No Hallmark Card to Mark the Day

This is International Overdose Awareness Day. There will be a lot of speeching, preaching, perhaps some though not much teaching  and a large amount of writing (better than this I hope) as well as pearl-clutching about 'the problem.' 

I’ve never pretended to myself or others that living in Norwich is close to life in the fast lane or being a Big Noise in the Big City, and there’s no tone of regret when I say that. I’ve discovered I enjoy watching the Big World from the pages of a newspaper or via a TV newscast.

More than once in a while, sometimes it feels like more than once in a week, I’ll read about something or watch a report on a Six O’clock News and shake my head at what seem to be wild times somewhere else. There’s a lot to be said for living in Safe as Houses, Eastern Connecticut.

But no matter how often I shake my head, or (and I’m not proud to admit this) try to close my eyes, we have a public safety threat and, quite frankly, a public health crisis right here and now, substance abuse overdose. Let me repeat that for those in the back: It's NOT a problem, it's a public health crisis and we cannot begin to hope to solve it unless and until we admit it that it is. 

You’ve read the police reports, and more on point, the obituaries of neighbors and family members whose lives have ended because of overdoses, but we're really not accepting that it's happening here, where we live. 

If you think of your own circle of friends and acquaintances and do not know someone, or of someone, whose life has been shattered by a tragic overdose (and there are no other kind) you are very fortunate. Or, more likely, you are kidding yourself.

And substance abuse overdose is a plague whose growth no single agency or program can halt or slow. It is a ravenous fire dangerously close to out of control that will consume all that we love and all that we are if we do not sit together, speak from our hearts  about causes and solutions and truly listen to those who can help us end this horribly human tragedy.

This needs to stop being a yet another sad day on the calendar and instead, a call to arms.
-bill kenny

The Pump Don't Work

Dylan nailed it. 

"Get sick, get well Hang around a ink well Ring bell, hard to tell If anything is goin’ to sell.

Try hard, get barred Get back, write braille Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail.

Look out kid You’re gonna get hit But users, cheaters Six-time losers Hang around the theaters.

Girl by the whirlpool Lookin’ for a new fool Don’t follow leaders Watch the parkin’ meters."

"Ah get born, keep warm

Short pants, romance, learn to dance Get dressed, get blessed Try to be a success

Please her, please him, buy gifts

Don’t steal, don’t lift Twenty years of schoolin’ And they put you on the day shift."

-bill kenny

Have a Poster

There's an old joke about how going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than sleeping in a garage doesn't make you a car.  

I can no longer hear the laughs over the sounds empty stomachs make.
-bill kenny

Jump

Even if you are no more than a casual reader you know that where I live now is not where I was born. I was born in New York City. My parents and their friends moved to New Jersey when I was a toddler.  Jersey was one of two places that Eisenhower-era young married New Yorkers (YMNY) moved to when they had a few bucks.

When YMNY had MORE than a few bucks, they moved to Connecticut, to the Gold Coast, not this part of the state, east of the Connecticut River and almost in Rhode Island. Until the two Native American casinos came along, this part of the state was known for Mystic, on either side of 95 North as folks headed to Cape Cod for their vacations.

There a lot of places in the new england (deliberately without capital letters) built along the banks of rivers that powered the textile factories that disappeared in the late Forties and Fifties because cheaper labor in the Deep South shifted the industrial footprint only to be, in turn, destroyed by even cheaper labor half a world away.

This new england doesn't suffer from Future Shock, but present shock. There are many here who hold on to the past so tightly, believing it will return though they know not how, that they cannot understand how much life and times have changed or how far behind they have fallen.

They watch with a mixture of suspicion and hope as every 'new' person or 'new' idea is presented as The Next Big Thing and when that definite article proves to be less than advertised, their feelings change from disappointed to deceived, and they neither forgive nor forget.       

Much of what I’ve seen in Norwich in the three-plus decades I and my family have lived here is a change in the direction of the circles in which we run. As if the running were itself a plan. We elect new brooms to sweep old dust-or choose old brooms to leave the dust alone. It makes no difference, least of all to the dust.

We were talking about downtown revitalization when I arrived here, and we're still doing it-and that's NOT accidental. People prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not.

Those of us who didn’t grow up here will never be “from here” no matter how long we live in Norwich. Every discussion about this city becomes ‘this is a Norwich thing, and you don’t understand.’  
Maybe.

But here’s something all of us can understand about those of us not from here: we are less wedded to a past we never had and more willing to risk our present for a desirable future for ourselves and our families. It’s the New Math: the less you have, the less you have to lose.

It’s not that, as a city, we haven’t meant well in Norwich. We have had armies of people, on a variety of committees, commissions, agencies and boards, each with a tiny piece of the economic development puzzle, struggling to make a breakthrough and somehow hit a game-winning grand slam home run.

And plans! Brother, Sister-there are rooms in our City Hall where you can't swing a wombat, or other small animal, and not hit yet another development study, nicely bound, never read, right on a shelf. 

Words, to include these, are only words. Ability, agility, and most of all action are what matter. Do something.
-bill kenny

The Portal to Paradise?

As a retired elderly man with no discernible or marketable skills, I spend a lot of time with my desktop computer often to no avail. Like so much else of all the machinery that comprises my scenery, the desktop computers in my life have a tendency to do what I tell them instead of what I want. 

I suppose I should be grateful I don't have voice activated software for them because in my case, I'd need to replace the Idiot's Guide with the most recent update to Masters and Johnson, since many of my voice commands would be anatomically and electronically nonexecutable.

I stare into the depths of the blue screen of death a half dozen or more times a day-O death where is thy sting, I sing; well, actually it doesn't sound very much like singing when I do it but you get my drift. I've endured countless admonitions that I've attempted an "illegal operation" as the PC shuts down and goes dark to teach one of us a lesson (all of which is wasted on me).

There's little in life less worth living than being judged to be nonresponsive. Empires have been overthrown for less and voyages of exploration have been undertaken to avoid its curse. I used to always click "Send Error Report" no matter what had happened or when it occurred because somehow, I just knew the boys and girls of Microsoft were sitting in their operator cubicles on pins and needles in downtown Redmond, Washington, waiting to read about the background of my latest computational catastrophe. Together, we would become better people and programs.

Not exactly as it turns out. Slowly, as time went by and the same stupid nonresponsive program messages kept popping up, it crossed my mind that The Gates Gang wasn't especially quick on the uptake or why else would the same program error keep happening. It wasn't like I was getting any smarter at screwing things up. Nope, not me. I had pretty much flat-lined on the learning curve.

And while even in the most recent of times I'm still generating computer error messages by the bushelful, I always opt now for "Don't Send." It's as close as I can get to going commando in a spam-filled virus infested phishing pool. I need a unit to sample and hold-but not an angry one. A new design, a new design. 
-bill kenny

Medicine Meets Politics

 What is the medical term for the space between these two?

The Perineum. 
-bill kenny

A True WORLD Series

As school-age children across the USA start to reconcile themselves to the inevitability that their next academic year is beginning (for some) in a matter of days and/or hours, I feel compelled to note, in the interests of good sportsmanship and fair play, the boys of summer (subject to the rules and interpretations of the respective national governing boards) have nearly finished the process to crown the next Little League World Series Champion.

On any given day during the past two weeks, I have had NO idea who was playing and (obviously enough) no knowledge about any of the players. It didn't matter. In a world where we pay grown men wages approximating the gross national product of some Third-World nations to participate professionally in a sport our children play for free, there is something about the joy and exhilaration of the competition in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, that I find a tonic for the soul.

The enthusiasm and engagement of the television announcers, some of whom as youngsters, played on these same fields in pursuit of a championship, is contagious and inspiring. If you can listen to the Little League Pledge, almost as old as I am, or even just read it, and not get goosebumps, don't bother checking your pulse, call your coroner as you're no longer among the living.

All you can be is reminded and refreshed about why you choose to follow baseball. Why, in an era of a dozen other sports all grabbing more headlines and world-wide attention, the simple beauty of a contest that, at its most basic, involves striking a small leather-bound, round spheroid with a stick, be it wood, metal or some kind of composite and doing it better than a like number of others attempting to do the same on the other team.

For a too brief period, eleven-year-olds served as role models as entire team, who'd just been white-washed and whose run to the Series ended prematurely and with a drubbing no one would wish on anyone else, each stand one behind the other along the first and third base lines after the final out and shake the hands of the team sending them home prematurely and tell them 'good game' and really mean it, because the Little League World Series isn't just about baseball, it's about life, as it should be lived.

"... I will play fair. And strive to win. But win or lose, I will always do my best."
The Kids Are Alright.
-bill kenny 

Don't Touch that Dial!

The news hit me like a punch to the gut.
NewsRadio 88, WCBS-AM will soon be no more. 

"Traffic and Weather Together on the Eight's" a watchword for generations of radio listeners in the NYC metropolitan area is over and done.  I've read the story and variations of it for days and despite the explanations and excuses masquerading as reasons, I still don't get it.

The AM radio in every car my father drove for every day he and I shared the planet had one or more stations pre-sets tuned to NewsRadio 88. How the hell else would he know what was going on in the world, or what the weather might be now, as opposed to ten minutes earlier when they last told him? 

Not everything new is better. R.I.P. NewsRadio 88.
-bill kenny

Partially People

There's a lot more to the climate change argument than meets the eye.

And more often than not external change comes from within. Try it and see.
-bill kenny

Totally Not Weird

Every time I decide MAGAt Minions "can't get no weirder," one of them says hold my beer. Or a cup of something else.

I think the Farrelly Brothers and Cameron Diaz are both owed an explanation and perhaps compensation. 
-bill kenny

One Step Leads to Another

When I was a teen, an uncle used to say, 'the older I get, the better I was,' which I found hysterical because I thought I was already good. At seventy-two, it's true and  still funny but not so funny as I once thought it was. 

I say that to pretend I was much smarter as a wee slip of a lad, and I found some words I offered almost fifteen years ago that very nearly prove it. When I wrote them, I was full of optimism and enthusiasm (I was certainly full of something) as I called it "Short Term Strategies and Long Term Goals." Now, a little worse for wear, I'd probably favor, "Same Movie, Different Actors."  Read for yourself:

For what feels like eons, talk, time and talent has been focused in Norwich on downtown economic redevelopment. I'm a glass half-full guy and would argue we've come a long way since my realtor drove me through downtown in October 1991 on the way to what would become my family's home near Chelsea Parade.

We didn't stop in downtown which was fine as I'm allergic to plywood which covered a lot of the window. It's been over three decades since then and despite what you sometimes feel, Norwich is improving (probably not at the rate and pace you'd like. Join the club.) 

We've got hopeful starts down to an art form. The big applause, the dazzling smile, the gathering around a new venture as the ribbon is cut...here have some cake and coffee and a heaping helping of congratulations and welcome to Norwich. 

Trouble too often follows what's supposed to happen next but often doesn't. That first step was a snap-it's the creation of the footfalls that follow it to where we want to go that we need to learn.

First a path, then a trail, then a road--each ripple of progress making a larger circle that covers a greater area of Norwich as development reaches farther and brings the benefits of enhanced (commercial especially) property tax revenues to the grand list and elevates our community's quality of life throughout each of the neighborhoods in Norwich.

Patience and perseverance are called for and a talent to not only see the next move but the one after the next one. Some cynics say "he who hesitates is lunch" and Norwich is often on the menu. We've wasted a lot of time competing when we needed to cooperate. We're catching on but we have a ways to go before we catch up.

Each of us needs to be a part of greater/broader effort that requires us to not only say the right things but to do them, on our street, around our block until we meet a neighbor, who is doing the same thing on their street and neighborhood. One engaged person is a revolution, two energized people are a movement and three can not only make a difference but can be the difference.

It's important we communicate openly and clearly with those whom we send to the City Council and to whom we entrust our children's education, as it is important that they be clear when speaking to and with us. Here's a number to chew on: in non-Presidential elections (for decades), registered voter turnout here is less than twenty-five percent. Put it another way, one out of every four of us is telling the other three what to do. 

In case you hadn't noticed, that hasn't been working out very well for us. In addition to low (= lousy) voter turnout, many of us have left too many others to do the heavy lifting on boards and commissions ranging from the Historic District Commission through the Recreation Advisory Board to the Commission on the City Plan. 

The same people we join with on Neighborhood Watch, whose kids are with our kids in scouts, are also the volunteers on about three dozen agencies nearly all of whom might as well meet in secrecy because so few of us attend their open and publicized meetings. And don't get me started on the vacancies that exist on so many of these panels-there's probably one with your name on it.

We have to hold ourselves accountable for the development and improvement of our city and that means realizing when you finger point (as if that has ever solved anything), three of the fingers on your hand are pointing back at yourself. Let's face it. We've looked everywhere for solutions; maybe we should start with the mirror. 

-bill kenny

Book Now!

As the summer ends, and travel package prices drop in the hopes of attracting a happy wanderer or two, if you had to pick a dream destination, what would you choose? 

Rhetorical question, to be honest. 

Family vacation or just-a-two-of-us getaway? Fun in the sun or cultural enrichment. The choices are almost beyond number aren't they? That noise is the sound of your mind boggling as you contemplate the possibilities. 

Let me throw a spanner in your spokes. I know, North Korea? I cannot imagine it will be crowded and I doubt you'll need to worry about a mint on your pillow at the hotel as I suspect none of those three actually exist.
-bill kenny 

   

The Truth Will Set You Free

 "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." Buddha

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." Abraham Lincoln
-bill kenny  

Days of '49

Remember when we all used to live together in a shared country? Together being the operative word. We didn’t always get our own way  and we tended to favor the notion of having one political party in control of the White House while the other one was in Congress.

We had infinite shades of grey, anatomically and otherwise. Now we have the most abrupt, bruising and brusque form of non-nuanced conversations in all the years I've been carrying around this belly-button.

And it's almost fine. 

We have clenched jaws and hard eyes and hardened hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't talk-it just means we won't, I guess. Somewhere we decided two diatribes equals one dialogue and I GET TO GO FIRST! (sorry). If we yell AT one another long enough, from a distance somewhere in space it will look like we are talking to one another. Respectful disagreement has gone the way of the dodo bird. 

If you don't agree with me you are the most awful person in the history of the planet, as are everyone else related to you, everyone else related to them and everyone any of you know. Wait a minute-when I do that much finger pointing some of the fingers on that hand point back at me. Hmmm.

Labels such as 'liberal' and 'conservative' are now pejoratives hurled like discount store invective at opposing viewpoints, appropriate or not, and the reaction to the labeling obscures quite nicely any opportunity to see the person we've just tagged. Now all we are is disagreeable when we disagree. And we engage in preemptive shouting matches with one another in forums supposedly designed to let us exchange ideas and views. The longer the meeting, the louder the yelling and don't even get me started on the understanding and the line between gee-willikers and jihad makes it almost impossible to discuss anything. 

You can't shake hands with people who have balled fists. We need to learn once again to speak in complete sentences and respectful tones to one another, one at a time and then move on to larger groups. Eventually, we might get the hang of how we used to do all of this, back when we all lived in the same country at the same time. History needn't be a mystery.
-bill kenny

What the Cat Dragged in

Arriving the other day in my email folder, having somehow eluded the spam filter, was this missive:  

I am a huge believer in the Edifice Complex (calm down, Sophocles, I didn't type Oedipus). That is, build me a big, impressive front and i won't be too troubled by the lack of depth.

That said, I did a tiny bit of digging to learn more about the Fair Election Fund and more specifically, who pays for its existence. I was quite taken by "The fund...doesn’t appear on searches of the federal Internal Revenue Service or Federal Election Commission websites." 

Made me feel a LOT better that I had replied to their inquiry with neither a "Yes" nor a "No," but rather with a GFY. 
-bill kenny

What Were Once Vices

I very much enjoyed Billie Eilish's debut, "When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?" as much for the music as for the thoughtfulness of the question (and maybe more so for the latter). 

There are customs and habits I have as a man in 2024 that I could have never imagined as a boy in 1964 and yet here we are with the knowledge that by the time I've shuffled off this mortal coil some of the 'I do it without thinking' of today will have long since become 'I can't believe I used to do that,' by tomorrow's early light. 

I'm not alone as it turns out in having an abnormal reality.
Pay close attention to #11; I almost didn't.
-bill kenny

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Unless you've experienced it yourself, you will doubt the accuracy and veracity of the following statement. All food tastes better when consumed at a baseball game. I have no idea why. 

Perhaps it's the electrons emanating from the baseballs and mitts that alters the atmosphere in which the food is being consumed. If I wore a younger man's clothes I might attempt to author a dissertation in support of my assertion and be nominated for an international prize or two (the parking space in front of the house is still free if the Pulitzer Prize Patrol van is still circling the block. Just sayin'.). 

Having postulated that, I will concede it may not be true for football as the Arizona Cardinals are about to prove. I am however willing to wager they end up with every dentist within a two hundred mile radius of the stadium becoming a season ticket holder. 
-bill kenny

Picture Postcards from Near Prosperity

Coming out of the supermarket the other afternoon as I headed to my car, was a fellow standing alongside a Toyota Corolla, not the newest model but well-cared for. In front of the car, in display mode was a table with a hand-written sign that read "$40." It was a coffee table that came to my knees and was about three feet long.

I measure the heights of things in terms of my knees. I've had three operations to replace one and half kneecaps making me nearly bionic but still moronic and have motor skills challenges. He wasn't trying to assault me with the table but sell it.

Meanwhile as both major political parties maneuver to stake out the best positions for the November Election, Dave (I didn't ask if that were his real name. Situation reversed, I wouldn't give me mine either) was doing what he had to do to keep his family from sleeping in that Corolla.

Dave has a job, okay HAD a job, working for a car dealership in the auto body shop. He was especially good, he told me, in frame straightening and cold steel reconfiguration (all I know about cars is where the gas goes. Everything he said was an English I don't speak). 

You'd think as people held on to their cars longer, because they can't afford to buy new ones, the Daves across the country would be in decent shape, unless their dealers get squeezed by banks whose money they use to buy the cars they sell us. When that happens, they lower their overhead and the Daves all hit the bricks.

He started coming to the parking lot about eight months ago he said, looking to chat up people after they'd bought groceries to see if they needed their sidewalks shoveled free of snow, or pathways cleared to their garages. We had a reasonable amount of snow last winter, though I didn't get the impression he'd made enough money to get the front tires on the Corolla replaced, as they looked a little like the top of my head, if you follow my drift.

He seemed a bright man, just confused as to how he wound up at the place where the road and the sky collide in the bonfire of vanities that has become America 2024.

Dave's already sold off most of his living room. He's got two kids, ready for middle school and no illusions they'll be going anywhere near a college or any other post-secondary educational institution unless they win the lottery.

It's the kind of scene my mom's father, Grampy, used to tell me about when I was small: grown men selling apples in front of skyscrapers in Manhattan and families, like his, learning to not want so they weren't disappointed when they didn't get. 

Every generation of American since we got started has done better than our parents before us so our children will have it better than we did. It's the promise of that dream that joins us as a nation, no matter our color, gender, religion or politics.

I walked back to my car. I didn't need a coffee table and couldn't persuade Dave to take ten bucks 'just in case' somebody only had thirty. I drove off wondering what the odds are of anyone seeking higher political office encountering Dave and being able to help America keep its promise to him, and everyone else. 
-bill kenny

Ruts and Graves

I had a rather raucous and thoroughly unpleasant visit with my endocrinologist the latter part of last week. He reminds me a lot of Gru from "Despicable Me" both physically and how he talks not that I think it's the world's greatest idea to ever tell him that unless I'd like to start taking all of my prescriptions as enemas, and I think he'd be the guy to do just that.

My endocrinologist is, beneath his gruff exterior, the possessor of a gruff interior but he has great taste in reading materials and wound up, as we spoke about state of mind influences on your state of health, reminding me of both a marvelous former fellow traveler here on the Big Blue Marble, Portia Nelson, and my favorite non-story about urban renewal, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk. Lather, rinse, repeat.

-bill kenny

Channeling Bill Murray

I'm experiencing Groundhog Day-but I'm not sure if I mean the one in February or the movie. What follows is something I wrote exactly a decade and a half ago. Odd how I'm still in the same state, and I don't mean The Nutmeg. 

I called it:  

I Take a Breath and Pull the Air in 'til There's Nothing Left

This is the hardest part of the season for me. The promise of the endless summer that I savored in June has been replaced by a sinking feeling that I've missed out yet again, even when I'm not really sure about what, exactly, I've missed. The days are still very often hot, but the light fades faster than it did a month ago and there's something in the air, different and yet familiar.

In years past, this is the time of year when my wife and I would be organizing one or the other (or both) children for the arriving too-fast and too-soon school year (actually, my wife did all of the organizing and the school supplies were assembled despite my assistance). This not-summer much longer but not-yet autumn resonates beyond those of us with school age children.

That the world beyond my doorstep is in shambles and chaos is not helping me manage the malaise that's become my constant companion for reasons I cannot fully understand. We have lived in our house, on our street in our neighborhood and city for nearly thirty-three years. I don't think the fatigue I'm feeling in terms of 'same shirt, different day' is a result of any of that but what's harder to sort out is what to do about it.

You may have had it happen to you as well-you look up and you're not where you used to be or where you want to be and have no idea how you got to where you are or what to do next. I used to tease my wife back when it was just she and me as I loaded us into the VW Käfer and just drove that when you don't know where you're going any road will get you there. Eventually, we were always home and dry, more or less.

I've been around this juke joint for a not inconsiderable number of years, somewhat to my surprise and to the abject chagrin and dismay of more than a few people whom I won't dignify by naming, though they know who they are. 

I'm thinking that maybe I'm just momentarily becalmed and that in the next moment, or maybe the one after that, the wind will fill my sails and we'll be off again, racing to the horizon and beyond.

I'm starting to enjoy the sunrises more than I ever have and to take as personal affronts when the days end. I can figure out how and when the night creeps in on cat's feet but can neither stop nor slow it. Hoping today's events can fulfill this morning's promise, just as I did yesterday and hope to as well on the morrow.

-bill kenny

A Short Sunday Sermon

No need to visit a near-by (or faraway) house of worship. I have you covered.  

And now, spiritually fortified, go forth and let your faith light the world. 
-bill kenny

A Wheel Within a Wheel

I believe The Little Tramp not only made us smile, but helped us think.

I do wish to point out, however, that grape juice stains on a white dress shirt are probably pretty permanent, even in these Modern Times.
-bill kenny

Platonic But Not in Love

Many years ago, we taught history in our schools because we studied history to learn from it as opposed to now, when we denigrate it and belittle those who seek lessons for today from yesterday. As such, an historical important figure, Plato, once offered 'Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War.' 

If you are someone who thinks Plato was Pluto's older brother, please double click to someplace else on the World Weird Web because what follows is a waste for you. You can thank me later. If the mention of Margaret Atwood also causes you to draw a blank, I can't expect you to make much of her observation 'war doesn't determine who is right, only who is left.'

Seventy-nine years ago, today, the United States bombed Nagasaki, Japan, with a weapon so horrible in its power of destruction, for a long time we, as a species, lacked the words in any language fully convey the depth of destruction and tragedy it, and its twin, dropped on Hiroshima three days previously, had created.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but I suspect no one knows how many lives it costs. A thought worth holding, perhaps, as we consider these two images.

The Bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945
-The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, LA.

The ruins of Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945.
-Hulton Archive

The scale and scope of the damages offered humanity a glimpse into an atomic abyss from which we knew there could be no escape, and we’ve managed for almost eight decades to not unsheathe the sword of nuclear annihilation again on one another.

These two images of “then and now' Nagasaki should offer us hope that we can, indeed, learn to speak with one another, but more importantly than speak, should compel us to listen.

“We got your message on the radio…It’s never going to fade away.”

-bill kenny 

Sebastian Would Be Pleased

I was taking a shortcut earlier this week looking for Triscuits in my grocer's. I would assume big stores have aisles reserved just for specific products, in my case, Cheerios, Cheez-Its and seedless grapes, but then I remember that I live in a small town and we can't always have all the amenities we want. Some settling and sharing of contents may occur in shipment and there's not a whole lot any of us can do about it.

By taking the shortcut I ended confronting the lobsters in the seafood department. I guess I should tell you that the Gordon Fisherman needn't brave the dark and rolling sea for me-I eat fish sticks and just about nothing else. And if I were to be honest what I actually eat are tightly compacted bread crumbs that may or may not have particles of fish in/near/close to them. 

One of the 'great things' people I worked with always told me as I was preparing to relocate to The Land of Round Doorknobs was how I could now have have all the seafood I liked. I never had the heart to tell them I had all the seafood I liked by the time I was five.

Living in Southeastern Connecticut where the farther north you head up the coast until you're Down East, the wider the A gets in lobstah, I cannot eat them and have trouble even looking at 'em. I'm a card-carrying carnivore-pork, chicken, lamb, beef, have napkin will travel. Fish, shellfish, crustaceans not so much. If you and I were to be marooned on a desert island, you should kill me immediately, since I can tell you right now, I'd eat you right after you'd fattened yourself up on all the fish you'd caught. Doubt me? Doze at your peril.

Staring at the lobsters in the glass tank (why do they have to be kept like that? This is somehow more humane than a box with metal sides? ) I was almost going to type forlorn looking but I have no idea what part of the lobster is the face, though I think I know what the mouth is (but NOT why it looks like they're talking all the time) and I've no clue what a forlorn one would look like in comparison to a joyous one. 

I suspect the easiest way to tell them apart is a joyous one probably doesn't have giant rubber bands around the pincers (claws?) because it's on the floor of the ocean instead of in a glass tank in a super market. Jack Hannah on line two for me with a TV series pitch for TDC's Shark Week. Not. 

I wanted to ask the guy behind the counter if the store feeds the lobsters before people buy them (and if so, what; Soylent Green?) but they were selling so quickly the question was moot. It's strange watching them stacked atop one another, not really grasping the deal with the rubber band and still trying to get at each other in such a confined space. 

If they're capable of thought, are they sitting there thinking 'this the crappiest day of my life!' Until the hand (and arm) of Fate surprises them and they are momentarily borne aloft and suddenly learn there are worse things in life than being in a glass tank. 

I ducked into the next aisle, Prepared Food, when I flashed on the notion that for all other carnivorous predators on this planet we are unprepared food. Yes, Virginia, there is a free lunch. We're eating it now. Praise the Lord and pass the cocktail sauce.
-bill kenny     

The View from Sugar Mountain

It's been sneaking up on us for weeks, technically for a little more than a month. The hours of daylight have already started to shrink and we're just starting August. The little boy in me (okay, very, very deep inside of me. Happy now?) always feels sad when I realize the getting dark after dinner part is starting earlier and earlier. 

It's not like I'm hurrying to clean my plate so I can be excused to go over to Neil's house and then down the street to Bobby's and call them to come out and play catch. Heck, if those two are in half the shape I'm in, by the time we get to the sandlot, it'll be pitch black. Life called on account of darkness. There's one for the record books.

Remember all the plans we had 'for the summer,' back around Memorial Day? This was the summer we were going to work on all those projects around the house we were putting off waiting for good weather. And how we studied the calendar to figure out when we were going on vacation because this summer would be the Road Trip to End All Road Trips. 

And what happened? Life, I guess. And talk about a seamless transition to rival the decrease in daylight: we went from planning that Fourth of July blowout to checking out the ads in the newspaper for back-to-school clothing sales for the kids. 

You know how there's that disclaimer on your vehicle's passenger mirror, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"? The same is true for calendars. Three weeks from tomorrow children will return to their schools all across our city. Ready or not, here they come. 

Quick tip of the hat to every single business on earth, or so it seems, whose been advertising for what feels like forever that 'Back to School' is just around the corner. And now it is. Talk about 'be careful what you wish for.'

As hot and humid as it's been here in Southeast Connecticut (I really hate when I break a sweat early in the morning not doing anything but standing in one place, inhaling and exhaling), I'll whine just as piteously (actually more so) in February when the snow's crisp and even and the temperature is hovering somewhere south of freezing. But the seasonal dying of the light saddens me, especially as I age, because I see life as a measured commodity and don't appreciate reminders that it flows within and without me, especially the latter aspect.

One of the Facebook friends I have (an acquaintance, as are most of them, at best) was observing the other day how grey the skies were where they are right now-which I think is probably a kinder idea in the spring and summer than in the autumn and fall since during the latter many of us peer at the heavens warily and observe 'if it gets any colder, with this sky, it'll snow.' 

Because they are considerably younger than I am, as are most people on earth, I didn't comment on the slightly disappointed tone of unhappiness they had about the weather and its impact on their family working vacation. You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain, but when you are, you should be kinder than when twenty isn't visible in the mirror anymore.  

'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' If you think Robert Herrick is encouraging you to visit the Rose Garden at Mohegan Park, that's fine; if you haven't you should while you can. 

But my larger point, visible even when I'm wearing a ballcap, is Carpe Diem, seize the day, every day because you don't get any of them back. And ruing and regretting what would have/could have/should have been, benefits no one and time spent doing so is wasted. Make each minute memorable.
-bill kenny

Well, the Good Days May Not Return

At some point today, and we're hoping to be present, my youngest brother, Adam, becomes a Superior Court Justice in the State of New Jersey. Unlike being my youngest brother, he had to earn that honor, Your Honor, and it suits him well. 

I'm smiling thinking of how our parents must be smiling as they look down on him. Yes indeed! 'Up and at 'em, Adam Ant!'

Two different and (maybe) related events happened yesterday. I am perhaps their only point of intersection.  

I was out walking briefly and encountered a bandy-legged toddler, not much more than a week into solo walking (I'd guess). He moved as much side to side as forward, all the while with a smile so wide I imagine you could see it from space. And how he laughed! I can remember our two children being about his size (I don't guess ages on anybody, much less miniature people) and giggling as they slowly walked until they were grown and gone.

The toddler's mother was close at hand, far enough away he felt that he was on his own, but still near enough to quickly intervene should she need to (knowing the difference between those two states is an art). As we passed one another he stopped and looked me up and down (he came to just above my knees) long enough for one of us to relish the journey ahead and the other to regret the trail sometimes taken, and then, as unsteady as ever, he moved on. 

Later in the day, I fell across an old feature I'd bookmarked a decade earlier on Ray Bradbury. I have read, or owned, nearly everything he has ever written, so keep your 'I didn't even know he was still alive' remarks to yourself. Titles such as Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451, and unending short stories to include And There Will Come Soft Rains, are as fresh to me now as when I first read them six decades ago.

The article noted Bradbury describes himself as a 'delicatessen religionist', inspired by Eastern and Western religions, who believes that "Joy is the grace we say to God." I am not good at arithmetic so I don't how many incidents and accidents in a particular sequence had to occur for me to have found this in the vastness of the Internet after an encounter with an advance scout from the Next Century.

His observation that "I jump off the cliff, and build my wings on the way down" takes my breath away. I've been watching the days draw down without ever understanding what happens After This Song Is Over, but I'm thinking, maybe, now I can fashion a truce with myself to get farther down the road. I've had as much trouble with the journey as with the destination and I may never get that sorted out but I guess I'll know when I get there.
-bill kenny

Friends, Romans, and Countrymen!

The face that confronts me every morning in the mirror is all the proof I thought I ever needed that even rock and roll kids do age. Last week, I got an additional not-especially-subtle reminder, hearing aids.

Too many decades of rock music at MAX VOL at the concert mixing board combined with one too many news stories on US Army tank ranges and small-arms training innovations had reduced me to making 'WHAT?!?' the most frequently used word in my vocabulary.

The hearing loss is/was very slow-I didn't actually think I had a problem until last fall when I first realized I was missing out and missing out badly. Two sets of visits to professionals who specialize in audiometry confirmed my wife's theory that I wasn't so much ignoring her as not hearing her. 

I'm not sure I want to know what the consequences for the former would have been; for the latter, it's my still-have-that-new-hearing-aids-smell hearing aids. It's like going from black and white to color. I thought I was joking when I told the technician I expected to be able to hear a mosquito fart but still getting used to them at 80% efficiency, I think I might have been correct. 

Thank you, Jose and Heidi at Beltone. I can finally hear myself think.
Now I understand what everyone else is always so upset about.  
-bill kenny

How About Best of Three?

I am a lousy guesser and always have been.  

I mention that because of the title of an article I encountered, "The One Good Reason You Should Never Take Your Shoes Off On an Airplane (besides the obvious, that is)"

I guessed that 'the obvious' had something to do with Samuel L. Jackson and the movie, "Snakes on a Plane." Resounding 'nope.' 

I will admit the actual reason is even scarier than snakes. 
-bill kenny

Following Newman's Advice

I like to think of myself as a 'getting along by going along' kind of guy, except I'm actually not. 

I more closely resemble an unreconstructed butthead on any manner of topics from music (what I like is great but what you like may not be), religion (my God can beat up your God), to politics (I just don't think a thirty-four time convicted felon who has also been found guilty of sexual assault and defamation of character, should be wandering around free, much less as a presidential candidate of a major political party, at least NOT in the US).   

My heart beats on the left side of my body and my politics follows my heart. As the bald spot on the top of my head gets larger (I like to think of it as a solar panel, powering a sex machine but who am I kidding, right?) I've taken to wearing ball caps. I have quite a collection of bands, and sports teams as well as more than a few espousing causes I feel strongly about including Vote Vets, Legalize Voting, and Make America Not Embarrassing Again. 

Not that long ago, I added another statement cap that I've been slightly reticent to wear out and about at the risk of injuring the easily bruised feelings of MAGATs and Evangenitals. 

Funny thing about those feelings. 

Coming out of our local supermarket last Friday morning I passed an older-than-me gentleman (they do exist) on his way in with a cap that pretty much resolved any ambiguity I might have had about upsetting people.

Thanks for clearing that up. 

As for all the hoodless Klansmen who think DEI as the New Orange Is the New Black, as we both know, DJT is 100% DEI, Didn't Earn It. And, let me give you a pronunciation tip for her first name: it's President (prez-i-duhnt) Harris.

Order yours

And FWIW, it's Randy Newman's advice I'm following.
-bill kenny