A Page from the Past

A lot of us have a relationship of convenience with history. We choose to remember what we wish and gloss over all the less-than-pleasant parts of the past. The danger of selective memory, as George Santayana pointed out is 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'   

A topic in the news recently and one, I fear, that will be one for the remainder of this presidential election season, is the continuing political polarization of our nation, So much Us and Them, Red and Blue. Common ground is hard to find and building bridges across the political spectrum is a lost art.

We weren't always like this. And our heroes and heroines weren't influencers and TikTokers. You can look it up. 

Eighty-one years ago, on February 4, 1943, at the height of World War II, the SS Dorchester, a converted cargo vessel pressed into duty and refitted as a troop transport ship was torpedoed in the early morning hours as the convoy of which it was a part was sailing from Newfoundland, Canada to a port in Southern Greenland.

The ship with 904 troops and civilian crew aboard sank bow first in about twenty minutes. The severe list as the ship sank prevented the launch of many of her lifeboats and the overcrowding of the remaining lifeboats caused some of those that were launched to capsize, spilling their reluctant and unfortunate passengers into cold North Atlantic waters whose temperatures were barely above freezing.

Because of the circumstances of the ship’s sudden sinking, no distress signals could be sent delaying the start of any rescue attempts. When help did arrive the following day, many who had survived the sinking were found floating in their lifejackets, dead from hyperthermia. Only 230 men were rescued. The sinking of Dorchester was the largest loss of life of any American convoy during World War II.

Among those who died onboard the ship were four US Army chaplains, who helped frightened soldiers board lifeboats, and gave up their own lifejackets when the supply ran out. 

The four, (Methodist minister, Reverend) George Fox, (Reform Rabbi) Alexander Goode, (Roman Catholic priest, Reverend) John Washington, and (Reformed Church in America minister, Reverend) Clark Poling, then joined arms, offered prayers for the living and the dead, and sang hymns as the Dorchester sank.

Their deaths serve as an example of courage for us, the living, especially now at a time where as a nation we face challenges and uncertainties from without and within. They continue to inspire.

The American Legion Peter Gallan Post 104, 22 Merchants Avenue in Taftville, will conduct a Four Chaplains ceremony this Sunday afternoon, February 4th, at 2 honoring their selfless sacrifice and celebrating their lives.

Members of the local clergy each representing the faith of one of the original chaplains, will deliver a benediction, representing the final moments aboard Dorchester helping us remember not only their bravery but the example they set for us that continues to inspire us eight decades later.  

The ceremony is almost as brief as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking. You come away with lessons learned of lives truly lived with grace under pressure in a spirit of caring and generosity for others that sometimes is lost in today's tumultuous world.

Please attend if you care to remember their heroic sacrifice this Sunday afternoon, if not in Taftville then wherever you are.. All history is the sum of our collective remembrances and such memories remain our best hope for the future.
-bill kenny

Right Here and Now

I didn't write this. I found it. But YOW, it hits!

"Barely the day started and... it's already six in the evening.

Barely arrived on Monday and it's already Friday.

... and the month is already over.

... and the year is almost over.

... and already 40, 50 or 60 years of our lives have passed.

... and we realize that we lost our parents, friends.

and we realize it's too late to go back...

So... Let's try, despite everything, to enjoy the remaining time...

Let's keep looking for activities that we like...

Let's put some color in our grey...

Let's smile at the little things in life that put balm in our hearts.

And despite everything, we must continue to enjoy with serenity this time we have left. Let's try to eliminate the afters...

I'm doing it after...

I'll say after...

I'll think about it after...

We leave everything for later like ′′ after ′′ is ours.

Because what we don't understand is that:

Afterwards, the coffee gets cold...

Afterwards, priorities change...

Afterwards, the charm is broken...

Afterwards, health passes...

Afterwards, the kids grow up...

Afterwards parents get old...

Afterwards, promises are forgotten...

Afterwards, the day becomes the night...

Afterwards life ends...

And then it's often too late....

So... Let's leave nothing for later...

Because still waiting to see you later, we can lose the best moments,

the best experiences,

best friends,

the best family...

The day is today... The moment is now..."

-bill kenny

You and Me and War of the End Times

"Had a dream
You and me and the war at the end times.
And I believe
California succumbed to the fault line.
We heaved relief
As scores of innocents died."

"And the Andalusian tribes

Setting the lay of Nebraska alight.

'Til all the remains is the arms of the angel.

'Til all the remains is the arms of the angels."

-bill kenny

Starting Now?

 "And in the end

The love you take

Is equal to the love you make."

...
-bill kenny

Musings While Meandering

As we were driving back from an errand the other day, my wife, Sigrid, looked out the passenger window at the grey landscape blending seamlessly into a horizon where, somewhere overhead, it met an equally grey sky, and offered a word in her native tongue, German, to describe it, trostlos-hopeless.

This is the toughest time of year for a lot of us, including folks like me who stare out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of what's next. Several years ago someone took me on a short helicopter flyover of some of the woodlands and farmlands in this area of Connecticut in the late fall and early winter, and the view from the top seemed to be of another world at times.

I can recall everywhere we went (and you can see a lot of them from the roadways, but there are many, many more as it turns out), seeing rock walls through the forests and brook beds, intersecting at angles and wondering how odd that must have seemed to the indigenous peoples here when European settlers first arrived. In comparison, the European landmass was the smallest of the continents, and maybe that's where the assertiveness (if not out and out aggressiveness of its natives) developed as they went out into the big world and marked their territory not only to use but, at times, to use up.

I drive through lands demarcated by ancient stone walls every day as I travel through the Real World, and none of the creatures I pass in my travels or travails regard them as immutable boundaries or barriers. They are there and nothing more. I would imagine a Mohegan or a Pequot, thinking of the tribes in this region of Connecticut, watching an early settler struggle to subjugate the earth to farm crops, engaged in back-breaking labor to maneuver the giant stones they unearthed while tilling, to serve as property markers was too amusing to not smile.

And it's taken us centuries to learn lessons of harmonious, not rapacious, living within a natural order. Reuse and recycle from plunder and leave and work very hard to not spend too much time calculating what has been lost from lessons left unlearned for too long. Broken Arrow.
-bill kenny

This Is Just a Fairytale

Without boring you with the details, because it's embarrassing actually, I am nearing the moment when I will get punched out in public, and as shocked as I should be when (not if) that happens I cannot pretend to be surprised.

It happened yesterday in my local supermarket and I am still more than a little pleased I didn't make the police blotter of our local newspaper for berating a fellow customer who richly deserved it. Not that I've ever been accused of being smart but I'll just stop right there in the telling of the tale.  

Except to say it had something to do with the return of a shopping trolley and the behavior of a shortsighted, selfish, two-legged obliviot. For the record, I was NOT yelling. I was speaking emphatically (but yes, I could be heard in the parking lot). And yes, I would do it again.

There is no need to head over to the 'store' just in case it happens again. As we all know by now, the eight o'clock show is completely different from the one at noon. And, btw, this is the ten items or less blog. 
-bill kenny  

We're #1!

Anywhere in the world I've ever traveled so far, and it's not nearly as far as some have wished for me but thanks for the thought, the rigid middle digit on the hand has been universal shorthand (near-pun intended) for 'hail fellow, and well-met, almost!'

Across countries, continents, and cultures THE gesture is a constant. But why? 

CNN's Scottie Andrew offers a compelling origins story.  

Digitus impudicus. There's almost nothing like the classics.
-bill kenny

Be. Here. Now.

I first wrote this thirteen years ago while I was auditioning (some suggested disparagingly) to become a one-person Norwich pep squad. That’s okay, I like the saddle shoes, but I am surprised at how much of ‘then’ is still true ‘now.’

The Minute Men are part of the history of our region and a national treasure. They were, I think, the original first responders even before we were a country. In the two dozen-plus decades since we declared our independence, we've had minute men and women of every kind for every challenge. Be it in response to attacks of war through economic calamity to catastrophic acts of nature, their response has always been immediate and unquestioning.

I'm thinking maybe we should put some time back on the clock and see if there might still be minute men and women among us. If we start at our local level and put aside our sometimes petty and partisan pouting and posturing, we can be a partner and example for the rest of the state.

We live in a target-rich environment for anyone who chooses to extend a helping hand. This time of year, on dark and wintry days (and nights) there isn't a Norwich neighborhood that doesn't have a household not in need of a shoveled walkway or could use a friendly face to visit with a shut-in senior citizen for some conversation and caring or perhaps be someone who could read a child an after-school story so a care-giver had fifteen minutes of 'me time' before starting supper. None of that costs us anything but its worth is incalculable, and the impact is immeasurable.

Speaking of children, the Board of Education has regular monthly meetings at Kelly STEAM Magnet Middle School. Here's your chance to monitor the progress of reorganizing and revitalizing the Norwich Public School system and hear firsthand about what challenges and triumphs our children and teachers have every day.

Most importantly, it's your opportunity to make your voice heard for informed decisions. Instead of just showing up for budget hearings to shout about funding requests after missing months of discussion and explanation.

And when it comes to talking, we spend so much time talking about downtown economic development it's hard to remember it's also where people should want to live and work. But that requires doing. Too many of us use the Chelsea District as a shortcut to get us from one place to another. Too late we discover we're still nowhere at all.

Conversely, sometimes we're so focused on just downtown that it's hard for someone who lives on Jail Hill or in Taftville (to name just two places) to believe anyone, anywhere cares about his street or her neighborhood. Too often we are ten villages in search of a city. We get tired of trying to carry everyone on our backs and forget we don't have to do it alone; that's why we've chosen to live in our city so we can help one another.

A lot of what needs to be done takes resources we don't have right now and figuring out how to acquire them will be part of that job. Many others cannot happen overnight but will take months, and in some cases, years, but we must first start. There are things we can do here and now that only take a moment if we make the time and have the desire to help.
-bill kenny

Not Exactly John Irving

Every week or so, I check the Lost & Found for the country I grew up in. 

I'm not sure when I lost it or if it actually lost me, but we're in different places now, philosophically and metaphysically. I don't see us finding our way back together any time, much less soon. 

The 2024 Presidential Election season has started (cynic that I am I would point out it started about forty-five minutes after Biden won, despite the vigorous protestations to the contrary of toothless gorms led by a cynical self-serving narcissist whose last original idea died of loneliness) and the good, and extremely cold, and VERY few good Republican people of Iowa already elected their next President with the fine folks of "Live Free Or Die" New Hampshire on tap to decide today. 

Do you remember taking American History in high school? Not civics, history. And reading about the American Revolution and the leaders we had at that time. The litany of talent, genius, and sacrifice just goes on and on: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Hancock, Franklin, Monroe...As they say in baseball circles, that's a pretty deep bench. 

And here we are, almost but not quite two hundred and fifty years later, and our choices are... seriously? 

It's a fine line between freedom of choice and freedom FROM choice. And on top of that, we're pissed off at each ALL THE TIME. I get angry just thinking about how angry I always get and don't need a precipitant or provocation but there's no shortage of those on either side of the political spectrum. 

I realize it's never eaten as hot as it's served and our democracy works only as well and hard as we do--but Out Here in the Middle, it's getting lonesome and not just a little scary as we keep shouting at, instead of speaking to, one another. It's getting so hard to hear ourselves think, I fear we may have finally stopped. 
-bill kenny

A Memory Fire Sale

I wrote this thirteen years ago and just found it and re-read it.
It stings a little bit, still. At the time I called it: 

Caught in Other Nets

I was helping my wife impose ordnung (look it up) on our basement the other day (mostly by staying out of her way). Not surprisingly, she and I have slightly different perspectives on how things are filed, stored and saved. 

My views on all three are easy to catalog: wrong. All you need do is ask my wife. There's an eye roll and a medium-sized sigh (I used to only rate a small one) and now, as an added bonus from this sentence onward, there will be a vehement denial of the previous two, but don't be deceived.

We've lived in our house for many, many years. George Carlin is right, it's a place for your stuff. Our container is very attractive and spacious though the basement where she and I were working is, I imagine, a little like limbo but without all the unbaptized babies' souls (just as well as the dust bunnies are everywhere and there's always something you taste on the end of your tongues that you can't quite place or name).

We've been putting things in the basement since we moved in. Obvious items that we weren't yet willing to let go of-appliances that operated on 220 volts and fifty cycles and for which, to use here, you'd need a step-up transformer (I have one, make me an offer). 

There were less obvious items, more saved by the heart than the head. Neatly packed with contents listed on the outside of the carton were many of the toys and bric-a-brac from when our children, now adults, were much smaller.

Makes sense-you never know when a five-year-old 'Nur Patrick!' or a two-year-old 'Icky May' will swing by for an impromptu play date (though if my children learn I'm still using their pet names, I'll search out my skates since a warm place will have to be frozen over before they'll visit and maybe not even then.)

Some of the items looked like they were in the same boxes we used when we moved from Kasernenstrasse across town to Ahornstrasse in Offenbach (much closer to Stadion am Bieberer Berg). Without exchanging a word, I knew we wouldn't be placing any of those on the discard pile (I still have in the garage the chalkboard each child wrote on when they had their erste schultag).

It is amazing what you collect over the years and how much of it you can remember when you see it again (and how much you have NO clue about when reunited). I concede the disquieting part may be how much you become possessed by your possessions. Sigrid had boxes of singles (little records with big holes as I used to call them while she labeled my album collection, big records with little holes) and each dust cover came with a memory and a moment to match.

I think we both knew, and always did, that 'putting things in the basement' is code for pretending to remember who you once were even when you're less than comfortable with who you became. 

Not having to confront that person is a luxury I can afford though I probably enjoy it too much. For a moment we were as we see ourselves instead of as others do and who we really are. I'd chance it again without regret because the moment (however fleeting) seems to linger and abide a while before disappearing.
-bill kenny

Don't Bat Your Wings

I love aphorisms. Expressions like "If ain't broke, don't fix it," "The child is father to the man," and "Here's that pony ride for your birthday." Okay, two out of three.   

I'm never any good at creating them but specialize in appreciating them. Especially when the advice they offer is so excellent. Something I didn't know until yesterday was how smart, outside of mathematics, Albert Einstein was. 

Read for yourself.

"Albert Einstein was a ladies' man
While he was working on his universal plan
He was making out like Charlie Sheen
He was a genius."

-bill kenny 

I'm Glad I'm Dead

Not everything new is better. Artificial Intelligence may yet prove to be a wonderful thing and if I weren't on the downhill side of seventy-one maybe I'd be more enthused about it. 

Except for every time I have cried while listening to The Beatles' Now and Then a product of technology I cannot even begin to fathom, (and wish Mark David Chapman an extra ten years in hell), I come across something like this that makes me cringe.   

If this is the future, I'd like to get off the ride now, please.
-bill kenny

We Sit and We Sigh

I have a bookcase filled with self-help books. As someone once cynically noted, I may have nearly opened one once upon a time. Now I just review this visual aid.

Feel free to share. That's what I did and why you can read it here today.
-bill kenny

Something's Fishy to Me

I am keenly aware of the health benefits of eating seafood and am utterly indifferent to the appeal. Our kids enjoy eating all kinds of seafood. Not me. My idea of seafood is fish sticks. Stop. Check, please. That's it. And don't forget the tartar sauce. Lots of tartar sauce. 

I know people who enjoy eating calamari-I am not fooled by that whole 'a rose by any other name' stuff. That's octopus and if you needed another reason to say 'no', here's a brilliant one: they're aliens and if you don't believe me, believe this. 

My generation had A.C. Gilbert and erector sets. This one has CrunchLabs. I think even Mr. Shining Time Station would approve.
-bill kenny

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!

I like to think of myself as open-minded, and I’ll assume you do, too. 

We are, as a species, the result of constant changes, too many to count over untold millennia, and yet many of us are less than comfortable with the notion of change when it happens in our own lives. 

We prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not. 

I’m reasonable, sort of. If I don't have to change how I do a single thing in my life I am comfortable telling myself I, too. believe in change. I should be embarrassed about being so set in my ways, but instead, I live here in Norwich and fit right in. 

Do you remember when the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) intending to improve traffic safety on “Crash Alley” proposed creating six roundabouts within a mile and a half on Route 82? Kinda like Oprah: ’You get a roundabout,’ and ‘You get a roundabout!’

It was well-intentioned but it threatened disruption and in some instances, closure of businesses in the path of those roundabouts. 

There were few people (aside from affected businesses) at their 2022 presentation but very quickly lots of lawn signs with "No Six Roundabouts" appeared across Norwich. I wondered why the roundabout on those signs seemed British and not American (traffic traveling in the wrong direction). But what I most wondered about were people saying 'no' without offering anything resembling alternate ideas of any kind on how to make Route 82 safer for everyone to travel. 

We get a do-over, or I’d like to think a do-better, with another public information meeting tomorrow night, at the Kelly STEAM Magnet Middle School on "Safety Improvements on Route 82 (Phase 1)." There is an open forum for discussions with DOT officials starting at six with their formal presentation at seven and a question-and-answer session following the presentation. 

You may be surprised traffic safety enhancements for Route 82 are still an issue, but you shouldn’t be. You cannot expect a change if you don't make one and we certainly didn’t make any. 

All we did last time was put the ‘no’ in Norwich very loudly.  

A lot of people (whom I hadn’t seen at the first presentation) were active on social media platforms and offered comments and suggestions on what to do about traffic and the situation on Route 82. Some of those ideas were anatomically impossible but others seemed to me to be worth saying aloud to other people in a venue like tomorrow evening’s presentation. Of course, you have to show up to speak up. 

We tell one another we're flexible and open to innovative ideas until someone offers one, and then not so much. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it, but let's face it, in the universe of challenges facing Norwich, making Route 82 safer for everyone is low-hanging fruit. 

If we can't agree on a solution for that, how in the world do we hope to revive downtown, repurpose all the brownfields, build a new public safety building/police station, define the need, location, and configuration of another business park, end the animus between the paid and volunteer fire departments, or a dozen other issues confronting us? 

No is not a magic word like Abracadabra and it fixes nothing.

I'll bring my open mind to tomorrow night's meeting. I hope you’ll do the same. 
-bill kenny

Apparently, I'm Not Always a Parent

I have always loved being a dad, despite the egregious lack of credentials and absence of any semblance of the requisite skills. Thanks to modern technology, Sigrid and I knew enormous amounts about our children long before either of them was born (so far in advance, I, of the short attention span, sometimes lose track of their actual dates of birth). 

They were our children well before either of them was a person. As adults now in their own right, with partners of their own, they continue to have to struggle with a father who 'knows' they are grown-ups, but who has decided that is true in another world, though not his.

True to form, I was much more comfortable when our children were younger. I had a tough time winning over either Patrick or Michelle when they were infants since it was hard to successfully show them how smart I seemed, possibly because I wasn't. Since they had no basis for comparison at their age, it should have been straightforward and I should have drawn some conclusions when it wasn't. Except I've always been bad at art, as well as Paul. It was attractive being one of the two grown-ups in the house with all the answers, even though I married a grown-up with all the answers instead of being one.

There were the days of learning to tie shoes, learning to ride bikes, and learning to drive cars. The medical emergencies of pinched fingers, sprained ankles, and skinned knees. I was never good at matters of the heart--those have always seemed to be the easiest to break and the hardest to heal. For a guy who talks a lot, I've never known what to say especially when the mantra of 'everything will be alright' is revealed so often to be a shining lie.

I used to suggest to our children that there was a reason why things had worked out the way they had(n't). But we all saw that as a tall tale from a short man. I can hope and I can hover but I can't always fix and I should be grateful they figured that out even if I still haven't.
-bill kenny

The View from The Mountain

Today we observe the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday. We (or at least, I) have a tendency in our fast-food society to reduce Dr. King's life and his death, to a black-and-white, 'race relations' issue seeing it as part of the struggle for equal rights which is true as far as it goes.

But what I'm thinking is that on this day, and then extending to all the others on the calendar, we should see the words and deeds of Dr. King as a call for each of us to find her and his better angels and to become the change we wish to see in the world for ourselves and our children.

Such a vision would I hope, better enable each of us to reach and teach those like us as well as those unlike us. As we should have realized by now, it's this fear of 'the other' (be it race, creed, color, or political ideology) that creates the greatest barrier to equality, freedom, and justice for all.

Many public events are being held today in observance of the life of Dr. King. I don't pretend to know your schedule or your inclinations, but if you feel a need to attend and participate, know that you will be among friends. And if your day takes you in a different direction, know, too, that those who do participate will do so in your name as well as his.

"Sometimes I feel like I've never been nothing but tired. And I'll be walking till the day I expire. Sometimes I lay down, no more can I do. But then I go on again because you ask me to."

It's difficult to accept that while the fear of failure often paralyzes us, it's the fear of trying that will ultimately prove to be our undoing.
-bill kenny

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I tell myself I'm a photographer because I take pictures (and LOTS of them) with my cell phone. That's like saying because I own a piano I'm a pianist (which I don't and I'm not). Or that all ducks are birds but not all birds are ducks if you follow the distinction and the difference.

My nearly lifelong friend Nat is a photographer (and he says it feels a lot longer than one lifetime; he's such a kidder) as is Drew. I take happy snaps by the bushel and sometimes one of them is a decent picture. 

And for just a moment I'll feel really good about my photo effort. And then I come across something as breathtaking as this and realize I am just kidding myself. 
-bill kenny

Marlin Perkins Meets Frank Zappa

I have more than my fair share of Frank Zappa albums though I will confess to never being sure how to regard him. I have acquaintances who see him as a musical genius and others who file his records with their comedy albums. 

Me? I've always thought he fit in well with my Lenny Bruce at Carnegie Hall and The Buttoned Down Mind of Bob Newhart. 

Anyway-I do enjoy Zappa in whatever form I feel like on whatever day I'm listening to him and will definitely be digging out some vinyl to listen to later after falling across this news item from United Press International, headlined: "Parks Canada urges drivers not to let moose lick their cars."   

"Dreamed I was an Eskimo

Frozen wind began to blow

Under my boots and around my toes

The frost that bit the ground below

And my mama cried

Watch out where the huskies go,

And don't you eat that yellow snow."

-bill kenny

Couch Potatoes Unite!

I am as I'm sure you've long suspected a single-minded idiot. As much as I admire anyone who successfully multi-tasks, I'm not good at emulating. I have difficulty with the proverbial chewing gum and walking (or doing anything else at the same time) scenario.

I'm a firm believer in 'when we rock, we rock and when we roll, we roll.' I'm not especially keen on getting my peanut butter mixed up with my chocolate metaphorically or metaphysically.  

Thus when I watch TV, I don't watch it with my cell phone in my hand. I don't have any friends (not a boast just a fact) so it's not like I have to text my bestie to discuss whatever just happened on whatever TV program we aren't watching together.    

I sit on my couch and watch TV. My wife is the explorer; she goes off on Paramount Plus or Amazon Prime or Brit Box and Acorn and watches multi-part series on the lives of Professional Sumo Wrestlers or a real-time documentary on the construction of Hadrian's Wall while I watch old episodes of House on PopTV. 

As she watches, she has her cell phone close by and Googles all the characters on the screen and learns even more about them. I know Hugh Lurie is in House and one of the people who was in Chicago Fire is also on the show. That's it. She is immersed in her viewing experience and strives to enhance it while I use mine to escape. 

No couches were harmed in the creation of this illustration.

But now, I, too, can multi-task AND get fit all at the time! Sell my clothes, I'm going to heaven! The only way this could be better would be if I had a treadmill hooked up to a generator that supplied power to my TV and the faster I ran, the brighter the colors and the louder the volume. Or maybe vice versa.
-bill kenny

Not Feeling So Mighty Now

I have long subscribed to the belief we are the Crown of Creation and the most powerful entity on a planet of amazing, astonishing plants and awesome animals of all shapes, sizes, and forms. 

And then in the middle of the winter in Southern New England, we have a storm, not of snow, but wind and rain. 

Watching our antics here on the ant farm, Nature itself has decided to humble us. 

What's that expression, "No single drop of rain considers itself responsible for the deluge that follows." Indeed.
-bill kenny

Hate Has No Color or Age

This coming Monday is a federal holiday, the observance of the anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Schools and government operations are closed as communities across the country join hands and hearts if only for a moment, to celebrate his life and to consider our progress as a nation in our ongoing journey for equal rights.

To be clear, we're not there. Yet.

But we're closer today than we were yesterday and tomorrow we'll be farther still. That is the reality of our pilgrims' progress (pun intended) and if we continue to push each in our way, progress will not only be inexorable but also inevitable.  

Norwich has always been a city of doers, with a rich ethnic diversity from its earliest days as wave after wave of immigrants took their turns in the mills and factories built along the banks of the three rivers which helped define our city's boundaries and shape its character.

Thamesville, Taftville, and Greeneville together with Bean Hill, Laurel Hill, and the farmlands to the east and northwest of the city offered opportunities to hopeful newcomers and established settlers alike and Norwich thrived because of who we were and what we made of ourselves in the moments we claimed for our own. 

It was not the first time, I suspect, that we discovered we had more in common (aspirations and dogged determination) than the individual differences that separated us one from the other. It's a history and a heritage we would do well to remember not just on Monday when we honor the 95th birthday of Dr. King. 

As has been the case for almost four decades, there will be an observance here on Monday afternoon and you should consider yourself invited.  It’s the 39th Anniversary Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration March and Service beginning at 1:30 pm at the David Ruggles Courtyard in front of our City Hall. 

It’s a rain or shine (or snow and sleet) event and I will confess there have been some years I’ve attended when I’d wondered why Dr. King couldn’t have had his birthday in May-but there’s always just enough preaching, and speeching, with a little singing, to warm anyone’s heart. Afterward, there’s a march to Evans Memorial AME Zion Church on McKinley Avenue for a Freedom Program.  

As a child of the sixties, who came of age when Dr. King was preaching and who taught and shaped every discussion about equal rights and human rights, believing as he did that one was always the other, I was often speechless at the power of his belief and eloquence of his vision that resisted the existence and pervasiveness of poverty and despair that was destroying this country. 

Reinventing American society so that his children together with mine and yours would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is a part of the legacy of  Dr. King's life and a chapter of our nation's history.

So, when you can, not just this Monday but every day, I hope you'll make time to take part in ceremonies and commemorations celebrating him wherever that may be. I hope this year we can seize the moment to celebrate the dream of Dr. King and make it our own.  And then, every single day use that promise to change the world. Again.
-bill kenny

Too Many ROMEOs

I read a large number of newspapers and periodicals online every day. 

I only subscribe to one daily newspaper that's delivered to the house and it's not the one I've had a relationship with for over a decade but the other one because it's a better newspaper, day in and day out.

Don't take my word for it. 

Figure out a way to circumvent the paywall if necessary (hint: use the 'incognito' feature on your browser) and prove it to yourself for this beautifully written hope-filled but still hopeless piece entitled, "In a Lonely Age, Older Adults Rely on Themselves to Find Happiness."

'You know that old trees just grow stronger

And old rivers grow wilder every day.

Old people just grow lonesome

Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"'

-bill kenny

And We're Bound for Nowhere

I still hear 'New Year, New You' which is true as well as a truism-but is so often said it's in danger of being reduced to trite rather than regarded as truth. 

Before chugging hemlock, Socrates offered, "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new."  

Sydney Harris brilliantly summarized our all-too-human condition, "Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but to get better."

So. Here we are unless we decide to move on.
-bill kenny 

Tales from the Naked City

On days when the muse is mute, sometimes the universe will open a door and let inspiration enter. Like this.  

Darien is a rather affluent town in Fairfield County here in The Land of Steady Habits so I'm assuming the alleged perpetrator's trousers were at the dry cleaners or perhaps were being altered at his local haberdashery. 

Am I the only one disappointed the mug shot was from the waist up?
Yeah. That's what I thought.
-bill kenny  

Life Is Made Up of Sobs, Sniffles, and Smiles

When I was a wee slip of a lad today was a rather big deal, especially for Catholic school kids. Not as in 'yippee! we have it off!' or 'Ohh, it's a Holy Day of Obligation' but because some of the nuns called it The Feast of the Magi while others, and I think technically this was the correct term, called it The Epiphany and we were made to understand in many ways, it was the beginning of the tradition of gift-giving for Christmas.

I love the song in all of the hundred million variations that exist, and, to this day, the chorus actually sends a chill up my spine (I'm padding my resume just in case there's ever an opening on the College of Cardinals, be it in Saint Louis or elsewhere) "We three kings of Orient are, Bearing gifts we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain. Following yonder star." 

In much the same way as we pledged allegiance to the flag years before we ever understood the meaning of 'allegiance,' none of us knew what 'traverse' meant or what a 'moor' was, but we made up in volume what we lacked in knowledge (a habit many of us have carried into our adult lives, unfortunately).

When you're in third grade, some of this nuance is wasted. You worry if the cartoon ghost is named for one of the kings and how many r's and h's are supposed to be in myrrh (and no matter how often and how different you spell it, it never looks right, even when it is), and why anyone would give that as a gift to a baby. 

I can remember the nuns having difficulty explaining the Feast of the Circumcision and happily embracing its new name, Feast of the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas or Feast of the Holy Family. I suspect one or more of these same nuns would have had difficulties explaining to us technically, how Joseph was sort of Jesus' step-dad and exactly what a Virgin birth meant. Good for them that we were years away from those questions--not the case anymore here in the early light of 2024.

What I recall from religion class was how the Three Kings followed "The Star" and encountered King Herod who was a puppet of the Roman occupation and paranoid about his own future and the last thing he needed was any whisperings about a Messiah. Supposedly he told the Magi to let him know where and when they found the Saviour so that, he, too, could worship Him (but an angel appeared to the kings in a dream and told them to find another way home that skipped Herod). 

The nuns told us about the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which didn't improve Herod's stock at all, and impressed me most deeply because it meant even then (though I was a little fuzzy on when, exactly, 'even then' was) how dangerous that part of the world was (and has remained).

Many people in many cultures around the world celebrate today, no matter what their kitchen calendars say, and if you are one of those, I wish you well. Someplace, in my childhood is a young believer who thought today was a fitting cap on the Christmas season who read the short story of Jim and Delia and always loved the line, "Forget the hashed metaphor" without ever once understanding it. Hoping you do likewise.
-bill kenny

A Very Different Epiphany

I know. You just checked your calendar and the Feast of the Epiphany is tomorrow, January 6th. Yeah, I'm talking about a totally different kind of epiphany that I'm waiting for about half the folks with whom  I share the country to experience. And so far, it's slow going.

Tomorrow, three years ago, we had an insurrection in the hallowed halls of our nation's Capitol, an attempt, if you will, not unlike Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

There were no 'fake election results,' just a spoiled brat/accomplished grifter/brilliant liar inciting his brainless followers to run riot in the halls of Congress in a failed attempt to frighten into silence all those with whom they disagreed. 

They weren't tourists-they were assholes.
Destructive, vindictive assholes and not nearly enough of them have been caught and convicted of the crimes they committed that day. If your blood doesn't boil watching that video, you are wasting time being here. 

As for the Major Maggot who exhorted the MAGA Mutton-headed Minions to riot? He's still wandering around free and is actively campaigning for the thoroughly morally bankrupt Republican Party nomination for President (and is the odds-on favorite to receive it). It's like John Brown and Harpers Ferry never existed.   

Trump 2024?
I'm thinking more like twenty to life. How's that for an epiphany?
-bill kenny

Some Reading Material for the Road Not Taken

The hardest job I have ever had and the one I have loved above and beyond any other is being a father. In light of a very mixed record as a son, brother, and husband, I've no reason to expect that I have done any better as a parent of two now-adult-themselves children whom I continue to see as if they were still nine and four respectively. 

Our two are a son and a daughter who between them taught me more about life than I could have ever imagined existed and to this day still teach me, whether I am ready to learn or not. I smiled when I found this rather scholarly and yet sincere offering as the year was changing and wondered for a moment where it was when it might have done me some good. 

I think maybe I'm better off just letting my kids see if they might need it instead.
-bill kenny

Starting Over, Starting Better

At the start of each new year, many of us tend to take inventory; to take a snapshot of where we are and compare it to where we hoped we'd be this time last year. Or that’s just me. Another year where the goal was to be six feet tall by Christmas, fluent in a half dozen languages, and promoted to a Captain of Industry. In my case, not quite. Again.

Let’s be clear: It is more than okay to have our reach exceed our grasp, or what's a world to say nothing of heaven for?  I'm more concerned if/when we stop reaching, if not for a dream then for one another.

As it is, that we try at all means we are succeeding and just because we may need to try again should not mean we have failed. Failing is NOT trying at all. And I feel silly noting this since it should be obvious and yet somehow sometimes isn't, don't expect to see a change if you don't make one.

We elected people in November who were and are committed to transparency in our municipal government. It's not too early to start keeping track of who made that promise and who is keeping it (in a perfect world a one-to-one correlation) and decide accordingly when the next election rolls around.

A personal observation: we should look to learn more from, and about, those in positions of leadership who seem to enjoy playing keep away with information necessary to allow for informed decisions.

There are a lot of people active in Norwich, not as many as I’d like and certainly, not as many as we need, but it’s a start, who will, I hope, consider upping their game and enlarging the discussion--but, as you’ve read in this space before, democracy is a contact sport and while the bleachers are a safe enough perch from which to sit and pass judgment, you need to be on the floor, actively engaged in the game, to contribute.

You don’t have to seek office, volunteer for any of the far too many vacancies we have on advisories, boards, and commissions, or attend a City Council or Board of Education meeting (as both are carried live on public access), It’s simple really, just be better informed. 

Read one of the local newspapers; consider a subscription. I love reading comments on social media from people who have an opinion on a story behind a paywall and proclaim, “I’m not paying to read that!” No, but the decisions you make when you’re less than informed we all pay for, so consider changing your mind. Please.  

Opinions are a lot like noses, we all have one and they smell so how about checking out a tool specifically designed to get ideas, opinions, and reactions to proposals, Envision Norwich 360!  Did you feel nobody ever listens to you? This is the space to go and have your say about whatever’s on your mind.  

It's very early 2024 and I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but here are a couple or three that might be good if you were so inclined to make or keep them: Be a light instead of a horn. Don't just make a difference, be the difference on your street, around your neighborhood, and in your city.
And be an exclamation instead of an explanation.
-bill kenny

We're Strange Allies

It's only Day Two of this bright and shiny new year and rather than rue and regret what has been, we might better prepare for what is to come (assuming we believe ourselves to have some control over what is to come). I've met those who see themselves as hostages of Cruel Fate or an Indifferent Deity as if we had been plopped down on this orb and abandoned to our own devices.

I'm not sure I can articulate specifically or enumerate to any detail, but I respectfully disagree. Yes, we are each our own Captains, lashed to the mast of the ship that is our life, alone in an ocean of souls, but it's a big ocean and we've all found ourselves here somehow and, at least for me, coincidence isn't really going to ever explain the how, much less the why.

Thornton Wilder's The Bridge Of San Luis Rey may have been his contemplation on the value of his own life, speculation that there's a land of the living and a land of the dead, and his belief (or hope) that the bridge between them is love. 

To his own question, would his death matter to God (Wilder was a veteran of World War I, with carnage and brutality never before seen in the history of our species, who became in spirit, if not in fact, part of The Lost Generation), he was willing to ask the complementary question: how do we make our lives have a meaning beyond our own lifetimes?

Not the cheeriest of questions to ponder while we embrace this next year with the same wild-eyed frenzy we did the last, and look at how that turned out. And if the question disquiets you, what of the answer? "Between the idea and the reality. Between the motion and the act, falls the Shadow."

Across this country, we are surrounded by memorials in stone, from monuments to buildings, dedicated to the sacrifice of all those who have preceded us--who have set the bar, so to speak, for the rest of us to clear, each in her and his own way. 

Not all of us can be a general, but we can be generous. Not every one of us will be President, but we can be present when a helping hand is needed, be it next door, around the block, or halfway across the world. 

We each have the power to save the world, at least the small plot of it on which each of us stands. Where can we be this time next year if we strive to be great at this time this year? We have a year to work on the answer and make one another forget the question.

-bill kenny