability to make small talk (what exactly is small talk and is there an opposite and what is that called? Tall Talk? Big Talk?). I have enough trouble making eye contact, much less remembering names and or spousal and family relationships. 

I've been known to ask women who've recently given birth if they're expecting a baby or to inquire after the welfare of a spouse to learn he/she has gone their separate ways on the matrimonial highway (usually I've been more fond of the one who's done the Great Escape but I don't think I've ever actually said that aloud), which certainly leaves all of us in a Downtown Awkward Moment.

I worked years ago where some of my near-colleagues complained about my lack of sociability to one of the people in charge. When I'd pass people in the hallway they'd ask 'how are you doing"' and I always said, 'Thanks for asking' and kept walking.

He suggested the proper response 'You should ask them how they are.' I was flummoxed and carefully explained I didn't care how they were. I didn't know their names. I had no idea what they did in the building; it wasn't like we were going bowling after work. 

They were people I passed in the hallway endless numbers of times every day. We were filling up about 1.8 seconds while we closed the two-and-a-half meters of space separating us as we walked towards, and then past, one another.

It was his turn to be flummoxed, I guess, as our meeting ended somewhat abruptly shortly afterward and slowly I noticed more and more often fewer and fewer people in the hallway as I walked from one office to another. I was tempted to get a button that read 'Ask Me about Raising Wombats for Pleasure and Profit' (though I suspect there's precious little of either) sort of as an icebreaker. 

I had even gone so far, should someone, indeed, ask, to be prepared to pounce on them, shouting 'And how are you?' over and over again. No wonder everyone around me is a total stranger. Hey! How are your wife and kids? Can I interest you in a wombat? How about a line of bowling? I've got my own shoes, seriously.

-bill kenny

Those Were the Days

If you've never experienced the harsh screeching of a modem connection you can skip this space today. 

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I walked through six-foot snow drifts uphill in both directions to go to school, the internet was in its infancy, and America Online was leading the way.

AOL as we all called it was so overwhelming they eventually purchased Time/Warner and all of its subsidiaries. Halcyon days indeed. 

This story caught me up short and reminded me again how no one steps into the same river twice because both you and the river have changed. 
-bill kenny

"Exquisite Karmic Irony for $400, Alex"

I've enjoyed reading The Onion for many years. 

At first glance, I thought this story was one of their trademark satirical pieces. 

Sometimes, Ruth is stranger than Bridget. Not today, Satan.
-bill kenny

  

20/20 Hindisght

A week-plus later, and the events of this November's election sting a little bit less than they did in the first couple of days afterward.  

I am a seventy-two-year-old white, heterosexual male who lives rather comfortably in retirement (not extravagantly by any means but we have 'enough'). I have always been in the majority in this country, no matter the setting or situation. 

My position of privilege, if you wish to use that term (I do), allows me the luxury to do the 'Big Thinking on Important Stuff' posture since my worries about the price of gasoline or ground beef in the market are relatively small. Sometimes I judge other peoples' behaviors far more harshly than my own; I'm a much better lawyer for my shortcomings.

I have to remember I'm sitting in a position that others do not enjoy in terms of the aforementioned 'enough.'  People vote with their wallets and their bellies and demagogues are adept at convincing people that what they say is more real than what is actually happening. Perceptions of realities and realities are too often the same thing.

I've concluded we have about half a nation that no longer processes information from sources that I would consider as 'mainstream news' (daily newspapers, local TV stations, nationwide cable news outlets). 

And when I say I fear NON mainstream news I'm not talking about Fox and the Zanies at places like OAN where some truly frighteningfever dreams are offered as facts every day. I'm talking beyond that, to things I'm aware of but rarely sample because they are too strange for me; things like 4chan and WhatsApp, and hundreds, if not thousands, of YouTube channels that make NewsMax look like the NY Times. 

The swamp of dis and misinformation is probably depthless and certainly terrifying. It's the combination of technology and hate/ignorance that has become the greatest threat to all of us.

I think there was despair this election cycle over everyday issues that outweighed my (elitist) concerns about the importance of women's reproductive rights and protecting democracy. It's hard when you're struggling to make ends meet to have the luxury and energy to appreciate larger concepts like DEI.

It's easier to blame 'the others' for all of your ills, as Weimar Republic Germans did in the 1930's. Sadly, with the state of education across much of the USA, not many people will learn, much less remember, the lessons of the Germans' despair that birthed Hitler and the Holocaust.

And while you may dismiss my words as somewhat florid and untrue, I fear I'm closer to the end of my country and things will only get worse and not better. 
Buckle up for a very dark ride.
-bill kenny

Then and Now

I first offered this a long time ago, when I thought I was smart(er); or less delusional. You'll have to decide. At the time I called it:

A Leap of Faith Requires Faith

As the ballots were tabulated we learned something was more true than ever: We get the government we deserve. Unless we are lucky and in recent years no one I know has been accused of being lucky. 

Where I live, in Norwich, Connecticut, we have become a self-fulfilling prophecy accustomed to being less than successful and have chosen to accept problems that are familiar over solutions that are not.

Not just here in The Rose of New England but across the country we've lost sight of what we originally formed government to do (that which we as individuals cannot do) and the most effective and efficient means to do it. 

With the summer of our discontent behind us and anger at all things running at record-high temperatures yet again this Election season, something about baby and bath water comes to mind but is rarely uttered aloud.

Stop me when you've read this before: Local government blames Hartford and the legislative and executive branches in Hartford blame one another when they’re not blaming Washington. We’re passing the buck so quickly, we’re making change with it.

In Norwich we've stood the local revenue stream on its head, depending too much on private citizens and not enough on the commercial sector. 

Property owners say they can’t afford to stay here, but the economy makes it too expensive for them to leave, so falling behind on their mortgages and taxes, they walk away from their dreams, adding to the burden everyone who remains in Norwich must bear. There is no respite and no place to pause and catch our breath.

Tomorrow rushes in with new demands and even higher expectations and we have fewer resources than were available yesterday to create solutions that will start us in a new direction. 

It’s a basic principle of physics that a body in motion remains in motion while one at rest remains that way. And it’s a political reality that we seem to be stuck on standing still. Everyone wants a reward but is unwilling to accept any risk. 

The danger in a leap of faith (which is what trusting one another to do the right thing is), isn’t the leap—it’s the landing. So when does a missed opportunity become our last chance and how will we know if it's already happened? Look in the mirror, and then tell me what you see.
-bill kenny

Prost!

I visited with an acquaintance the other day I've known for all the years since returning to the Land of the Round Door Knobs. We're not friends and we don't work together. We move in shared circles with each of us knowing about a half dozen people who know the other. 

I hold him in genuine affection, perhaps because I see him on such an infrequent basis. In my case, if absence makes the heart grow fonder it would help explain why people want me to leave; so they can start to miss me.

Roy offered a story that I hope you've never heard, or you'll need to find something else to read for the next two minutes, though it is so wonderful that even if you have heard it, you might enjoy it again. 

A college professor placed a large glass jar on a workbench and as his entire class watched, filled the jar with two-pound rocks, filling the jar to the top. He then asked them if the jar was full and the class agreed it was. 

He opened a bag of pebbles and poured them down over the rocks in the jar and watched as they worked their way into all the spaces between the rocks and then he asked his class again if the jar was full. Again, they said 'yes'.

He reached under his table and pulled out a large chest, filled with sand, and poured the sand atop the pebbles and the large rocks at a steady rate of speed. Slowly the sand covered all the pebbles and rocks, finding and filling the smallest openings all the way to the top of the jar. 

He asked his students if they believed the jar was really full this time and after some hesitation, they decided that it was.

He turned his back to them long enough to reach into his knapsack and pull out two cans of beer and opening both, he poured them over the sand that covered the pebbles and the rocks that filled the jar and waited until the foam had settled. Looking up he asked the students what it all meant, and the room was silent.

He quietly explained the glass jar was a person's life. 

The large rocks were the most important things in your life such as your family, your friends, and your loved ones. They were the 'quality' of your quality of life without which there would be no point in living. 

He added the pebbles were important, but NOT the most important, things in your life, such as your car, your home, your job, or where you shopped. And the sand, he added was the useless but pretty filler that so many of us confuse with the truly important things we most need.

The trick, said the Professor was not to fill up your jar but to know with what to fill it, noting that the jar could be completely filled with sand, leaving no room for anything else, and certainly none of what was really important. The same, he noted, could be said about filling your life with nice-to-have pebbles instead of need-to-have rocks.

After you've filled the jar with pebbles you'll never have enough room for all the rocks you treasure. Always, he said, fill your life with that which is most important to you, enjoying as much of it as you have, and never regret the absence of what you do not.

And the beer? Asked one of the students. What is the purpose of the beer? 

That, smiled the professor is to illustrate that no matter how large or small your life is, there's always room for beer. And with that, the class bell rang and the students were dismissed.

Great story, Roy-one I'll never tell you as well as you, but I hope someone with a jar they're starting to fill happens by today and reads these words and remembers to leave room for the rocks and the beer. 

This is from my second favorite Roy, and that rhymes with joy.
-bill kenny

Shooting All the Sky Full of Holes.

Today is Veterans Day. We once called it Armistice Day because that's what the day on which World War I ended was called, back before we had to put a Roman numeral after World War (we are the smartest species on the planet, the crown of creation, but we still had to have two worldwide conflagrations to realize how horrible they were).

At exactly 11:11 every Veterans Day (November 11) the sun aligns perfectly with the Anthem Veterans Memorial in Arizona shining through the ellipses of the five marble pillars representing each branch of the armed forces, illuminating the Great Seal of the United States. 

Many nations across the globe, including our neighbor to the north, call today Remembrance Day and I like that title. We have a day to recall those in uniform who gave their lives for our country, Memorial Day, and I have always appreciated the idea of a separate day set aside to honor everyone's service.

Chelsea Parade, Norwich, Connecticut

We had people serving in the military before we even had a country. After all, this is where the American Revolution started with farmers and shopkeepers grabbing muskets and forcing the world's most powerful nation at that time, the British Crown, after a profuse flow of blood, to concede to the inevitable and allow all those up and down the Eastern Seaboard to become the United States of America (not that we've always been or even are to this day).

And while it's hard sometimes to see the line from the low-rent districts everywhere to the streets of the District of Columbia, it's all a part of what every veteran made possible by her and his service. The best way to say 'thank you' is to safeguard and use wisely the freedoms that service and sacrifice made possible and make them a part of your legacy for those who will follow you.
-bill kenny

In the Spirit of the Holiday

I stood in a conference room upstairs in the Newark, New Jersey, MEPS on 25 March 1975, raised my right hand, and promised, "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies..."

"...foreign and domestic." Still am, YeeHawdists.
-bill kenny

  

Shut that Bloody Bouzouki Player Up

(Nearly) ripped from the headlines!

Zu spat!

Who am I to diss a brie? 
-bill kenny

To the Point

Just this.

That's enough for today.
-bill kenny

On the Other Hand....

I remember during 9/11 finding a television in a lounge tuned to one of the news channels and watching, but not believing what was happening. I most especially can remember that numb feeling when the plane smashed into the second tower. I'm feeling it again.

Someone, somewhere, someday will rationalize what happened Tuesday in these United States. It will make a terrific read. I hope I'm alive to appreciate it.

But as my evil twin, Skippy, pointed out to me, Tuesday's election means I have it made. I'm a white, heterosexual male and for me, this could really be the dawning of the age of Aquarius. Me and J. D. Vance are the future (though sadly I'm elderly).

So 1984 was delayed by forty years. So what?

I kid you not. We are in the catbird seat at no time since probably the 1950's. 

Sorry, women. Especially women of color. And speaking of color, sorry men who aren't white. And sorry trans, non-binary, and queer. As a matter of fact, sorry to everyone who isn't me; a white, heterosexual male. 

What's that in the Beatitudes? "The meek shall inherit the earth." 
Yeah, right after me and the greedies are done with it. 
-bill kenny

Tick, Tick, Tick...

I'm writing this on Tuesday, many hours before the polls close here in Connecticut. 

I would have voted for a rancid tuna-fish salad sandwich left out in the sun for a week before ever casting a ballot for that Orange Abomination heading up the GOP ticket, so I was delighted to be able to vote for Kamala Harris and am 'nauseously optimistic' that Kam and the Coach will prevail but we live in an age of uncertainty and it could be quite some time until all the ballots, absentee, early voting, spoiled ballots, and the like are all tabulated.

I can wait. I have the rest of my life for us to get it right. But, regardless of the final outcome, here's something I do know about myself, and by extension (how arrogant, I know) about all of us, and I'm not happy with this discovery. 

I am now less accepting and tolerant of those with a perspective differing from mine than at any point in my life so far here on the ant farm. I want to blame Donald Trump for the hardening of my heart but I am lying to myself. He is and was never the problem with America; he is and was the symptom of the problem.

I very much dislike the person I have become and, thus, by the same extension I deployed earlier, I'm not especially fond of you either. We need to replace the hate with healing and I have no idea how to even begin to do that. But we need to try.
-bill kenny

"We Come in the Age's Most Uncertain Hours..."

I'm not going to tell you that today, Election Day 2024, is the most consequential in the history of our nation because I don't know if that's true despite reading/hearing it said repeatedly and incessantly for months.  

I voted by absentee ballot before today so I'm available to ferry any neighbors who need a lift to the polls. The act of voting is so revolutionary when you look at the history of the world and how it is run that it's amazing we're allowed to do it. Make sure you do.

I don't want to read/hear one murmur of unhappiness as of tomorrow about how displeased you are with the results of the counting of today's ballots if you chose to NOT vote. Choosing to NOT decide is still a choice. Shut up and bugger off. 

And when it comes to the Very Top of the Ticket, it's not really a choice, is it? 

I didn't think so. Vote.
-bill kenny 

The Sound of One Hand Typing

Does your local newspaper still have an editorial page, with columnists, cartoons, and letters to the editor? Maybe I should back up a little bit. Do you even still have a local newspaper? 

A lot of us don't anymore. Not sure where the Don'ts get their news and information from but based on recent years of experience from the decisions made in this experiment in governance in which I still live, it's no place credible or reputable.

Anyway. I subscribe to two local newspapers (one online subscription and the other online and newspaper on my doorstep subscription). The former is sort of a zombie paper with a tiny staff who'd be hard-pressed to cover everything just in Norwich to say nothing of the paper's purported coverage area. They do their best I know but, speaking as a reader, their best leaves a lot to be desired. 

That newspaper eliminated its editorial page years ago, around the time it refined its online presence to excise readers' comments and reactions (they are on social media as well but I've noticed their postings get few to no comments so I wonder why they bother posting at all).  

The other newspaper is more full-service (advertising drives newsrooms) in terms of local news and coverage and their editorial page, for the most part, reflects its readership and populace, consistently angering folks on either pole of the political spectrum regularly so I guess they're doing something right.

They endorsed Kamala Harris for President and devoted a full editorial to explaining why without ever mentioning even in passing that the other person is nucking futs, a convicted felon, very probably an insurrectionist, and possibly a traitor. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing they endorsed Joe Biden four years ago. 

My point is newspapers have always endorsed political candidates and we tend to not remember the specifics of those endorsements sometimes within moments of them being published, but in this election cycle two very prominent newspapers on either side of the country, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post decided to NOT endorse anyone for the highest office in the land. 

Silence in the face of evil is complicity, Jeff

Both newspapers are owned by billionaires one of whom could use his fortune to ameliorate pain and suffering in this country or ride in a rocket ship. Guess which one he chose? 

It's ironic, to me at least, that the decision to NOT endorse a candidate has resonated far farther and longer than an actual endorsement. I'm not sure if there's a lesson somewhere in those profiles of cowardice but I'm positive if there is, I can guess two newspapers in which you'll never read about it.

Some folks think canceling subscriptions 'will teach them a lesson.' It won't and we're better than that, or we should be. That's what MAGAts do, just ask Bud Light or Colin Kaepernick. 

The funny thing about billionaires; they get the same number of votes as you and me. So tomorrow, show how they can go f*ck themselves and make sure to vote.
-bill kenny

Too Dark to Type

Some days words are not enough.

This is one of them.
-bill kenny 

Prepping for Back and Forth

Tomorrow morning in the wee, dark early hours, we fall back an hour (I've always liked how we keep that straight, 'spring ahead' and 'fall back) 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 savingsis 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? 

The why we move clocks forward and back is the part I will NEVER understand no matter how erudite (or not) the explanation. As a matter of fact, technically we'll all be an hour older when Sunday becomes Monday than when yesterday became today. Science makes my hair hurt. And that's another thing I don't understand.

They actually did this LAST weekend

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 you 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.

And then we look up in surprise and dismay at the time and wonder where it's gone when it hasn't gone anywhere. So much energy is expended on endings from the end of a television program, a movie, a radio serial, or other entertainment, through a relationship with another person, or a business relationship or political alliance. All gone, their races run.

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

When Both the Faithful and Faithless Depart

When I was very young, and despite your snicker I actually was young once, going through the primary grades of St Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey tomorrow (aside from Good Friday), was the saddest day of the year. 

You may think today is the day after Halloween and you're right, but also you're kind of a pagan. Today is All Saints Day and in some circles a day of solemn celebration, in the liturgical sense. 

Tomorrow is All Soul's Day. When you're nine and have transferred to 'the Catholic School' from Pine Grove Manor in Franklin Township because there was finally room in the class near the start of the fall for you and Neil, your next-door neighbor who is now suddenly promoted to best friend, the more you think about the implications of All Souls' Day, the sadder it gets.

As I've aged (badly) I've developed quarrels with the Catholic Church in which I was raised but most of that churn is caused by what I've taken to calling middle-level management. With all due respect to the priests, bishops, and even His Holiness, the Pope, I'm not sure how much of the edifice the one true church (as it calls itself when it finds/feels itself under attack) has created since Jesus Christ founded it would pass the 'R U Serious?" test with the Lord.

We're not grading on a curve, either, guys. Wanted to pass that along. But one of the things I still believe, regardless of my exact grid coordinates in the theological hemisphere, is that there can be nothing more tragic than to be forever forgotten.

As a primary school grader on All Souls night, I used to fall asleep trying to remember every single person I had met in my life-a tough enough job when you're nine but when you're two and seventy, it borders on the impossible.

But maybe that's what 'heaven' actually is, the memory of you and your life by another person. Look at history. Much of it is a tale told by an---well, never mind who's doing the telling, but pay close attention to who's doing the remembering. 

Is forgotten the opposite of famous? And who prays for the souls of the faithfully departed when no one remains who recalls who they were? When facts fade, faith must suffice.  
-bill kenny 

Crystal Water Turns to Dark

It's amazing how a religious devotion, a 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, salutations, and Happy Halloween.

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

Halloween is now celebrated all 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 (which I love, 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 starting about two hours before the kids got organized to head out. So I'll keep my fingers crossed for all the goblins tonight. Every child, no matter how young, wanted to trick or treat with her/his friends. Only a baby goes out with a parent. 

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

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

My own children long ago outgrew the doorbell ringing and candy-collecting aspects of the evening and we don't even even 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

A Blast from My Past

I save everything or almost everything. You never know when it will come in handy. And even when it does, I usually still don't know. I found this rummaging around in the archives and lo and behold, we're in an election season so here you go. Back then I called it:

Vote for Me and I'll Fix Everything

Election season is like Trick or Treat for adults, except we registered voters seem to end up with a lot of Mary Janes and saltwater taffy and way too few Dove Bars and Reese's Cups. 

Six days from now, we'll be knee-deep in big muddy hitting levers, and blackening circles as the will of some of the people is transformed into the will of all the people. The miracle of democracy, coming to a ballot box near you. Unless you've opted for early or absentee voting (I did the latter).

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard ." Sing it, H. L.. I'll hold the hymnal while you turn the page. 

Living in one of the thirteen original colonies (I still think we should get silk jackets, have colonial colors, and maybe a secret handshake; just to shut up those ba$tards from the West Coast with their nice weather and fresh fruit all year round), I'm watching the wheels as I'll have the opportunity to vote for a President, a Senator, a Congressman, a state representative, and a state Senator. 

You probably have about the same range and scope of choices where you live, but only if you choose to vote. The same folks who'll sit on hold for twenty minutes for a radio call-in show can't take ten minutes to go vote on Election Day. 

Maybe we have neighbors who think you have to pay a fee to cast a ballot or lack a calendar that tells them when Election Day is. The same people who call Dancing With the Stars hundreds of times to get their favorite to the next round don't think it's appropriate to have an opinion on the direction the state or nation should take.

If you don't choose, you lose. And don't tell me you don't have enough information. In this country at this time in our history, if there's one thing we have TOO much of, it's information. The trick is to turn it into knowledge you can use to make an informed decision. Because that's what we're lacking...
-bill kenny