What Is Lost Can Never Be Saved

"Tell me I'm the only one. Tell me there's no other one."

"Jesus was an only son. Yeah, tell me I'm the only one."
-bill kenny

Celebrating the Life of "Coach" Russ Forsythe

Russ was married to my middle sister, Kara, the father of three sons and a granddaughter. I was very fortunate to know him and have him as a brother-in-law.

"We invite family and friends to join us on March 14, 2026, to celebrate the life of an incredible man, Russ Forsythe.

"The event will be held at 5 Graphics Drive, Ewing, NJ (Simply Fit) from the hours of 2-5 pm.

"Please join us to share stories, laughter, and the many memories as we try to honor his life and legacy.

"All are welcome. (Even RJ)."
-bill kenny

Blinked and Missed It

On Wednesday our temperature topped out at sixty-seven degrees. Today's forecast suggests that if we get to thirty-five, we'll be lucky. Yesterday, the weather forecast called for snow showers AND thunderstorms. At one point, such a prognostication would have astounded me.

However, almost thirty-five years of living in New England has cured me of my wide-eyed incredulity.

All four seasons in the same afternoon? Sure, why not?
-bill kenny  

Herzlichen Gluckwunsche

Today is my wife's birthday. 

Sigrid is remarkable because she is a force of nature as much as she is the love of my life. I am not, as you may have already imagined from any visits to this page, the easiest person with whom to share the planet, much less a life and a bed.

She is my human credential in that she always created and sustained a life for our children and me, and for too many decades, allowed me to put on this 'Hail Fellow, Well Met! Man of the World" artifice every workday morning (and far too many weekends as well), spend all day giving my time to total strangers, and then return home at night to be the person I intended to be when we fell in love.

I will never have enough money, talent, good luck, or any of the conventional advantages and attributes to give her all that she deserves. In recent months, because of health concerns, I transitioned from being her partner to being her patient, a deal that in almost five decades of life together, she NEVER signed up for. She doesn't complain and never has. 

She is the most important part of my life, and that is the only thing that matters to me. As long as she is in my life, it is complete and fulfilling. Happy birthday, angel eyes.
-bill kenny   

Christ on a Corroded Catamaran

DISCLAIMER: Title was my idea, inspired by the lyrical lunacy of Jeff Tedreich, whose politics column on Substack offers analysis of our current administration that rivals that of the late Dr. Hunter Thompson on the presidency of Richard Milhous Nixon. 

His observations over the last couple of years, especially in the wake of the Trump Triumph, have helped keep me sane. You might want to try him.   

Anyway, I loved that turn of phrase and co-opted it. It has nothing to do with anything, which may be the most perfect description of this space in the ether ever created. 

This time last week, our temperatures were struggling and failing to get beyond twenty-five degrees. This past Monday, the outside was sixty-seven, and the skies were gloriously blue. Yesterday it got to about sixty with more wind than I'd like, but beggars can't be choosers.

I know we're ten days away from the beginning of spring, and in New England, that doesn't necessarily mean squat in all honesty, but at the risk of seeming greedy, a guy could get used to this pretty easily.
-bill kenny

History Is Often a Mystery

Any city, large or small, is more than the sum of its brick and mortar structures, its thoroughfares and infrastructure, its public safety systems, or its schools. 

All of those are, of course, important, but what defines who we are is the degree of sacrifice and work we are willing to invest in developing and maintaining all of those material things for the betterment of all the residents who share a zip code.

Where I live, Norwich, Connecticut, we seem to have the same arguments over and over again, and it's not as simple as 'us vs. them,' though it's often reduced to that. More often, we seem to be 'our past keeps me from seeing the present' allied with 'my fear of the future keeps me nailed to the Now.'

We all know people whose perception of who we are as a city is heavily colored by what we once were. Not long ago, I had someone give me directions by telling me to 'go past where the school used to be at the intersection of Sachem and Oneco.' Okay, not exactly GPS, but still accurate, but only if you go back more than a few decades. Odd how yesterday covers a multitude of sins.

So, too, does a fear of what tomorrow may bring that becomes so great we not only choose to avoid risk-taking, but we choose to avoid even talking about risk-taking. We've decided it's better to have a horrible ending than horrors without end, except we have no proof tomorrow will not be a better day than the one we are having. It's another case of 'the pool ain't in, but the patio's dry' and all that means is we'll save a fortune this summer on swimwear.

My family and I moved here in the autumn of 1991, not that three plus decades have brought any revelations or blinding glimpses of the obvious, other than people prefer problems that are familiar to solutions which are not. I arrived here as a relatively young man and parent, but have no illusions I am either anymore, so I have to guard against situations where I become part of the obstacles that keep Norwich from being a place our children and theirs will want to come home to.

I listen with both fascination and dread when people speak of "historic" downtown buildings, some for sale and some foreclosed, as if there were actual history connected to structures whose best days were before I was born. Imagine how alien that must sound to nearly a third of our city, those residents who are under thirty-five.

What the preservationists espouse isn't just a reverence for the past but more a preservation of their past. That doesn't mean those buildings have a place in my or anyone else's present or future, much less that we should mortgage the latter to artificially enhance the former.

When a past isn't shared, perhaps it indicates a time whose past has passed, and that in Norwich, the time is long passed to keep throwing good money, private or public, after bad on little boxes on the hillside or on dreams our children will never see.
-bill kenny   

Crawling Over Rubble Just to Sound Me Out

The calendar says for those of us in the Northeast and most of the rest of the nation, this winter of our discontent is drawing to a close. We just started Daylight Saving Time, and in less than two weeks, the swallows return to Capistrano. 

I know it's been a rocky time for many of us for quite some time, and you have to look hard to find reasons to be cheerful. Dylan offered it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. 

My mother, mom of six of the thickest-headed and strongest-willed children to ever walk the planet, demonstrated her smartness when, without consulting the Internet (there was life before ether. Who knew?), she told us it took more muscles to frown than it did to smile. We believed her because she was our Mom, and it didn't hurt that she was also right, but how did she know?

So we can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up faster. I always wear trousers with pockets, so I have somewhere to put all the fun. We can promise not to miss what we do not have and enjoy our now in the now and look towards tomorrow with hope and not dread. 
-bill kenny 

You Can Call Me Ray....

Sometimes I'm not sure if it's better to believe the calendar or my own eyes. We just started daylight saving time in the wee small hours of this morning. Many of us are already counting down the days to spring (I guess so we can then count down the days until Summer), but when I look out the window, there are more than enough reminders everywhere that winter's last word hasn't yet been spoken.   

Don't know about your house, but in mine, there's always one clock we forgot to move forward on Saturday night, and then didn't see it at all Sunday, so it's actually Monday or Tuesday when we finally get caught up on all the watches and clocks. 

I hate the clock on the microwave, and it shows because I never get it set correctly. You can hear the sounds of my struggling with it as it beeps and bleats in frustration while I manage to do everything but get it to move forward, and eventually, my wife resets it in what seems to be one fluid motion, leaving me to wonder as I always do why we have the forward and back thing with the clocks in the first place. 

I guess I should find solace in the knowledge that we do it whether we understand why or not. And while I'd like to hope the spring ahead means winter is now finally in retreat in the Northeast, what we will have is more daylight in the afternoons. As a kid, I thought it made the days longer and gave us more time, and the elderly adult in me now hopes that kid was right on both counts.   

But having the time is one thing; doing something productive and worthwhile with it is something else entirely different. I'm not going to lecture or hector because your mileage may vary, but there are people and projects in need of your extra time and singular talents, be it on your street, neighborhood, city, or state. 

How many projects around your house have you left undone because you just didn't have the time to get to them? Me too. Maybe tackle cleaning out the basement/attic/garage or shed project? And before you start, call Norwich Public Works and schedule a bulk pick-up.

And if you're already caught up on the around-the-house projects, look no further than the end of your street to find an agency or organization in need of volunteers' time and talents. I'm not talking large-scale projects like leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but down to earth. 
     
Take an hour and invest it: in reading to a child in the local library, or seeing if your neighborhood school can use a helping hand, assisting an elderly neighbor to grocery shop, or just visiting someone who's a shut-in. It will benefit more people than either of us can possibly imagine

Take a hint from your clock and outshine the sun. It's alright.
-bill kenny

It's "D" Not "T"

The last time we had a parade in downtown Norwich was for Winterfest, and look at the snow and cold that followed. I’m not suggesting cause and effect, but I mention that because Norwich’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is this Sunday, and I’m concerned we might have large numbers of very short-bearded men with pots of gold and shillelaghs that we won’t be able to get rid of until Memorial Day. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I wanted you to know the possibility is out there.

Weather permitting (a phrase we’ve used almost every day for the last seven weeks or so), the Norwich Saint Patrick's Day Parade steps off at one from Ferry Street, makes its way around Franklin Square and up Franklin Street and then uses Willow Street to march to Chestnut and then, in turn, Broadway before making a left at the Wauregan onto Main Street and finishing up at City Landing.

Here’s the website and a listing of many of the other activities going on in and around the parade itself. Last year’s parade was a great success, not just in terms of marchers but also for cosa a chur ar an tsráid (putting feet on the street) across downtown.

Think of the Parade as another reason to stop and visit somewhere, far too many of us simply drive through on our way to someplace else, sometimes complaining how ‘there’s never anything to do in Norwich.’ Which, I agree, can be true except when it’s not, such as tomorrow.

Everyone is welcome to march, but it’s really more of a brisk walk than a march in terms of distance, so you can smile and wave without breaking a sweat.  And you won’t be alone.

When Irish Eyes are Smiling, let’s hope they brighten and warm up tomorrow afternoon enough to allow both the wearing of the green and the marching of the feet. And though it’s technically early, it’s right on time for Sunday: Beannachtam na Feile Padraig "Happy St. Patrick's Day!"

-bill kenny

Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears

When Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington’s Continental Army at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781, history notes that the British fife and drum corps at the ceremony played a popular tune of the day, “A World Turned Upside Down.” In many respects, such was the state of the empire of King George III.

Upstart colonists, angered by a monarch who “erected a multitude of new offices, and sent …swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance,” declared their independence in the summer of 1776, proclaiming the function and purpose of government was to protect the ‘uninalienable rights (of)…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Two hundred and fifty years later, how much happiness can we stand and how much can we afford?

Instead of government at all levels working for us, we toil to pay for it. Pick a program, be it local, state, or federal, and work through its budget, trying to understand how much is overhead and how much is initiative. We’ve been living hand to mouth in Norwich, and elsewhere, for too many years; we’re now eating our own fingers. Something wrong has got to be righted.

Last week, there were news stories about the 1.49% increase in the Rose City’s grand list—an increase that does NOT keep pace with the consumer price index, but all one of our (two) local daily newspapers wants to talk about is the paid vs. volunteer fire department pissing contest. Adult municipal leadership is in criminally short supply.

The Land of Steady Habits, as Connecticut likes to be called, has picked up some terrible fiscal habits, most especially unfunded mandates of all kinds used by Hartford to stick municipalities throughout the state with the check, while special interests celebrate preferred treatment and businesses and the middle class flee our borders in droves.

The government at all levels needs to be repurposed to best support programs delivering the best quality and lowest cost public services for our collective good. The public trust must stop being the public trough.
-bill kenny

A New Past Time

Another Winter Olympics is history, and I watched about the same number of hours on the plethora of NBC stations carrying them as I always do. None. It means I missed the significance of the men's and women's hockey teams' victories over Canada, and the fallout for the men. FOMO ain't so bad.

Someone explained to me that 'hockey is the national sport in Canada.' That got me to wondering what about US, not just us, I mean the USA. When will the summer Olympics add NASCAR? 

How about Monster Trucks? Let's update traditional Greco-Roman wrestling with WWE. And don't tell me we're the only country on earth with dogs running the length of docks, leaping into the air, and landing in the water. I feel a Wide World moment coming on.

Considering the dollars, petro and otherwise, changing hands for the rights to broadcast the Olympics to the farthest corner of the universe, where, I suspect, the reaction is often like it was in my house for the last two weeks, we might seriously consider throwing the competitions wide open, so put those thinking caps on.

I'm holding out, of course, for that most national of all of our past times, regime change. The problem is lining up sponsors. No worries, we've got four years to square this away. What's that? Beer Pong? Brilliant!
-bill kenny

From the Sleep of Reason, Life Is Born

I imagine I've come across stories and features on this topic, or a variant, a thousand or so times over the years, but this time around, Seven Fresh Facts About Babies, 

I have an interest of a more pressing personal nature in sharing.

Welcome, Tiny Tot Trinkley. Your Opa cannot wait to meet you.
-bill kenny

Finally!

I've lived in Norwich for a skosh over thirty-four years. We Norwicheans have a terrible self-esteem problem, possibly because Eeyore seems to be our spirit animal. We spend enormous amounts of time waiting for something simply awful to happen and are always relieved that it does. 

(Even) long(er) time residents than I are fond of reminding the rest of us, "Norwich isn't Mystic." 

It's hard not to be impressed by our command of geography, in all candor.

But now, finally, we have something we can brag about.  

First person who says, "I'll drink to that," gets punched in the nose.
-bill kenny

Meanwhile, Back at the Epstein Files

Regime changes, illegal wars, and confused BS to explain it all are all fine and dandy, but no matter how brightly that shiny object in the Persian Gulf is gleaming, I'm still waiting for something a B-2 bomber can't drop. 

Looking at you, FBI and Department of Justice.

I thought that fighting with meant fighting for. I was terribly wrong.
-bill kenny

World Serves Its Own Needs

So, are we living in the End Times, or "I wish it would end times?"

Left of West and coming in a hurry. With the Furies breathing down your neck.

I suspect FIFA will want its peace prize back now for sure.
-bill kenny 

 

Already?

Some of us still have hangovers from those New Year's Eve parties. And today is the LAST day of the Second month of the year. 

How is that possible?

I'd like to talk to the supervisor, please.
-bill kenny

 

Junk Food Junkies

Who hasn't heard the expression, 'you are what you eat'? (Hears snickers and tittering coming from the back of the room) No more of that, please, and thank you for your attention to this matter (has a ring of familiarity to it, doesn't it?).  

Our diets, wherever we live, are very different from those of our parents and, in turn, from those of our grandparents. For the latter, fast food didn't exist, and for the former, it mostly meant fast and cheap. No one ever accused it of being good.

When we look at studies on American obesity, you can guess the primary culprit, but we all helped get us here. But how? How about if you spend in excess of fourteen billion dollars a year on advertising for fast food?

"Fast Food Tattoo Guy"

Suspect that would add a few inches to the old waistline. Guten Appetit!
-bill kenny 

It All Seemed to Make So Much Sense

I was born the same year Dwight David Eisenhower was elected President, though I had no knowledge or any memory of my life with him as the Chief Executive. I remember being in the third grade at Pine Grove Manor School when Nixon and Kennedy ran for the White House. 

Politically astute even then, I recall a very wise fourth-grader telling me that if Nixon were elected, kids would have to go to school on Saturday. That's when I decided to back Jack. There you have it, for all those who've suspected I am a Democratic left-leaning pinko liberal loser, that may have been the moment the road to perdition was paved.

Too many years later, I'm not sure I understand what has happened to the country I grew up in, returned to, and have grown old in. We had so much go so well for so long, we don't seem to have any stomach for hard work or truth anymore. Our institutions, which have always buttressed our way of life, from finances through relationships, are pretty much bankrupt, and we don't seem to have the will or wallet to repair or replace them.

We've spent most of the last score of years in free fall, and when I say "we," I mean what was once considered the middle class. For the better part of a decade, we watched billionaire oligarchs trade blue skies for BMWs, wash their cigar boats with bottled water, and elevate day-trading to an Olympic event. 

Meanwhile, for tens of millions of Americans, the promise of prosperity remained a rumor, so while we lament what happened, some of our neighbors never had even the sniff of that in the first place, and now look at us as if we've lost our minds, and maybe we have.

Pick a place and space. Be it micro or macro, it's almost always the same movie, just with a different cast. We have trouble, not with leaning forward and looking ahead, with my apologies to Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, but with accepting where we are and why we will be here for the rest of our days if we don't change the way we are. What I call Present Shock.

At both the national and local levels, it seems there are two ways to manage Present Shock. One is to do nothing but say no and insist that those in power are to blame for whatever we now see as a failure. The other response is to just keep pressing the same button even though the pellets stopped dropping a long time ago. 

We're working very hard here to break the cycle and seize the day and the momentum, but there's still a longing for what was. If it could only be yesterday tomorrow, then today would be wonderful. 

We've failed to realize that (too) often the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth (of the habit) and that sound of footsteps we hear belongs to ourselves as we calculate the distance we'd need to outrun our own shadow. But after a while you realize time flies. 
-bill kenny

Don't Hold Your Breath

I was going to call this Seeds & Stems, but that's a blast from my past that none of us should want to revisit. Still think the Zig-Zag rolling papers guy might well have been Jesus; perhaps a discussion for another time (post-Lent)?

But since we're on the subject of seeds, I like seedless grapes of just about any color, but mostly green. I see seedless watermelons in my grocery stores all summer long. What I've never spent a lot of time contemplating is how all that comes to be. 

It seems like a very adult version of 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' and copying off your neighbors' paper is frowned upon. C'mon, I can't be the only one mulling this whole thing over right now. We have acorns to grow oak trees and dandelion seeds to grow weeds, to say nothing of red ball caps to grow....moving right along. On the other hand, if you plant bird seed, you don't get the first robin of spring or the bluebird of happiness.

Where was I? Right! Seeds. It turns out plants are older than seeds by hundreds of millions of years. (Don't look a day over three hundred million in my opinion). And as an FYI, there's no truth to the urban legend that Cheerios are actually bagel seeds. Happy to clear that up for you.
-bill kenny

The Other SOTU

Big night and big doings under the Capitol Dome. Lights, cameras, bedazzlement! The President of the United States delivers his State of the Union Address. 

"...and I've eliminated those transgender mice!"

Why?
Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that the President "from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient". This duty ensures Congress is informed on the nation's condition and acts as a legislative roadmap for the President's agenda.

Unless you haven't been paying attention since the inauguration, you already know his agenda.

I no longer wonder how we got here.

Or here.

I worry about how we return to one nation.
-bill kenny

Manna from Heaven (almost)

As you should have long since sussed if you've popped in and read anything that's been posted here for most of the last decade, I'm not a big fan of the current occupant of the White House. I have a great deal of difficulty identifying a solitary redeeming characteristic unless we count comic relief.

That's really not surprising, considering he's a convicted felon, among other adjudicated findings. But you know how they say 'water seeks its own level?' A quick look at his cabinet confirms the wisdom of that saying, and just when you think it can't get any worse, you have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the gift who keeps on giving. 

I'm assuming/hoping there's a slide show or an interactive video to support the new guidelines. I cannot wait to see it, I think.
-bill kenny

Paging Carl Douglas

I'm showing my age when I mention Carl Douglas. More than one of you may wonder how he's related to Kirk or Michael Douglas, and more than one of you would be very wrong. 

Carl, of course, was the performer of this classic toe tapper (not to be confused with Jake Tapper). I wasn't necessarily a fan of it, but Flo & Eddie's strong negative feelings put my opinion in the shade. 

Between you and me, I'm surprised all these decades later that someone hasn't re-roasted Carl's chestnut and presented it to us on something like America's Got Talent or The Masked Singer, two shows I have never watched, which is why I think they would be the perfect platforms to launch the revival. 

I found just the video to complement the song. No need to thank me.
-bill kenny

Dorothy and Toto Think Otherwise

I'm on peritoneal dialysis (and hoping to be considered for a transplant) because my kidneys have been failing for years and can no longer do the job they were designed for. 

I have a lot of time all night, every night, as my cycler goes through its "Fill, Dwell, and Drain" cycle, to marvel at how complex a machine our bodies are.  

Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion notwithstanding, there are five organs we can live without, if we have to. 

If you're waiting for a joke or a quip, hope you packed a lunch, as I don't have one, but I was wondering if I could swap a kidney for a gallbladder.
-bill kenny

Put Me In, Coach

We've had perhaps more than a fair amount of snow this winter (so far, and maybe we're not done with the white stuff yet). It's February in New England, I get that. But I'm all kinds of warm inside as Major League Baseball returns today when the Boys of Summer start spring training games.  

I know it's 'not real baseball' and 'the games don't count,' but a boy can dream. Spring training games are 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, preferably out of an ice cream sundae baseball helmet snack bowl). 

Sometimes the best reason to hit the ballpark

And if the joy of baseball's return isn't quite enough for you, here's a brainteaser that will keep you occupied.

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

A Fine Line Before Heinlein

I've sort of gotten used to the automated assistance a lot of online vendors and service providers use. Having lived through Microsoft's Clippy or whatever its name was, I can put up with a measured amount of that nonsense, but I think I draw the line at hospitals, looking at you, William W. Backus Hospital, Norwich, Connecticut, pulling it on me when I call them. 

I don't call often, but when I do, I want to speak to someone in scheduling for the too-many tests and scans I require as part of my daily life, or with someone in my doctor's office because I have a concern that requires attention; an itch in need of a scratch. 

Not a machine, supposedly AI (or A One, as our Secretary of What-Used-to-Be-Education calls Artificial Intelligence) that leads me nowhere and then leaves me there. 

Seemingly, "Grok" is the future. 

Nein danke.
-bill kenny

That Was Just a Dream

When we were kids, today was a very serious and solemn moment on the calendar, Ash Wednesday. 

It's been decades since I gave something up for Lent (truth to tell, I failed my faith and gave up Lent but then kept on living) and I've rationalized my failure by pointing out to myself that since I always went back to whatever I gave up (usually something to eat as opposed to a behavior change), I hadn't really changed at all, so surrender cost nothing because it was worth nothing.

And then I look around me, and see where we are and where I am in the midst of all of that and realize I didn't run backwards or stop running at all to be here (nor did any of us) but rather, just ran a step slower, a step less resolute, perhaps a shorter footfall until the distance grew inexorably longer between where we wanted to be (and knew we had to go) and where we were to end up, so far behind we could no longer see those up ahead.

And when the distance between us was too great to ever fill, we stopped and have forgotten how to start again. Which makes today more important as a beginning than it can ever be as an end, because I think I saw you try.
-bill kenny 

Did You See His Name?

I grew up and more-than-halfway old without the Internet and all the wonders it hath wrought. Instantaneous and worldwide connectivity sure sounded like a good idea, except we get in one another's way and create unintended casualties.  

There are as many online villages and communities of interest as there are people on the planet. Sometimes they do good things, and no one knows who to applaud, and other times they do horrible things, and there's no way to undo the harm. 

Last weekend, on a Facebook group page (among thousands, I suspect) about where I live, Norwich, Connecticut, someone posted a video showing another someone behaving badly (abhorrently to be candid) and then yet another someone else did some 'research' (i.e., Google) and put a name to the face of the miserable miscreant. Insert graphic of self-righteousness here.

I think the kids call that 'doxing.' 

Here's the problem: the person outed by name on the page was NOT the person misbehaving in the video. Too late! Their family and employer have been bombarded with insults, invective, and all manner of imprecations. There's no way to unring the bell, and no one knows where the injured party should go to get their reputation back. 

Sometimes a pause does more than refresh. Maybe we should all try it more.
-bill kenny 

Automobiles and Mattress Sales

Abraham Lincoln's birthday is still on my calendar for 12 February but it has had less meaning for decades, since Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holidays Act, and we rolled it into the birthday celebration of the Father of Our Country, George Washington (listed on my calendar for February), but observed today as part of Presidents' Day. 

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, obscenely funny, but that might just be my sense of humor. 

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 presidents, people disagreed with one another so strongly that they pointed and fired weapons at one another--and you've seen those weapons. It took a LOT of work to successfully shoot somebody with one of them. None of this cap bustin' stuff, serious mayhem was on the agenda then. We keyboard warriors should blush.

All this pouting and posturing we are up to these days on Sunday morning talk shows, the endless primaries, 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? 

Today, since it is a holiday, is as good a reason as any either of us can think of as a reason and a fulcrum to move one another closer together in order to form a more perfect union. And stop being so damn cranky with each other while we're doing it.
-bill kenny

Pssst....Wanna Buy a Fire Engine?

One owner, meticulously maintained. Go ahead! Take 'er around the block, and then we can talk financing to put you behind the wheel today. 

That's foreshadowing, sort of. 

Here's some more: remember Tommy and Dickie Smothers ('Mom always liked you best), Liam and Noel Gallagher, or Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin (BMT)? All very much "I love you, but I also hate you" relationships. A lot of, as my mom would say, 'cutting off your nose to spite your face.' (In my case, an improvement). 

All of which brings me to my city of residence, which seems determined to prove a small town can house a lot of small people. 

The Day photo by Dana Jensen

We have a population of under 40K with a paid fire department and five volunteer fire companies. They were in a pissing contest when I arrived here in the Autumn of 1991 (NOT suggesting cause and effect) and have recently escalated that to a dimension bordering on Beyond Ludicrous. 

I've followed this quarrel for decades and still don't understand why any principle should be greater than public safety. We have one public utility, one public works department, and one police department. 

I'd appreciate it if the so-called adults in leadership positions in both city government and in the various fire departments would act like they were grown-ups and remember they all serve those who live and work in Norwich. 

This 'ten villages in search of a city' $hit is not a good look.
-bill kenny

My Valentine

Today is Valentine's Day, and while I appreciate the history that the link provides, I'm struggling with the meaning, which remains probably more personal and individual for each of us than anything else we do or ever have in our lives.

My wife and I have been married for forty-nine years, this October, though in recent weeks I've subjected my bride to bracing for the next installment of Wild Billy's Circus Story. We live in Norwich, CT, in a home we once shared with our two children, both grown and gone, far from where either of us grew up, her more so than I.

How it Started

I'm from a couple of hours down the turnpike, New Brunswick, NJ (whose Mayor was my classmate from 3rd through 8th grades. Sometimes it's the journey and other times the destination, I guess). 

She came of age in Offenbach am Main, a city in its own right in the shadow of Frankfurt am Main, (West) Germany (it's hard to realize the number of years that have passed since we no longer needed to make that distinction.)

And of all the places she or I thought we might have been had we stayed married, where we are now is not one of those places. We met and married in her country at the height of the Cold War, and I never really gave thought to living anywhere else.

We, or at least I, lived without a plan and for the most part, without a care. In many respects, I guess, we are the Ant and Grasshopper of married couples. She has always defined who I am and who I could ever hope to be. 

How it's Going

Knowing she will, and always does, love me despite the insanity and inanity of living with me, is all the reward I need to be who I am. I've always admired Robert's note to Elizabeth Barrett, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. 

And I wasn't alone in my admiration. In both of those instances, I wish I had half the eloquence each of those men showed to the women they loved, because I feel that way about my wife, but don't possess the gift to express it. 

So I'll borrow from another Jersey Guy. "So hold me close, honey, say you're forever mine. And tell me you'll be my lonely valentine." Für immer und ewig.
-bill kenny