Time, the Conqueror

I was five weeks into Air Force basic training when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. It was fifty years ago today and marked the (American) end of the Vietnam War. 

I've always felt somewhat unclean about being awarded an additional five points of hiring preference by the Office of Personnel Management for being a 'Vietnam-era veteran.' I was never sure if I put the points advantage to a good use and now that I'm retired I guess I will never know. 

We started having an annual Vietnam Veterans Day here in Norwich, Connecticut, I think, in and around 2000, and suspect the remembrance was tied to the anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. 

I fear that all these years down the road, we, as a country, haven't ever really made our peace with that war, the way we fought it and the way it ended but most especially with how we treated those lucky enough to come home from it. 

Some have suggested Vietnam demonstrated the danger of trying to conduct a guns AND butter war, that is, we sent people off to fight while back on the home front, with very few changes. I guess it's true, since while we had sappers trying to clear mines from rice paddies in monsoons we also had half a million gather in the mud of Yasgur's Farm. And when all the toking and joking was over, the ages of everybody were practically identical, though I think the guys humping it through weeds were younger, but also older.

I had a Manhattan prep school classmate killed in the meat grinder that was  Vietnam. From what I've been told by long-time residents of Norwich, the city 'lost' twelve young men in that War. When I'm feeling angry and bitter at how the survivors were treated, I'm tempted to argue that they weren't lost at all, but that's disrespectful to both their memories and to those who came home wounded in places that will never heal and were left to their own devices as the rest of us raced to forget what we never knew enough about in the first place.

We used to hold a service at Chelsea Parade but this year it was relocated to the VFW Post in, of all places, the Business Park. Perhaps it was time as the crowd at the parade had grown smaller, and (of course) older, in recent years but I've never felt at ease (pun intended) at the current location or any American Legion posts, though I'm not sure why. 

Vietnam Veterans Wall, Washington DC, photographed by Angela Pan.

All wars are geo-political and maybe even ideological passion plays on a big canvas but much of the fighting and ALL of the dying happens in small towns across the country. I doubt that there's a town of any size that wasn't affected by Vietnam and still wrangles with the memories of what was done and what was left undone. 

Norwich strives to be a city, but we are, a gathering of villages each with a heritage of hard work and sacrifice found in small towns. And in small towns, war is not an abstraction or an account in a history book; war is a family matter. 

A lifetime ago brothers, fathers and uncles, as well as sisters, mothers and aunts, all traveled halfway around the world to a place few of the rest of us could pronounce or even find on a map, because their country asked them to do so. 

Those who fought in the Vietnam War came from everywhere we call home, wherever that is, to include fourteen from Norwich who died there. Robert Cooley, Francis Donahue, Thomas Donovan, James Greene, Jr., Joseph Grillo, Jr., Robert Howard, William Marcy, James McNeeley, Harold Nielsen, Robert Pendergast, Franklin Renshaw, Aaron Rosenstreich, Alton Sebastian, and David Voutour are as much a part of Norwich history as Samuel Huntington or Edward Land.

Welcome home.
-bill kenny

Men ingen Rocket J. Squirrel?

A half-century ago, during an all-too-brief arctic summer, Joey H. and I wandered along a trail on the way to the Ice Cap neither of us would ever reach. We were in the Air Force and were stationed at "The Miami of the North," Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland. It was our first permanent duty station assignment after basic training and tech school. 

Summers in Greenland were a bit longer than the blink-and-you'll-miss-it variety but not by much. And while it didn't last long, it was lovely while it did and it was daylight 24/7 as well. We were hiking because north of the Arctic Circle as the base was, there wasn't a huge amount of leisure-time offerings. 

As we walked we became aware of a clomping, rumbling noise; very faint at first but then as we continued, louder and more menacing. We looked about as we continued but could see nothing that might explain the sound and then, in the blink of an eye, we lept out of its way, down the path we'd been following, at a speed I could scarcely comprehend, came a bull caribou. Head down, rushing along the path responding to a primal urge for a mate, he would have killed us without stopping. 

I thought of that while enjoying this Great Moose Migration across the top of the world, in Norway. Trust me, the video is much safer.
-bill kenny

Lips, I Knew About But Ears?

I love the World Wide Web, always have, and always will. 

I love that I can be wondering about anything, just the other day it was The Cyrkle and their Paul Simon-penned tune, Red Rubber Ball. I then grab my smartphone, type the words into search, and bingo! Stuff about what I wondered about, perhaps even true. That I should live to see such signs and wonders!  

My wife and I were grocery shopping the other day (that home equity loan came through so we invested in cereal and pasta sauce) and in a light-headed moment, I entertained the notion of buying a dozen eggs (yes, all at once). The store had both brown eggs and white ones (apparently the anti-woke anti-DEI purges haven't yet reached the refrigerator cases) when I wondered what the difference, if any, was. As it turns out, there are also blue eggs, I kid you not.

And now, here's the other I-kid-you-not-part: the color of the eggs has a great deal to do with the hen's ears. What? (Pun intended). If you're like me, you're contemplating googling "Hen's ears." Foghorn Leghorn would applaud your curiosity.
-bill kenny

Not Mine, But I Wish...

I have no idea how many words I've used in the creation and population of this space in the ether we've harnessed as the Internet (capitalization optional but deserved), but it's a bunch.  

I wish some, part, or all of them ended up looking like this.

Ineffably beautiful.
-bill kenny

Hung One More Year on the Line

Sitting at the intersection of Lafayette and Washington streets in Norwich, Connecticut, yesterday afternoon as my light went green. Because my mother raised crazy, but not stupid, children I've practiced for years the art of 'three Mississippis' after the light changes before rolling ahead. This time, again, counting to three (Mississippi) stood me in good stead.

An Obliviot in a late-1990s model of a four-door Toyota (I think) rolled through the red light at two Mississippi, all the while chatting away on the cell phone clamped to his right ear. At that moment, he was only physically in the car but was really wherever he and the person on the cell phone were having their moment. 

Piloting a mostly metal mobile device weighing a ton or more (I have NO idea how much cars weigh but a ton reads pretty well. Does this SUV make my butt big?) with an internal combustion engine, and casual disregard for traffic signals and rules of the road (and common sense) to the contrary, this fellow is another Obliviot with whom we all share the planet.

When we reorder the universe and place ourselves at the center, instead of realizing life goes on within you AND without you and see ourselves as the stars of a worldwide movie where everyone else is a walk-on, we've become an Obliviot. It's not a constant process or a one-time deal, but the more often we live without thinking, the harder thinking in our lives becomes and the easier the path to oblivion seems. As kids, our moms taught us to take turns but as grown-ups we practice that as 'me first'. Close, but different enough that the rest of us have to cope.

In a perfect world today, this driver could and should have had a misfortune befall him but the Larger World compensated for him and the worst thing that happened was I mentioned him in this rant. Probability suggests he'll never read these words and even if he did he'll never recognize himself, and in my own way, I've become an Obliviot.

I'm 73 years old today and continue to grow old without growing wiser. I keep bumping into the people I used to be without fully appreciating at many levels I am still those guys and that a part of me will always be those people. If we are truly the sum of our life experiences and of everyone we've ever met, I should have paid more attention to arithmetic in grammar school because I'm terrible at addition.
-bill kenny 

Arbor Day 2025

There is unrest in the forest

Trouble with the trees

For the maples want more sunlight

And the oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the maples

(And they're quite convinced they're right)

They say the oaks are just too lofty

And they grab up all the light.

But the oaks can't help their feelings

If they like the way they're made

And they wonder why the maples

Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest

And the creatures all have fled

As the maples scream, "Oppression"

And the oaks just shake their heads.

So the maples formed a union

And demanded equal rights

They say, "The oaks are just too greedy

We will make them give us light.

Now there's no more oak oppression

For they passed a noble law

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet, axe, and saw.

-bill kenny 

Pull It Over and Put It in Park

I'm going to be three and seventy years old in a couple of days, and one of the things I remember from my youth (vaguely) was that we were supposed to have flying cars by now. I'm a little fuzzy on how all of them were supposed to work in terms of congestion in the skies (hey, I was a kid, okay?) and where we would park them and so on. 

But I remember we were supposed to have them, and I know we don't, so the future owes me. But I'm running out of time for the pay-off.

On the other hand, we do have self-driving cars. I'm not sure if that's the same thing as autonomous autos (what a name for a dealership!) but what were once vices are now habits and I cannot imagine myself ever getting behind the wheel of a car and NOT touching the wheel, even though such vehicles may be demonstrably safer to operate than when I'm at the helm. 

Guido Reinoso-Gallegos may have a different perspective on that old automotive cliche, 'your mileage may vary.' I wouldn't be surprised if his mantra is now 'send me the dashboard you sleep on.' 
-bill kenny  

Bibliophiles Assemble!

If one of your hobbies is complaining about how little there is to do in Norwich, and you're looking for sympathy from me you may have to check in the dictionary. Drop me a line. I'll tell you between which two words to look.

I'm sorry to be out of patience on that subject and its companion troll, 'there's no place to park downtown when there is something to do.' I suppose that means I won't see any unhappy folks, or their cars, anywhere near the Otis Library for the Friends of Otis Library Book Sale which starts Friday (with a private showing and a ten dollar admission that morning from nine to ten for those who want a head start on the weekend's steals and deals) and then continues on Saturday, starting at 9 before concluding on Sunday, from noon until three.

I always hit the book sale on Sunday and come home with bags of books (I used to go every time with our daughter, Michelle, but it's a drive now from Virginia), but I should point out that "Book Sale" is a little misleading.

To be accurate, it's more "A Gently Used Book Sale, to include, Biographies, Autobiographies, Memoirs, all manner of Fiction as well as Mystery, Arts and Crafts, Classics, Cook Books, Non-Fiction, How-To books (though almost no why-are-we books), History, Gardening, Sports, pony rides (wanted to see if you were still reading), Science Fiction and Books for Children of All Ages. As Well as lots of audio cassettes, CD's, DVD's and Stuff You'd Have to See for Yourself." 

Let's just say the selection and the prices are both terrific. Don't be surprised if you rub elbows with collectors from across the Northeast. That's why I wear hockey pads (libraries are the next contact sport) who are panning for undiscovered and unrecognized gold and who know great deals when they find them. And they do.

And because Otis is situated in just about the middle of downtown, as you pass all the restaurants that line or border Main Street on your way there, you can see all kinds of folks, clutching newly-purchased books, mingling with the regular patrons and eating a late breakfast, or having lunch, before returning to one of the municipal parking lots that ring downtown and head home. 

The Friends of Otis Library Book Sale is the perfect excuse to table hop and finally stop into one of those restaurants you promised yourself to hit 'the next time I'm downtown.'  Doncha hate when that downtown stuff to do gets in the way of complaining about the lack of downtown stuff to do? Yeah, me too. Enjoy.
-bill kenny

No Plan(et) B

Happy Earth Day! l'd have gotten you a card but I worry about where it might end up, recycling bin or landfill, and saw no need to take that risk. 

Anyway. In terms of protecting Spaceship Earth, it seems to me that about all we can do is talk about it because if we're looking to the Feds and the Department of Environmental Protection to set the tone it'll be like trying to keep the deck chairs from going over the side of the Titanic (but with the even less actual success, I fear).

This is all the planet there is, as near as I can tell (though I've not made an exhaustive study, admittedly) but I have some history, literally with Earth Day observances. I was almost eighteen when I and a contingent of classmates from the Carteret Academy in West Orange, New Jersey, marched down NYC's Fifth Avenue in the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. 

Okay, we'd gotten lost while in The City for the day (a senior trip of sorts, class not citizens). Not quite sure who it was, but someone figured the parade would be a great chance to meet girls. Who cares why we were there! Still. I have difficulty believing that was fifty-five years ago, but it was.

I thought then and think now if we work to make the place on the planet upon which we stand and live the very best we can, each of us can rescue all of us. So not just today, but every day, when you see something, environmental or otherwise that causes you to say 'somebody should do something!' please remember you are that somebody.
-bill kenny

One Foot in Front of the Other

Today is a big deal in Boston (no Anthony, not just at supper) as it's Patriots' Day (I prefer the possessive plural while admiring how each individual is a singular patriot). The main event today is the Boston Marathon.

Marathons are perfect symbols for much of how we live our lives--requiring, as they do, natural ability, endurance, conditioning, strategy and no small amounts of courage and luck in addition to just the right amount of speed, sort of like our political process, except for all the qualities I just listed.

This has nothing to do with the Boston Marathon or anything that anyone is going through except that it's a beautiful thought wrapped in a delightful melody, magically executed. Everyone should have someone who inspires them to feel this way; I hope you, too, have someone like this. 
-bill kenny 

Sorry, No Chocolate or Eggs

These started out as some of my thoughts (or what passes for such) some years back. Some things like wine improve with age; others, like sweat socks. You decide. 

I used to be a Catholic--actually that's less than accurate. It's like saying I used to be an alcoholic. Those two statements have no past tense, or pretense (literary joke)-they just are and in this case I am both. 

The jaded, faded imitation of a person I am looks at his faith as a child and finds it easy to mock the boy on his way to manhood, but also envies him the beliefs that he had. When I threw the faith of my fathers into the ocean of doubt, I had nothing to hold onto in its place as I never had the courage of my own convictions and could not trust those of any other.

Today is Easter Sunday the most important feast in the Christian liturgical calendar and precipitant of the article of faith that makes us Christian, if that's indeed what we are. I didn't actually attend classes at any seminary His Holiness, Pope Francis I, would recognize but did stay in a Holiday Inn Express (and have the towel, and the drinking glass 'sealed for your protection' to prove it).

Christmas gets a lot of press, and songs, and cards, and window dressing and don't look for a Macy's Day Parade to mark the start or end of Lent because that's not happening. In these parts, Christmas gets marketing help from every wholesaler and retailer imaginable and why not? Christmas is, after all, a lovely story, wonderfully symbolic and simply beautiful if you don't want to think too much about it.

Take a look a today in the New Testament of your choice and foreboding's afoot in every verse of every version about the events leading to Easter (those are the versions of my choice). And in one of the most ironic choices of terms associated with any aspect of Jesus Christ, is Good Friday, which marks His Crucifixion and Death (I went back and made the "h" a capital, not because there's hope for me but out of fear that there is no hope). And as you read the accounts, let's face it, the events of that day are absolutely horrible.

The crowd, the occupying forces, everyone, it seems has abandoned the Son of God who is sentenced to die (I'd say 'murdered' but some might argue the state does not murder) in an extraordinarily, excruciatingly manner. 

And it is both that death by Crucifixion but more importantly the belief in the Resurrection that so many commemorate today that is the defining event for every Christian, even the ones who seem more like Simon Peter than even they could ever admit in this life.  I want you to remember this. Come on, try to remember.

-bill kenny

For the Saints Who Wait....

I have never been to the Vatican, nor have I stayed at a well-known motel chain, but I know my way around the Stations of the Cross and the Lives of the Saints. I'm always amazed at the number of people who think Christmas is the origin of Christianity-others consider the beginnings to be Easter Sunday.

If the former is The Promise and the latter The Promise Fulfilled then today, Holy Saturday is the act of faith and hope that defines you as a Christian. The belief in the Resurrection which the New Testament portrays as the promised reward for the faithful servant is never so near and yet oh so far as it is today.

The earliest disciples had nothing to go on, unlike those of us we of the Brave New World Order. They had witnessed a crucifixion-one of the most horrific forms of a death sentence of its time. Cowering in an upstairs room, huddled together while fearing any sound and every footfall was possibly a signal someone was coming for them, they had no way to see the glory of Easter Sunday. All they could do was believe.

For them to believe as devoutly as they did between the worst day in the history of the world and its greatest day remains for me as a loyal son of Holy Mother Church, but a FARC  for more years than I care to recall, the day which created the Christian religion, the test and proof of faith.

From childhood, I struggled against the suffocation that surrender to the traditions and the rites seemed to signify. I took no solace in unquestioning and unswerving belief, preferring what I understood the path of Thomas to be and finding no one who could answer my questions, absenting myself from the body of believers. How odd that this declaration of freedom has never created a sense of being free.

Not that I don't envy those of faith and think about the comfort that comes from that, especially as I did last night (as I have for years on Good Friday) revisiting a news archive to read again about the costs of war and who pays them with the death of Captain Nicholas Rozanski in 2012. He came from Dublin, Ohio, to be lost in the fog of war on the streets of Maimanah, an unremarkable spot on a map of a nation we carried with us for two decades, unable or unwilling (I don't know which) to lay that burden down.

His death and those of all the fallen and forgotten should be another reminder to those of us who are alive to redouble our efforts to be the best people we know how to be in The Now because The Next, as the New Testament illustrates, can be so lonely and uncertain without a reason to believe. And either you have a reason, or you become one for someone else. When you do, every day is Easter.
-bill kenny

Good Friday Meditation

There is, preached Kohelet in the Book of Ecclesiastes, a season for every purpose it says in the Old Testament, seasons for everything and around the world today within the Christian faith we are within the Paschal Triduum. 

Monsignor Harding, wherever he is in all of eternity, would be wide-eyed with wonder that, of all that I have been given or taught, and of all that I have lost or had taken from me, that would be a term I would hold onto.

I know a lot of Christians who see the birth of Christ, Christmas, as the defining moment of their faith, and I guess if you work retail that's an attractive argument. As a child growing up in Holy Mother Church in the late Fifties and Sixties, I knew (and had plenty of nuns, Sister of Charity type, if I were to forget) for Catholics it was the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

I can still remember Sister Thomas Anne faintly smiling as she ticked off the three events on the fingers of her right hand: pinkie, ring finger and middle finger (how ironic is that? (I'm lying, third-grader students had no concept of the significance of the middle finger, not even Bobby D' who was a pretty fast crowd all by himself)). 

She paused as she would note the similarity to the Holy Trinity, three persons in the One God. When I watched her do this same explanation, with the pregnant pause in the same place, complete with the slow smile of accidental recognition of her triad point for the next five years, there was still a sign, but, I must confess, the wonder was gone. And yet, I suspect she, too, is smiling today. 

It is Good Friday, a day of such momentous import to so many disparate elements of our historical, philosophic and cultural identity where, no matter your belief, or disbelief, you can take solace from the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God who became the Son of Man and laid down His life. 

Even if you have hurts that can never heal, you can have hope, if only for today, knowing there is a tomorrow.

-bill kenny

Bears Repeating

Strange how often what goes around comes around. I offered this a year ago as Norwich budget deliberations were starting. I can't see any reason to change a word from then until now. 

I always think of a German expression that translates as 'better a horrible end than horrors without end.' The City Manager’s proposed budget is not horrible, and it's NOT an end, but rather, the necessary starting point to begin a dialogue and discussion (that may get raucous and ill-tempered, but that's part of it) which should drive the development and adoption of a(ny) final budget. 

The City Manager was doing his job, and it’s not just the City Council members who must now also do theirs. It’s each of us, and all of us; residents, businesses, taxpayers, luckless pedestrians, whatever you wish to consider yourself.

Any spending document the size of the proposed budget has a lot of moving pieces and a lot of requirements for oversight and coordination. And since you can't tell the players without a scorecard, you can find all of this year's budget documents online. (There are also previous years' budgets for comparison).

A proposed budget tells us what things cost; only we can decide what they are worth. It’s up to us to choose between what we want and what we want right now. No one, including all in city government, elected or appointed, wants to pay more in taxes for goods and services. 

As I will keep saying because we have selective hearing, this is an ongoing discussion we will/should and must have with one another, our city's department heads, and our elected officials as we craft a blueprint, a roadmap (call it what you will) by which we determine the quality and quantity of municipal services, ranging from public education and public safety to trash removal and road resurfacing and everything in between, and what we are willing to pay for those goods and services. 

I have no expertise in finance (and have never stayed at a Holiday Inn), but there’s a disconnect between revenue and expenditure. I doubt anyone is unimpressed by the quality and expertise with which the city and its departments deliver goods and services. We need to be concerned with the lack of growth in the Grand List NOT tied to residential reevaluation but to genuine commercial economic development. Simply put, we have nowhere near enough.

Telling the City Council ‘to cut the budget’ may be therapeutic, but it is not especially helpful. Cut where? And how? The myth of ‘fat’ in the budget is just that, a fairy story. Budgets in recent decades have been exercises for new recipes in making stone soup, as there is no meat or bone left. There’s only so much ‘do more with less’ our city can manage before we accept we can’t do anything anymore as we are.

Economizing alone will not reduce taxes.
What we need is more meaningful commercial economic growth that expands the Grand List throughout the city. The quality of our community is built on the quality of the decisions we make, starting now.
-bill kenny 

If You Don't Fight for What You Love...

Saturday's a very appropriate day to remember some history and make it, too. 

It's the 250th anniversary of the ride of Paul Revere (and many others) and the Battles of Lexington and Concord that marked the beginning of the siege of Boston and the start of the American Revolution. I'm wondering if one revolution was enough.

Do you remember the saying, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.' It seems to me a lot of us must have gotten very cheerful since January 20 because from where I sit, it looks like things have gotten much worse for too many. 

Normally, our democracy functions as a three-legged stool, with the branches of government operating as checks and balances on our behalf. They are Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

Normally is the operative word. I'll let you come up with your own descriptive for where we are now, but simply put, there aren't enough paddles in the world to get us back downstream at this moment. The most frightening part is the number of folks oblivious to the peril in which we find ourselves.

We went from Reagan's Shining City on the Hill to the world's cautionary tale of what happens when you don't remain vigilant and steadfast. I'm not suggesting we behave like Vanilla Isis and the Yee-Hawdists of January 6, 2021, but instead follow the lead of 50501. We're doing it here in Norwich, Connecticut.

Stand up for yourself and for those who are unable at the moment to stand up for themselves. It's what we, as Americans, have always done. And always shall.
-bill kenny

Declare the Pennies on Your Eyes

Today is the nearly universally dreaded "Tax Day" here in the Land of Unlimited Opportunities, where rarely is heard a Discouraging Word, and the Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day. How all of that gets reduced to the USA always amazes me, but I chalk it up to a triumph of marketing and branding.

Speaking of which, how'd you like to tell folks that you work for the Internal Revenue Service (or did until Elmo and the Muskrats chainsawed your organization)? Don't be like that! Somebody has to! And tens of thousands of people do, and despite our muttered imprecations and seriously intended aspersions cast without the benefit of a net, they do what they are charged to do what Oliver Wendall Holmes once eloquently described, though it was probably pre-audit.  

Point in fact, we pay taxes every day. And every year we file a return to see if we are to get back some of our own money. I remember my wife filing her taxes in Germany when we lived there, and she rarely saw any money returned to her. I often thought that because her husband was such a sonderangebot, her government saw no reason to bless her twice. Strangely, I never got around to mentioning that theory to her when we lived in her country.

Like you, in all probability, I've filed my taxes already. Do I grumble? Of course I do, and anyone who tells you s/he doesn't grumble is a liar. To borrow from a dulcet-toned former colleague, who once observed with some acerbity, "Taxes and Texas, they have the same letters but only one can go to Hell."
-bill kenny

Unringing Donne's Bell

My life is cluttered, filled beyond capacity with trivia and bullshit that obscure the view of what I'm supposed to be doing and living for and most of the time I'm not even aware of how much ennui and boredom I'm already knee-deep in until it threatens to rise to my butt or my eyebrows, whichever is higher on any given day. 

A very long time ago, I lost an acquaintance (I don't have friends and never miss them), and then, to compound the calamity, I forgot about him, both his passing and, more significantly, his life. It doesn't make me a horrible person, I tell myself, just more like all the other drones here on the ant farm. 

When I first wrote this, I called it:

If Parting Could Be Painless

Didn't realize on Thursday, saying good night to someone who'd called on the phone that I was saying goodbye. Had an email from a mutual acquaintance yesterday afternoon and am just starting to grasp the sensation I'm experiencing is the hole in my heart.

I've become fond of saying as an excuse masquerading as a reason (since I'm not especially demonstrative (enough for some folks) when displaying feelings) that "I'd miss you more if I knew you better." This sudden departure is a case in point.

I've worked for maybe a half dozen years with him, speaking on the phone perhaps twice a week and sometimes more often, not always about whatever project in which we were engaged but as a sort of safe harbor, someone I could bounce an idea off of and not be thought criminally crazy or worse. I hope I served that same purpose for him as well. All we were missing were the fishbowls. It's Lent; he'd have enjoyed that line.

I was told his death was from natural causes. As opposed to unnatural, I guess. This is why I'm accused of being snarky when all I'm looking for is clarity. I hate it when we use language to mask meaning.

Something that should be transparent instead is rendered translucent which is almost, but not quite, the same thing and it's the difference and the distinction between the promise and the performance that so often causes me to get lost and left behind.

It feels like the same world this morning that it was yesterday. It isn't, of course, and not only because I know of at least one less person who is in it. That knowledge doesn't change the shade of the sky or the shape of the clouds. It will not speed up or slow down the coming of spring, a season he didn't especially like (a winter guy for reasons I never asked), and maybe that absence of 'this is what I know to be true' is really the hardest part.

The realization that while I'd like to think I knew this person, or any of the other people with whom I interact daily, in the end I have to concede that I didn't and now never shall. 

I'm not alone. Each of us is surrounded by people just like ourselves. We have all the time in the world to get to know one another until all our days rush together in a fullness we cannot believe or otherwise achieve. We are born and die alone, and everything in between is lived near but rarely with one another.

-bill kenny

Crown of Thorns or Rally Cap?

As a child in parochial school, this was the worst week of the year. All of us knew how Jesus had entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey on Palm Sunday and, by Friday, how He had been crucified. 

When you're a small kid, the 'but He rose from the dead and redeemed humanity' part of the Easter week observances sailed past you. Yes, you realized years later, it was the Passion and the Resurrection, much more so than the Virgin Birth, that made you a Christian and a Catholic, but when you're eight, all you're thinking about is the spikes driven through your outstretched palms. And how the same crowd who loved Him on Sunday could hate Him by Friday.

This year's Palm Sunday comes at a point in the calendar where any form of respite is welcome. Maybe it's just me, but probably not; it's been a long and hard winter. Things have been going south for some time now at the personal, professional, medical, and philosophical levels. 

I think all of us who had thought we were putting away a little something every paycheck for 'that next adventure' got some pretty unpleasant bumps and bruises by the time all the spinning wheels and flashing lights had ceased and desisted (or was it just passed?). 

This might be the week we learn something from the New Testament- whether you are a Child of the Book or not. Not just in our nation, or region, or state, or city, but actually like a pandemic spreading across the globe and around the world, depression and despair are clouding the horizon and changing (and not for the better) the lives of millions and billions of our fellow travelers.

It's so easy to mourn what we've lost or no longer have or will never again possess. It's harder to turn the ball cap inside out and put it back on our head, step back into the batter's box, square our shoulders, and wait on the next pitch, especially since we've been dusted a couple of times so far by this pitcher. And many of us have it good; for the majority of the planet, not as well off as we were, all of the calamity and chaos have made an intolerable situation even more so.

But look around. Maybe not too much farther north than here in Norwich, Connecticut, but the trees have a vague and soft red glow on their branch tips--something's getting ready to happen. Crocuses are coming up, and more birds are about than we've seen in months. The days are getting longer, not just feeling longer. 

Yeah, we've got a boxcar of worry to manage, but we have these clever little thumbs and huge brains to help us wrestle this stuff to a standstill. And, for those of us who can read, we know because we've seen the records of the past, we've had all of this happen before. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but in those of our parents and grandparents.

The sun came up this morning, as it has for no one knows how many years, and will, in all likelihood, come up again tomorrow. The same folks who were lining the streets to welcome the Next Big Thing have gone home, but that doesn't mean we have to leave or content ourselves with what might have been. 

We're a species that dusts itself off and gets back in the race because we don't know how to NOT do that, so square those shoulders, dig in a little bit, and sit dead on red. We don't need to hit homers. Right now, we need to get a couple of guys on base and play small ball. Here, put this cap on- it ain't over by a long shot.
-bill kenny

Like Mark Knopfler but with Fur

Long ago in a previous life, I had the opportunity to enjoy some new music in the midst of the British punk movement that had nothing do with punk music. It was electric guitar-driven and sounded like a cross between Bob Dylan and Leon Redbone. 

The record company's A&R guy was thrilled when I said I enjoyed it and then sheepishly conceded that only a disc jockey in the UK, Charlie Gillett, and I seemed to like the band. As history would show, he and I were right, and everyone else was wrong. You've already guessed that the band was Dire Straits. 

They dissolved decades ago and no one to my knowledge is plotting or planning on bringing them back, not that Mark Knopfler's headband would survive the effort, but I thought of him, and his brother David, the other guitarist in that band, when I came across a story on the de-extinction of dire wolves.

I'm wondering, with these brave new worldisms floating around, if it's too old-fashioned to wonder and/or ask, just because we can, must we?
-bill kenny

God Gave to You

It's interesting to me how we revisit our parents upon our children, sometimes accidentally and/or incidentally. I was stopping at the local grocery, whose name is the non-gerund form of that word plus shop. I park wherever there is a spot, and yes, I have a handicap placard that I use to good effect as circumstances permit. 

I don't bother to circle the lot looking for a spot-do you know people like that? If they have a passenger I'll bet they're tempted to have them bail out, tuck and roll and stand in front of the sliding doors holding them wide open to see if the vehicle will pass through them into the store. That would be cool, would it not?

A mom and a small child of three, maybe four, I'm not really sure (I used to be an expert on small children, being in the biz and having two myself and all, but those days are decades ago) but I think he was a boy, were heading towards the entrance.

The mom seemed to be going over her shopping list in her head while he was skittering to keep up with her. Our moms did it to us--they are holding the child's left hand with their right hand. Due to manufacturing difficulties, the child's hand and arm come just barely to the top of his head--Mom's hand and arm reach only to mid-thigh so one of the two is on tiptoes at high speed where ever we go.

I hailed the woman and pushed a cart from the corral towards her and offered it to her for the child. She glared for just a moment and then relented as she picked him up and put him in the seat and, I watched, buckled him in. Not sure what she was glaring about though I get that look a lot so I suspect it has something to do with my face. No matter as it's not my point.

This is: In twenty years, when you see a young man walking down the street NOT dragging his left hand on the ground, that's the toddler I helped out. Go ahead and wave; he'll be able to wave back, and both arms will be the same length.
-bill kenny 

The Act You've Known for All These Years

I am the oldest child of our family and was born before Ike beat Adlai Stevenson the first time for the Presidency of the United States. I was in Mrs. McGarry's fourth-grade class in the basement of Saint Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, when President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.

Everyone grew a LOT older, a LOT faster after that day, and a LOT sadder.

My memories of that time of my life are mostly in black and white, though I know I was living in color. I mention the black and white aspect because that was how I and tens of millions watched the performance of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, 'The Beatles,' as Ed Sullivan introduced them on his Sunday night TV variety show and the world changed.

The ripples in the pond of our lives, all of us born after The Beatles arrived, are incalculable, and their influence and impact are beyond my ability to comprehend. They were, and remain, the soundtrack of not just my life but a frame of reference for many who will otherwise never know anything about one another but that we are/were fans.

To be honest, it doesn't seem like it was fifty-five years ago today.
-bill kenny  

The Dangers of Cheap Grace

Eighty years ago today, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenburg, Germany, after having been arrested and incarcerated for plotting against Adolf Hitler.

Today might be a good time to read or re-read his Letters and Papers from Prison. It's a declaration of intent from a man who was steadfast in speaking his truth to power, consequences be damned.   

I can't help but wonder what he'd make of all the red ballcaps.
-bill kenny

Picket Lines and Picket Signs

We had a grey day in this neck of the woods and wilds of Southeastern Connecticut on Saturday, with a chill wind and unkind drizzle, but that didn't keep residents and neighbors from near and far gathering to push back on the Broligarchy that's dismantling much of everything the United States and its government has stood for since the end of World War II. Too many of us seem to have forgotten that silence equals consent. 

Time for some new math. 1 + 1 = a good start, and when you find something to believe in, it's easier to believe in yourself. People turned out globally and locally, and, cynical, old curmudgeon that I am, I have no idea where this is going, but from what I saw and felt on Saturday, no one is going away anytime soon.

Around the corner from my house.

However, for those who only now are getting engaged because your grocery prices haven't gone down, cheap gasoline isn't flowing like honey in the Promised Land or your 401K collapsed but who were unmoved at the calculated cruelty to those seeking a better life on these shores, to people of color, veterans, women, those juggling multiple jobs to survive in the richest nation on earth and those of a gender orientation or identification different from what you would like, welcome but it shouldn't have to HAPPEN to you for it to MATTER to you.
-bill kenny 

S*it Gets Real

The Norwich City Manager presents his proposed budget tonight in City Council chambers at 7:30 in City Hall. Here, again, is the tentative schedule of public hearings and department presentations, all of which will be carried on the City of Norwich website.

I suspect some of us will feel the gorge rising long before tonight's presentation is even close to ending, and as righteous as that indignation and anger may feel, this is what I strongly suggest everyone who has skin in the game in Norwich watch BEFORE authoring comments on the daily nespapers' coverage of the evening, or on any of the innumerable social media platforms we seem to rely on for all of our news and information because those with the training and education are now deemed to be 'fake news.' 

And who says ignorance isn't bliss?  

Instead of putting the 'No' in Norwich at budget time as we always do, let's do better, or at least try.
-bill kenny

A Marsupial from Memory

Found this on a shelf in the cupboard from a very long time ago. Things were weird back then, so I'm perplexed that I am now surprised they're even weirder. 

I'm thinking maybe our English cousins celebrate April Fool's Day a bit longer (and more intensely) than we do on this side of the pond. Or not. You be the judge: submitted for your inspection, "Woman Suffering from Depression to have 'Therapy Pet' Kangaroo Taken Away." 

I realize that in many applications of tough love programs to combat substance abuse, there are animal-based figures of speech, such as cold turkey or get the monkey off your back. And if one fails to get or to stay clean, you've screwed the pooch. 

I don't grasp exactly what therapy pet kangaroo taken away might be as code, and I didn't want to be L7, so I checked in urban dictionary. No joy. The notion that this is an actual, legitimate story from the same people whose language so many of us speak and whose royalty fascinates us (though not enough to emulate George Bernard Shaw or even Robert (I always thought it was a good sized boat) should provide food for thought but I'm more of a dessert tray guy myself.

The old 'what did you say?' story about how the kangaroo got its name has been pretty much been put to bed, which is certainly more than can be said for Irwin, the subject of our newspaper article, leaving me to wonder if somewhere Rolf Harris is smiling or grimacing. From a distance they look very much the same.

-bill kenny