An Extra Day of Suck

Whenever the New York Yankees end up in extra innings on games broadcast on the YES Network, Michael Kay always announces 'we have free baseball coming up next' which is, for me, no matter who is playing, like paying for two scoops and getting three.  

The Frauds of Baseball didn't need to streamline the game as far as I'm concerned. Pitch clocks, and all the rest of it were and will never be my cup of meat. Game takes too long? Why, what else did you have in mind? Who goes to, or turns on a baseball game, with plans to ALSO do something else? 

Sorry. I think it's the meds. Anyway, today we have the one of the 'buy one and get one free' days of the year where you didn't want the first one to start with and would do almost anything to get rid of the second one, 29 February.  

I understand (or say I do) the reason why we have a Leap Year. What I do not understand is why it's at the end of February. What would have been so wrong about putting it in April, or how about May when spring has sprung? Or we could make Endless Summer a day longer and tack it onto July or August.

Instead, we have muck and mire on the streets and sidewalks, the winds of March arriving early and we shiver our timbers off in February. Quite frankly, February 29 is like finding out there is indeed one more unreleased song on that recently unearthed Beatles' archive and it's a duet with Tiny Tim and Yoko Ono. Dead Whoopee.

Once every four years is about all I can stand.
-bill kenny

Keep Kicking the Can

A crisis is "a time or state of affairs that is unstable or crucial and may lead to a dangerous situation." You can look it up if you wish. And yet our ongoing collective effort to build a new police station, a sojourn that has been a work in progress for a decade, without a resolution, is seen more as a 'what do you want? This is Norwich.' rather than a 'state of affairs that may lead to a dangerous situation.'

We've devoted over a decade to talking about building a new police station and here we are, on the threshold of the Spring of 2024 and will you look at that: still waiting for a new police station. Maybe we didn't talk enough about one; haven't written enough newspaper articles on the need for one, or had enough jabber-jaw sessions on local radio stations outlining the expanded requirements necessary to support a modern public safety effort. 

The only thing more puzzling/annoying about the continued lack of a new police station is the amount of surprise from so many on social media that it hasn't happened. I was part of the original committee about a decade ago that evaluated various sites throughout Norwich for their suitability as a future home. In my memory, about two dozen sites were being proposed. I doubt they are all still available or that they are still affordable. That referendum failed, and a decade later, a refloated referendum also failed. All we got from kicking the can farther down the road was scuffed shoes.

One of the things I never understood, based on an evening's tour of the police station at the time was how/why the original decision to bundle the tooth (the holding cells, processing stations, locker rooms for all the police officers, the armory and range) with the tail (the administrative, archival, community rooms, and clerical support) as one package. Everywhere we toured that evening had stacks and stacks of files on top of other files across what seemed to be every available square foot of floor space.  

I mention this because at the time, as is still the case for me, I'm not sure we are looking at the issue the way we need to solve our crisis, and make no mistake, we have a crisis that will continue to worsen no matter how much longer we delay creating a solution. 

The police chief has a very good idea of what core competencies a new facility needs to support-he is the expert on police operations. Let's consider for a moment a building, that accommodates all of those requirements, and, here's the tricky part for some, you take all the administrative (and essential) components, and place them in some of the vast amounts of vacant office space in Down City. 

Norwich Public Utilities has over forty-four miles of secure fiber-optic cable across the city, let's consider using some of that bandwidth to support routine law enforcement activities and I'd wager it will be a lot more economical than creating new floor space to stack files on. Support and clerical staff in downtown will put ‘feet on the street’ as we’re so fond of saying and be more economical than creating additional floor space to stack files on. 

If you were to ask anyone on our current City Council what they see our city looking like in a decade (or generation) be prepared for seven different answers. And if you ask how what's to be situated in Chelsea fits in with the 'rest of' downtown' brace yourself for silence. As it is, no matter whom we elect we end up with members of the City Council who plan the way horses run, one footfall in front of where they are.

When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. Based on the maps and plans we've made and discarded for decades, where we are now is where we have always wanted to be. 

Just repeat after me: Crisis? What Crisis?
-bill kenny

You Knew It Was One or the Other, Right?

I'm not sure the state of Florida has ever recovered from the Presidential election of 2000-what I called Chad and Jeremy in honor of the little piece of paper hanging from the ballot that were eventually interpreted much like tea leaves to signal the election of George H. Bush. 

I guess it was just easier to embrace the reputation of buffoonery and defiance of logic that in more recent years, under Governor Ron DeSantis, has become the hallmark of everyday life in the Sunshine State. Hope you have your white rubber galoshes on, because you'll need them for this latest installment of Hold My Beer.

Wait until this catches on-and ESPN has wall-to-wall coverage. I call 'Merch rights."
-bill kenny

Stand on a Star

 Many people may discount or dismiss you; make sure you're not in that number.

For those holding their breath waiting for you to fail, make sure they suffocate.
-bill kenny

Bob Richards Died for Your Sins

When we were kids, Mom was our school day breakfast chef and our father was the Sunday morning wizard. Which means every weekday morning we had cold cereal, or English muffins (we really thought they were English. We were kids; how we would know otherwise?) or corn muffins which for years caused me to throw up for no discernible reason.

Saturdays always were, ala Calvin & Hobbes, sugar-frosted Tastee Bombs and cartoons all morning long and while we didn't raise our two children in quite the same way (the cartoons are way worse now) and I was thinking of all those breakfasts, around the round wooden table in the kitchen when I found this, "Five Things People Used to East for Breakfast."

Five more reasons I was a Cheerios and Wheaties man.
-bill kenny

 

Steppin' Out

Yesterday was a big day, sort of, for me. I put on actual shoes (okay, sneakers) and went outside for the first time since coming home from the hospital last Wednesday afternoon after spinal fusion surgery. 

A procedure, with the benefit of hindsight I will concede that is probably easier to bounce back from in your fifties instead of waiting until you're nearly seventy-two. Something about the road less traveled is what makes it appealing.

I've been assured by my surgeon and his team I will make a complete recovery which I take to include also putting on my own socks and shoes without help. I'm glad I mastered underpants and trousers first. And so are my neighbors.
-bill kenny 

What Happened to "Children Are Our Future?"

Sometimes the things we do speak so loudly that I can't hear what we're saying.

"Every child matters. If we fail the children, we are bound to fail our present, our future, faith, cultures and civilizations as well."-Kailash Satyarthi
-bill kenny

Puts Spring in My Step

Alright, so we had some snow in this area for the last week. It's February in New England, I get that. But I think it's okay to think Spring since Major League Baseball returns today as the Boys of Summer start spring training games.  

I understand it's 'not real baseball.' It is to Doubleday's delight what Velveeta is to cheese, but until the games start to count, I'm willing to grin and bear it (and eat it up with a spoon). And if the joy of the return of baseball isn't quite enough for you, here's a brainteaser that will absolutely terrify you.

I know, 'just a bit outside.'
-bill kenny

My City of Ruins

Growing up in New Jersey, I use the music of Bruce Springsteen to maintain perspective on the world. 

I can recall the realtor driving me over the (old) Laurel Hill Bridge my first weekend after returning from fifteen years in Germany and a lyric from “My City of Ruins,” ‘..the boarded-up windows and the empty streets...’ describing downtown Norwich as I searched for a place my wife and our two children, still in Germany, could call home when they arrived. That was autumn 1991.

Now it’s 2024 and our children are grown, have partners to share their lives, and live far away. We read them when they write, but they don’t live here, because while we’ve progressed as a city, Norwich still hasn’t changed enough to be where they would wish to come home to.  

I can’t pretend to be an expert on Norwich, but I have a theory that we don’t know how we got here, and, more importantly, often aren’t willing to work together to get to where we want to go. 

And part of that is schizophrenia about who we are as a city. Some see us as mixed-use, with elements of urban and rural-and that works if we can craft compromises that benefit the greatest number of residents. 

The ‘nice things’ we all want, good schools, public safety, paved roads, beautiful parks, and modern infrastructure cost money, and when property taxes are raised, homeowners aren’t happy so we start talking about commercial development which is why we create business parks though not necessarily sustainable businesses to fill them. 

The wrangling about a second business park in Occum underscores (to me) the lack of agreement on what Norwich is. Are we a small, (hopefully growing) urban environment or are we a mostly rural community? We need to make up our minds because what we decide to be will dictate how we will continue to grow and develop. Or fail to. 

Many of the comments on social media reacting to the Occum Industrial Center were passionate but were devoid of facts and filled with insults and innuendo denigrating the volunteers who serve on the Commission on the City Plan (and then we wonder why we have so many vacancies on city boards?). 

We are better than this, or we should strive to be.       

Last December, I hiked the open space in Occum. It is hard to believe so much nature is a part of Norwich (except you can hear the buzz of traffic on I-395). I can see why it’s attractive for development (highway access and power lines on site) and Norwich can use the tax revenue. 

But while I understand the benefit, I’m troubled by the cost (in terms of flora, fauna, and habitat for all manner of wildlife). Once open space is gone, it’s gone forever.

We have so many contaminated industrial sites across the city, lining the banks of our rivers that are considered ’too expensive’ to clean up and whose owners walked away sticking us with the check for their greed and avarice. I don’t think progress lies in destroying more green space to build future abandoned sites especially when we could reclaim those we close our eyes to now. 

The Occum Industrial Center may well be a field of dreams, but what if it becomes a nightmare? Once developed there’s no turning back. It’s a question of balance and fairness, both for today and the future. To avoid another My City of Ruins. 
-bill kenny

A post-President's Day Shoe Sale

Think hard. Have you ever seen Donald J. Trump wear sneakers? I mean at any time, anywhere for any reason. In much the same way as he hawked Trump Wine and Trump Vodka for years, but doesn't drink alcohol, he's selling "No Surrender Sneakers" for only $399. 

I could understand him selling Depends, or doing commercials for Adderall. But Air Treason sneakers? Maybe they make you taller, or weigh only 215 pounds, or maybe not. And they are sold-out, just like their name sake! 

The same folks buying them complain about the high costs of everything under Dark Brandon so I'm more than a little confused. Pick a lane you toothless, witless gorms.  

That said, here's a DIY cost-cutting tip: 

Follow me for more money-saving ideas.
-bill kenny

Being Present for All the Presidents

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday is still on my calendar for last Monday, the 12th but it has had less meaning for decades since Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act and we rolled it into the birthday celebrating the Father of Our Country, George Washington.

That George spent more than half of his farewell address warning his countrymen about the dangers of political partisanship, I find, in light of where we are today, astounding. That Honest Abe used his Second Inaugural Address to offer "(w)ith malice toward none, with charity for all..." at a moment in our history where we most fervently hated one another (with a ferocity that would cost him his very life a little more than thirteen months later) causes me to wonder why we, you and me and all the lunatic loudmouths and bombastic blowhards on either side of the political fence, can't pipe down long enough to work together to get this cart we're all in out of the ditch we've maneuvered it into.

To put it into perspective when Washington and Lincoln were president, people disagreed to the point they fired weapons at one another--and you've seen 'em, it took work to shoot at somebody. None of this cap bustin' stuff; serious mayhem was on the agenda. 

All this pouting and posturing we are up to on Sunday morning talk shows, and in the Halls of Congress makes my brain hurt and when we get all through sorting out who's to blame for all the wrongs and shortcomings, real and/or imagined, maybe we can devote a scintilla of that energy to fixing things. We certainly have a target-rich environment to choose from, don't we?

With DNA testing the way it's working out, don't you suppose the day will come when we could, theoretically, work up political profiles of those enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns. And don't think somebody will try to make political hay out of it, because you'll be sadly disappointed. It would make as much sense as turning cap and trade into a litmus test or reinventing accessible, affordable health care as a variant of the Great Loyalty Oath, but no matter. It's a fine line between pathetic and petard. Try drawing it for a while and then get real.

Washington, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Stephen Douglas, Lincoln, and hundreds and thousands of others were so busy building this nation and defending it from attacks from within and without they didn't have the luxury of ideology. 

This isn't a three-day weekend to shop, advertising to the contrary-it's a moment to look at the lives of those who have been President of the United States (well, all but one in my opinion) and whose efforts and sacrifices we honor today.

And even though we don't get a day on the calendar for ourselves, this is when we use their day as a fulcrum to move each of us, and all of us, closer together in order to form a more perfect union. And stop being so bitchy with one while we're doing it.
-bill kenny

Pick Your Pocket. Full of Sorrow

I'm not suggesting cause and effect, but until last Tuesday morning, oh-dark-thirty, we had a relatively snow-free winter here in The Land of Steady Habits. The rain that started falling at about three in the morning as I prepared to get dressed to head to New London for spinal fusion surgery was a full-on snowstorm as we headed down Route 32 to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital a little after five. 

As near as I can determine, it snowed for a great deal of the day on Tuesday. I was otherwise occupied and can neither confirm nor deny those snowfall reports. 

I arrived home, after a stop at our pharmacy shortly after mid-day Wednesday, in time for my wife to open her card and present and for me to fall gratefully into our bed and sleep most of the rest of the day away. 

We had a dusting on Friday and a considerable bit more than that yesterday but on both occasions, the sun or something like it, took care of most of the accumulation, for which I'm grateful as I'm still supposed to be in B-L-T protocol, which is to say no bending, no lifting, and no twisting. And hold the Mayo, Clinic and condiment.
-bill kenny

I Get Older But Just Never Wiser

On the face of it, the story makes no sense because it's nonsense and then I remember this is The Land of the Round Doorknobs, 2024 edition, where no matter how foolish something sounds when said out loud, there will always be someone who nods in agreement. 

Mark Twain would love us now because we have taken the excesses of H. L. Mencken and made them into a religion of sorts. Seriously. QAnon is Scientology for hillbillies, just look at its practitioners. 

How can you argue with Twain's conclusion? Especially when I came across a news item that One in Five Americans Believe Taylor Swift is a 'Psy-Op' Conspiracy Theory. That's right up there with a faked moon landing and how the jab activates 5G control over your body. 

We need heroes but we no longer know why. 
-bill kenny

Ice, Ice, Baby

I take on average six point eight dump trucks worth of pictures with my cellphone camera every day of the week. Even more, if I turn it on and take it outside with me. I have no delusions that I am a 'Photographer,' and if did, a glance at just about any of the images I produce would immediately dissuade me. 

Unlike Nima Sanikhani, who has been selected as 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year Peoples Choice Award Winner.'

"Please don't wake me.

No. don't shake me.

Leave me as I am.

I'm only sleeping." 

-bill kenny

Trying to Turn the Page

Someone told me the other day we are suffering a worldwide shortage of better angels. I'm not really sure I can argue that point.  

I love the idea that we can change the world enough to save it even if I cannot tell you exactly how we would do that (after all, that's how we've been changing the world for all the years we've been here). 

Behaving decently towards one another is a start and if you cannot find a good person perhaps because of supply chain shortages, try being one yourself. 
-bill kenny

My Lonely Valentine

Happy Valentine’s Day to all those who observe it, however that is. 

I'm married to a woman whose reasons for marrying me I've never understood. I fell in love at first sight with her on Christmas night 1976 in a pub in Frankfurt, Germany but I didn't dream she'd ever say yes when I asked her to marry me on April 3rd, 1977 (the date is engraved in my wedding ring as is our wedding date), and to some extent I've been vamping ever since. 

She is my first thought every morning and the last, as I close my eyes in the evening. I was hoping this might be the year I would manage to collect the words to capture and convey what she means to me, but why would this one be any different?

My wife and I have been married for forty-six years. She has often told me it feels a lot longer than that, but I’m pretty sure that's because the Germans use the metric system to measure distance (and time as well, I hope).

Men are difficult people to live with I’m told. I know better than to ask my wife if that's true and she, in turn, knows better than to wait to be asked, so we make an interesting team. Sigrid is the most organized person on earth; me, not so much. 

I'm the guy who puts the stumble in stumblebunny. And today, Valentine's Day, doesn't help a mostly mono-syllabic moron like me all that much because there's just so much candy and flowers she can stand, and we passed the point of no return a long time ago.

We have, she and I, grown old together which causes me to smile as I had nothing so grand in mind when I first saw her. Some who knew me ‘back in the day’ would be amazed that she kept me nailed to one place long enough for all those years to have become all these years, and I share their amazement. 

I think the truth of this day, and of all our days, endures because it is constant and shared and is, in the end, simple to find and very easy to hold in the palm of your hand for the rest of your life. I'm someone who sees things as complicated because that is who I am. My wife has decided to love me despite that.

We share a life that isn't and will never be the one I thought I wanted when I believed things worked out the way we desired (if we only wanted something bad enough), but when I reach the end of every day, to include today, I look at her and our two adult children, Patrick and Michelle, and know that I love and am loved by them and I can't complain about some settling of the contents during shipment. 

I find myself returning to how Robert Browning expressed himself and his love for Elisabeth Barrett or how John Lennon rediscovered that feeling. Direct, simple, and unadorned beauty. I hope your search is successful as you celebrate today and the partner you have found to share it with as your next day in the dance unfolds.

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. That was, is, and shall be. Time's wheel runs back or stops. Potter and clay endure." 

Happy Valentine's Day.
-bill kenny

A New Adventure

I'm not sure if I'm running toward something or from something today. I do know I'm up with the chickens because I have spinal fusion surgery today at oh-bright-early. This is a surgery that I started getting clearances for last March and whose final okays arrived on Thursday.  

I have so many health issues (doctors call them co-morbidities which is kind of quaint or creepy depending on whether you're the describer or the recipient of the description I suppose) that as I understand it I get to move to the head of the line in terms of when my surgery will be and I'm betting I'll get my pick of flavors of gelatin (as long as it's orange). 

I've had both knees replaced, a stent in my right leg, and two stents in one of the chambers of my heart (in an attempt to make it two sizes bigger, Dr. Seuss was the surgeon on that one) but now that I'm old enough to be frightened, I am so I guess I have learned something in over seventy-one years here on the ant farm. 

Whether I actually have seventy-one years of knowledge or just a year of knowledge for seventy-one years remains a topic of discussion. And I sure hope we can continue that tomorrow. 
-bill kenny

More than Enough Malice to Go Around

When I was a wee slip of a lad, today was a stand-alone holiday honoring the birth of Abraham Lincoln. We don't have time for that kind of razzamatazz anymore and roll his birthday and Washington's along with a passing reference to all those who have served as President into one holiday which will actually be next Monday. 

Abraham Lincoln was a great patriot before he was elected to the Presidency of the United States. On June 16, 1858, in accepting the Republican party nomination to be their Senatorial candidate in Illinois two years before becoming the standard-bearer in what was to be the most contentious presidential election in our nation's history until recent times, he noted, "A house divided itself cannot stand." 

He was speaking about the split in our nation over slavery, and he was absolutely and tragically correct. That same Union he was murdered trying to preserve is, even as I type this and you read it, rending itself asunder as we sort ourselves out, not as red and blue, not as white and black, or rich and poor, but rather, as urban versus rural. 

The former tends to have a higher (and more costly) quality of life and feels constrained by the latter while the latter sees itself pitied and abandoned by the former. Our elections do nothing, absolutely nothing, to help us bridge the gap that's becoming a chasm as we talk at rather than speak with one another.

As confounded and angry as I am that anyone could support someone for the office of President as manifestly incompetent and as venal and vicious (to say nothing of vacuous) as the presumptive GOP nominee, I have to accept that his supporters see me as dangerously disruptive and most disquieting of all, we are both correct. So now what?

Our nation's motto is "E Pluribus Unum," 'out of many, one,' but we've mistaken patriotism for tribalism and decided that while you (whoever you are) may look like we do, you know what it is? You're not one of us. I'm not sure there's a way back to the place we were before but I do know we have to try to find it.
-bill kenny     

Roamin' with Numerals

I have no idea what hour of the countdown to the Big Game we are up to. I suspect at some point the NFL will commission a private company to make half-hour biographies on every player of every team to air in the months leading up to the Super Bowl, brought to us by Bud Light and Taylor Swift just so I can imagine the MAGA meltdown as the BroFlakes settle in to watch them.

Today is the only day of the year when any of us here in the Land of the Round Doorknobs know anything about Roman Numerals. (Wait until the Moms for Liberty find out their kids are being taught ARABIC numerals in school!). 

Wait until they find out the only Americans conversant with the metric system are their kids and their dealers. Hope your team wins.
-bill kenny

One Day Maybe We'll Meet Again

Don't know about you or your situation-quite frankly I'm so self-absorbed I look at the cover of an old edition of The Whole Earth Catalog I found in my basement and go 'hey! that's where I live!' (if you did not know, the WEC was the internet before there was an internet, easiest way to explain it).

And while, as a resident of the northeast USA, I recognize millions of us have spent weeks up to our keisters in sun-starved days, the only person I'm concerned about in all of that seasonally affected and detected and rejected hullabaloo is moi.

I'm not looking for sympathy--if you are, the easiest place to find it is in the dictionary, between shit and syphilis. Go ahead and check I'll wait right here. Are you feeling better now? Yeah, didn't think so; me neither. And don't feel sorry for me, I do an excellent job of that all by myself and, besides, I'm very competitive. Save your sorries for yourself-you'll need them soon enough.

A lot of us are going through the motions right now and I suspect it has to do, at least a little bit, with the weather we've been having (which works if you're in Boston or Philly but not so much in San Diego or Honolulu) and in my case some personal head noise I could and should have managed better.

As the years have passed, and my semi-paranoia seems to now be rushing by, there are things I've left undone because I thought I'd 'get around to them.' I'm not the happiest camper at the jamboree to concede that more and more, less and less of what's been left undone is going to undergo a status change. That I'm not the only one to appreciate my leave-taking will create a hole about the same as a fist pulled out of a bucket of water is rather a small solace as the remains of the day scatter across the horizon.

I surrendered The Big Picture effort because I'm small-minded and now that the miniatures are proving too hard to accomplish as well I'm starting to look around for the exit to the place I was before, knowing I won't make it back to there, either.

Don't know about you but I really need Spring to get here now. I'm scouting for shoots of new grass and the first one I see I'm gonna grab with both hands and pull so hard the earth itself will give unto me a verdant field and still I will demand even more. I'm not saying I'm sorry, unless I'm captured or cornered and it doesn't look like either is happening today.

-bill kenny

I've Been Lit Since Kermit Was a Tadpole

Do you know how they say knowledge is power? Well, sometimes it's not. 

I just found out I am older than Kermit the Frog, and that knowledge most certainly didn't make me feel more powerful at all. Older than a green fuzzy sock puppet. Looks great on the CV. 

I am so old (how old are you?) I remember McDonald's Hamburgers costing 15 cents (computer keyboards don't have a cents key?) and you ordered them at a window and ate the food in your car. Hamburgers and cheeseburgers and Coca-Cola and French Fries. When your parents were taking you to McDonald's it was a treat and a special occasion.   

Now, according to CNN, it requires cashing in a bond or two. 

We've driven past the Mickey D's on I-95 in Darien, Connecticut, and I'm glad we've never stopped. Gas and food? At these prices? Kidding aside, and I should leave the jokes for Kermit I know, all these 'supply chain' difficulties we've been talking about since Trump couldn't wish COVID away and we started stacking bodies in refrigerator trucks because we had no morgue space, seem to really be corporate greed. Again.

Boom, Like That.
-bill kenny

Channeling Shelley

We all have good days and days we'd like a do-over. Days where everything we do just falls into place and days where we can't put a foot right for trying. 

Days where we feel like we're on top of the world and other days where we need to be reminded of our place in the world. 

Like this.

Ozymandias 

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

-bill kenny

Bee Present for Others

This is NOT my story or my experience. I found it online in the vast expanses of the internet where if a tree falls in the forest whether it makes a sound or not, at least half the commenters will argue over what color its leaves were.

The story by an unknown author was offered by Michelle Gaskill, a perfect Internet stranger, from my perspective, and someone I initially encountered on Facebook, a social platform most of us associate more with snarl and snark than with quiet contemplation or incandescent insight. I confess to contributing more than my fair share in the former categories but then again I’ve always been an overachiever. 

It’s only as I’ve aged, or rusted as Neil Young might say, that I’ve become better acquainted with crafting sentences that use personal pronouns other than “I” and have consciously attempted more to listen to understand rather than to wait for my turn and rebut. Not sure my success rate on that is where it should be, but I’m told the goal should be progress and not perfection. 

I love the lesson of this narrative and wanted to share it because it resonates at so many levels. I hope yours is one of them. Don’t get distracted by the brilliance of the detail in this simple story. Savor the larger picture and then look in the mirror.

Here goes: 

“My dad has bees. Today I went to his house, and he showed me all the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off a 5-gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were three little bees, struggling. 

They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them, and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose.

I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly; he was the one who had taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty yogurt container and put the container outside. Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, bees were flying all around.

We put the three little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all their sisters (all the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all the honey off their bodies. 

We returned a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.

When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty.

Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.

Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates.

We could all learn a thing or two from these bees.

Bee kind always.” 
-bill kenny

You and Me in Paradise

A snapshot into the light. A fellow, somewhat worse for wear judging from his clothes and shoes, but most especially his physical demeanor, sorting through his wallet with one hand, the hand he's using to hold the wallet, for bills to feed into the CT Lottery vending machine just beyond the checkouts in a grocery store.

We're not exactly Vegas (baby), with slot machines tucked in alongside church baptismal fonts, but here, home to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, it's always go time. And this is just the next day in the only life he will ever know. 

In his other hand, but not without a struggle, he's clutching a portable nebulizer. The oxygen mask is cloudy and dimpled with condensation from his heavy exhalation. The side of the lotto vending machine asks in chirpy orange and green letters, "Are You Feeling Lucky Today?"

Not so far, at least that's how it seems to me as I gather up the odds and ends I've purchased while the voice of the self-checkout hectors me to 'remember to take your receipt' because the Forces of Mendacity and Mediocrity (sounds like a grunge band, don't it?) could easily spirit it away. 

The would-be lotto millionaire completes makes his purchase and scans his ticket to see if he's won. He takes himself and his ducat to the 'solutions center' to redeem it and get a pack of smokes, creating one question while resolving another, at least for me.

Between the taxes the federal and state governments have levied on a pack of cigarettes, he's out almost twelve dollars. But he has no time to feel sorry for himself. He hurries past me through the double doors of the exit and the Blue Rhino propane tank corral, to just make a bus that was about to pull out. Instead, it halts and opens its doors to let him board.

The doors remain ajar and February chilled air fills the bus as he goes through his pockets in search of loose change he needs for the coin basket that counts his fare. When sated, it's silent as the driver now finally closes the doors as the bus pulls away from the stop and back into the go 'cause it's another day for you and me in paradise.
-bill kenny 

Say (Not Quite) Cheese

I don't like white American cheese; I like yellow. As it happens, I might not actually be liking cheese at all, technically.  

As brilliant as I find this video (albeit a bit long) my favorite part is found in the comments, "...watching Nile do anything other than chemistry is like watching a monkey fuck a coconut."

And the cheese stands alone.

-bill kenny

Batboy, We Hardly Knew Ye....

I haven't seen it in a magazine rack at the grocery store checkout in a very long time. That may have something to do with the fact that I only use self-check-out registers now but still...

Weekly World News. All black and white with attention-grabbing covers like the UFO landing on the flight deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier or who could forget Batboy shaking hands with H. Ross Perot (hard to tell them apart in those photos as I recall) or George Bush or Bill Clinton? Good times, right? 

I found their online site the other day and it's just terrific.  Billed as "The World's Only Reliable News," it offers me an escape from whatever the hell it is that Faux Gnus or MSNBC is doing 24/7, and allows me to sigh contentedly because it's all bullshit all the time. 

But in their defense, it's not ALL craziness! In these challenging economic times who among us couldn't use a little extra money? Why not sell your soul to the devil?  Or how about a shortened work week-one without Mondays? Bet you'll never read this in the New York Times.

Let's face it, it's not just the Q-Anon hillbillies who scream fake news. All of us suspect it's going on all around us all the time so why not belly up to the bar and get yourself a big dish of that stuff and make it your guilty pleasure? All you have to lose are a few more brain cells.
-bill kenny

On My Brother's Birthday

I'm fortunate to have two brothers and three sisters. I concede as the oldest of the brood lucky was NOT always the first word I would have reached for to describe my condition in terms of my siblings.

As my parents' practice child, I had, and have, the smallest heart, slowest brain, and the most easily bruised feelings. By the time Joan and Bill Senior's last production model, Adam, whose birthday is today, rolled off the familial assembly line, they had a set of mighty fine children.

A brother is someone with whom you share both childhood memories as well as grown-up dreams. I've known Adam every day of his whole life and any stories I would tell you, he would know and in the telling of them they would no longer be ours to share but would belong to the world.

I suspect Adam would be fine with that but I know I wouldn't be at all, so I'll save them for us and offer to you instead words from Clara Ortega that read as if she could be a sister we never knew, but she's describing the family, not just her family: 

"To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time."

As each of us knows, including Adam, that's not really true, but it is a lovely thought, especially on your birthday. And he was just able to read that line and wince thanks to me. Happy Birthday Adam!
-bill kenny

Coming 'Round Again

My memories aren't always what they once were and I'm sad that they are starting to fade or to get misplaced because I've loved so many of those times. It's the spring semester at Rutgers College in 1973. 

My friend, Bob, who worked at WRSU-FM had gotten me a gig, unpaid, to work a Super-Trooper spotlight at The Barn (the old RU Gymnasium, with the swimming pool in the balcony-no lie) for Billy Joel who was touring behind his Piano Man album. 

The place is packed and the show is great as near as I can tell. The hassle with Super Trooper lights is they are arc carbon and the filament burns out quickly even if you're careful, and swapping out a used one for a new one can be dicey at best but in the dark, and upstairs in close quarters it can be perilous. 

I've only had to do it twice for the length of the show and I haven't died or killed anyone else on either changeover. Billy Joel goes into his encore and two things happen though not connected and not simultaneously. 

I decide I have had enough spotlighting for the rest of my life and stop working on The Super Trooper and out from the wings comes Bruce Springsteen who is touring behind his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, and The Barn already raucous goes even raucouser(?) 

The pair do Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley together for about ten to twelve minutes of old-time rock and roll for their own enjoyment as we all go delirious. To this day, I have no idea if anyone at WRSU-FM had the presence of mind to be rolling tape during the performance and if they did what became of it and I'll admit it probably sounds better in my memory than it was on stage but it was great. 

Many years later I had a chance the first time I interviewed Joel to ask him if he remembered that show. He paused as a big smile lit up his face and he just softly said 'Yeah.' and we moved on. For reasons I never knew and are none of my business, Joel stopped making new music after releasing River of Dreams in 1993 with the exception of "All My Life" (back in 2007) while his on-stage duet partner that long ago night worked and worked and worked. 

But maybe we're starting a new book or perhaps nothing more than a new chapter of a previous story as Billy Joel released a new single, Turn the Lights Back On, yesterday morning at seven. His voice is slightly thinner, but his phrasing is still spot-on and his music is flawless as always. Welcome back!  
-bill kenny

Already?

Just me, or is this just a little awkward? Don't look now but we've just blown through the entire first month of the new year. Just. Like. That. <finger snap> 

Where did January go? And do the months and the years seem to accelerate as we age? I don't know about you, but I was busy in January organizing all the documents required to file taxes, not that I do it anymore because it's too complicated for me. 

I use an accountant I've known for decades but never knew professionally until we bought our house five years ago and then I learned our son uses him for his taxes and he took us on as a client as well. 

While I was doing that I was also getting my doctor's approval ducks in order for spinal fusion surgery in the middle of this month. So far, in preparing for the surgery I've learned I have a staph infection. Everyone should have a hobby, I guess.

With all of my comorbidities (a delightful word if ever there was one), the process has been time-consuming and nerve-racking. In addition to my primary care physician signing off, I need my pulmonologist, cardiologist, and nephrologist to all approve. As of this morning, all I have is the pulmonologist's okay but am hopeful of having another signature by the close of business.  

In the meantime, I'll be getting more blood tests to see how successful the radiation treatment for prostate cancer in September may have been (fingers crossed on that) and then I can go back to dreading the mid-month surgery. 

Really happy this February has an additional day though that bonus is starting to feel as welcome as learning you've just won a Yoko Ono concert CD. Time flies.
-bill kenny