Horton Hears an Economic Development

There's a story that anyone who's ever graduated from third grade has heard about the three blind men who each touch an elephant at a different part of the animal's body. 

The first touches the trunk and announces the elephant is wiry and agile. The second touches its flank and concludes the elephant is massive and sturdy, while the third one grabs the elephant by its tail and pronounces it to be skinny and weak.

All three are absolutely correct but also completely wrong, both in equal measure. Good news, at least for them, as all three could have lucrative careers as economic development consultants. Because economic development relies on amortization rates, projections of rates of quarterly and annual growth, costs per square foot, return on investment, and a dozen or so other definable variables and variants, it's tempting to see it as a science.

But a strong argument can be made that it's probably closer to being an art and sometimes, fairly or not, it's more luck than skill. One man's ceiling is literally another one's floor (especially in an urban environment), and very often what you see is (exactly) what you get, WYSIWYG, but just as often is dependent upon not only on where you stand but on what you wanted to see when you chose to look.

In a sense, economic development in Norwich is that aforementioned elephant, and in The Rose of New England we spend almost as much time arguing over what is, and isn't, beneficial economic development as we do over whether we are actually experiencing any. And, as is the case with that pesky pachyderm, once you pick a perspective, it colors and shapes everything you see.

Many of us are unhappy at the status of our Grand List, in terms of the ratio of commercial to residential properties. Others are vocal about the nature of commercial development, and for any one person happy about another small business opening in Down City, there are two or more annoyed at the lack of success in marketing our vacant storefronts and Brownfields.

We don't have throngs of shoppers crowding the sidewalks in Franklin Square or small start-ups sprouting from Hamilton Street on the East Side all the way to where Church and Water Streets intersect with Chelsea Harbor Drive or a wave of small retailers lining both sides of Main Street and activity in professional offices and apartments above the ground floor. Yet.

Whether a resident of Laurel, Bean, or Cherry Hill, we benefit from every effort to increase in the grand list, and be it Greeneville, Taftville, or Thamesville, any enhancement in our community's quality of life is always an advantage.

Sometimes it depends on which part of the elephant you touch and how closely behind it you are walking. If you got some on your shoes, I may be able to help you. Step Right Up.
-bill kenny 

Revisiting the Second Amendment

You see it surface in conversations and on bumper stickers, all the time. The Second Amendment has sparked decades of discussion and debate about what the Founders intended and what it should mean in our current American society. I'm not going within ten feet of a position on any of that, believe me. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole (Mom raised crazy children but not stupid ones).  

I had to fire an M-16 for familiarization in the USAF and have less-than-pleasant memories of marching at least halfway across San Antonio, Texas' Lackland Air Force Base (fun fact: Lackland is the largest USAF installation in the world WITHOUT a standalone runway) in the late spring of 1975 for the opportunity to so do. They didn't even let us keep the paper targets (mine looked brand-new).

The Second Amendment is, for many, the third rail of American politics  But what if we're getting it wrong all these years on and it's not 'the right to bear arms,' but rather the 'right to arm bears?' It would have made this story much more interesting, I think.

And I hope you'll join me in a moment of silence for Ferdinand.
-bill kenny

Maybe I'm Amazed

The first time I saw my wife, Sigrid, in a club in the Sachsenhausen district of Frankfurt am Main, she was wearing a Buffalo Sabers hockey jersey—a souvenir and remembrance of an earlier relationship. 

I never met 'him' and, not surprisingly, we've never talked about him, which is sort of funny since I wouldn't be here, in these circumstances, without him.

She was, and remains, the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Then, her hair was dark and fell to the small of her back, which has been one of my favorite places for a very long time. Now, she wears it much shorter and frets when she finds a grey hair (I'm one of the reasons why she has them), and I say nothing but smile at the wonder of it all.

I was tongue-tied for months after first seeing her, and when I finally did speak, I told her I loved her because that's the way I am, and the way it was. We were engaged at Easter 1977, before about fifty percent of the people currently on earth were even born, and were married forty-nine years ago, today, in the Offenbach Rathaus shortly after ten in the morning.

Chris, who became Moni's husband and then 'becca and David's dad, then a widower, and who now lives in Texas, was my best man. He was the person who discovered my 'translator' (I spoke little to no German at that time) had memorized the ceremony's language in English, and that was the extent of her knowledge of my language. Zwei hundredt deutschmark im arsch, wie Ich mich erinnere...

Evelyn, at the time Rick's wife and still Kevin's mom, was maid/matron of honor, and afterward we all went to a small restaurant not that far from the Rathaus for a celebratory meal that Franz, who passed some years ago, Sigrid's dad, and Anni, her mom, organized. 

Some time later, we visited, as a married couple, one of her aunts who doubted we would ever marry, noting, 'after I have triplets!' (I looked at her husband and thought, 'It must be magic married to this one'). I asked as best I could, 'wie gehts den die drillenge? how are the triplets?' (which earned me neither language skills nor style points; two trends that continue to this day).

Sigrid is the last person I think about before I close my eyes and the first after I open them. She is very much 'like breathing out and breathing in' for me, and I can only wish you, at some time in your life, will find and have someone who makes everything you do, good and bad, worth the waking. 

We have two children, themselves now adults, but always our children-Patrick and Michelle-who have enriched our lives more than words of any language can ever capture.

I have little recollection of my life before our marriage. Admittedly, I'm better off that way. I do recall being mostly unlovable except when I was unbearable. It matters not to the woman who married me. Even after all the years, when she looks at me, I can do anything--a feeling no one else has ever inspired in me. That I have nothing I need to do for her to love me is amazing in ways I cannot explain. 

I'm pretty sure, especially in the years since arriving in the New World, that (at times) this isn't the life she signed up for under 'for better or for worse' and I, too, keep waiting for better days even as they grow shorter.

It still seems to me like we married last week, though. I suspect she feels it's longer than it actually is (because the Germans use the metric system, at least that's why I hope so), and I'm grateful for every day we've had and every memory we've made. 

I hope the years we are yet to have together are even more than the ones we've shared. You are an angel of snow-too lovely to hold but too beautiful not to try.
-bill kenny

Beep!

There's a difference between a city and a community. The former is more of a geopolitical entity, while the latter is, ideally, a state of mind. Sometimes one can be the other, and sometimes not so much. 

I would suggest the latter empowers the former more than vice versa, but we may not agree on that as much as I'd like. We're two weeks away from Election Day (I've already voted by mail and strongly encourage you to register and do the same if you haven't already), whose results will indicate to some extent just how much of a community we actually are. 

Norwich, like so many of the places we each call home, remains a work in progress and can only be better when you get involved. For those who confine themselves to drive-by commentary on social media sites, remember it takes more energy to be a light than a horn. You know who you are.

-bill kenny

Channeling Walt

The unsexy Autumn, the one of grey skies, biting winds, and near-freezing morning temperatures, arrived this weekend in the part of New England where we live. Our oil furnace, which had a quiet summer (and at almost six bucks a gallon for oil, thanks, Mr. Art of the Deal, for which I'm grateful), was working away when I awoke Sunday morning to what appeared to be our first frost of the season. 

We have a persnickety radiator in the bathroom that works when it feels like it and has no relationship to the temperature of the house or the output of the furnace, but it was hot to the touch as my morning began, and I smiled because it doesn't happen that often. 

I also smiled because I'm hoping it saves me an extra visit from the folks who provide our oil and service our furnace, who have, on occasion in the past, had to send out the radiator whisperer to tweak the balky device and get it to work (until the next cold spell).

Sunday's skies were clear and so deeply blue you could get lost staring into them. It made the colors of the leaves still on the trees seem even more vibrant when serving as a background. I've never been a fan of leaf-peeping, mainly because of what happens after all the leaves are peeped, but it was still lovely enough even for a curmudgeon like me to appreciate.   

We had middle sixty-degree temperatures last week, but this weekend we were in the high forty and low fifty area, which the meteorologists tell me is where we should be. I think I should be where the weather suits my clothes and doesn't hurt my face when I'm out walking in it.

Still, grateful for all four seasons and the opportunity to enjoy them.
-bill kenny

The Place Where I Make No Mistakes

There are six phases to most human interaction, be it between people in a family or residents of a city. Those phases are, in order: Enthusiasm, Disillusionment, Fear, Search for the Guilty, Punishment of the Innocent, and Rewards and Honors for the Non-Participants. 

I'm not sure you'd call it a Natural Law or a Force of Nature-I suspect like a lot of the fables, failings, and foibles of the human race, it's just evolved over a long period of time, and now it is what it is.

I've lived in Norwich, Connecticut for over three and a half decades (for some, I know it feels a lot longer and your objections are noted) and watched as the Wauregan Hotel, Dodd Stadium, the Mercantile Exchange, the Intermodal Transportation Center, and the Occum Industrial Park, just to name a handful of 'game changers,' were, each in their own way, the magic potion, the miracle ingredient, the silver bullet that would undo decades of decay and indifference and return life and people to Norwich.

And every one of those projects has had, at some point, that six-step cycle with special emphasis, it seems to me, on Search for the Guilty. We're just not able to move past setbacks or course corrections unless and until we have someone to blame. 

And we all know who we mean even if we never say anyone's name. Most people refer to the culprit as 'them,' which is deliciously duplicitous because every 'them' is also an 'us' to somebody else, somewhere else. The current flavor of the month is an Amazon warehouse slated, perhaps, for the Occum Industrial Park. I say current flavor because it's following the same Six Step Solution of so many other projects.

The trouble with any Six Step Solution is, of course, it solves nothing. We get stuck on stupid and stay there. Anytime we try to revisit a situation and explore an alternative resolution, one of us is always reminded of a time back in the day when someone else had that very idea and 'they' (those mysterious sinister forces again) made sure 'we' couldn't make things right. It would almost be funny if it weren't true.

We have trouble remembering that the fear of making a mistake is, itself, a mistake. And walking away from the notion that it's a good thing if we make no decisions because that way we can't have made a bad decision. 

I'd hate to have us fear failing so much we're unwilling to try. Norwich has over 350 years of history, and none of it happened by accident. On innumerable occasions in all those years, someone, somewhere, stopped when others ran, and stood while others cowered and were the new starting point for whatever was to happen next.

We didn't always get it right the first time, but ideally we learn from our mistakes and stop worrying about who is to blame and who is to bless and start over again, when necessary, and keep starting over again until we get it right. 

It doesn't make any difference how you got here-it's where you go now that you are here that's important. And where are you? Next to me. And I'm in the place where I have what it takes. And you do, too. If you choose to.

-bill kenny

No Kings Day

  "I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

"And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.

Donmandias

"The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

-Percy Shelley

No Kings!
-bill kenny

Thanks to All the Literacy Volunteers

Like you, I own a boatload (more like a catamaran, or close to it) of self-help, be-the-best-you-you'll-ever-be books, and I've read enough of them to realize that the deeper you dive, the more likely the one you're currently reading is contradicting something you've read before.

I've actually had self-improvement books from the same writer that, from one offering to the next, walk back insights they previously offered without even acknowledging that they ever held a different position and/or point of view. Talk about putting the 'eat' in caveat emptor...

Here's what I think it all comes down to:

 And you, as always, may be whomever you wish to be

So if you're out tonight and you're on your bike, wear white.
-bill kenny  

J, P, G, & R

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

The rest of the story.
-bill kenny

From the Beginning

I first started writing this blog on 14 October 2007. I have no idea how many thousands of posts I've created or when/if I'll have nothing left to say, but I'm not there yet (sorry).

Strange how little and yet how much circumstances and times have changed, but somehow also remained the same. It's like the same movie with a different set of characters.

Here's what I wrote about. I called it: 

And to Think that I Saw It on Norwich's Streets

Driving past Washington Street this morning, it looks like a growth industry is the hardware business-selling neighbors large plywood sheets and paint so they can erect signs to yell at one another on the issue of spot zoning.

New signs insisting on the right to do with their property what they wish, possibly from those who've sold options to developers, angry at 'the select few' (as their sign says) who insist this commercial endeavor be turned away.

Another sign boasts about the increase in tax revenues and the additional (service) jobs a new mini-sprawl, I meant mini-mall, will bring to Norwich (even though the pharmacy hailed as 'new' will be the existing one from across town).

Jobs, much like Einstein's matter, can neither be created nor destroyed, at least in development models. If we take six inches from the front of the blanket and put it on the back, the blanket is NOT a foot longer. Let's hope we do NOT need a thirty-seven-minute PowerPoint slide show Monday night at Norwich City Hall for that to be understood.

Everyone's signs ignore, or seem to, our inability to look ahead and plan accordingly.

When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
Right now, most of us think any movement, even the circles in which we are turning, is the same thing as direction. 

Most don't know the difference between smart growth and economic development (all ducks ARE birds but not all birds are ducks) and until we learn that, we're fated to waste a lot of time thinking we're having a contest between 'property rights' and 'NIMBY'. It's not really what it's about.

Meanwhile, those whose agenda is not and will NEVER be that of advancement and enhancement of Norwich's economic basis will prosper while residents remain reactive instead of proactive.
-bill kenny

Crisp and Crunchy

We had glorious weather for much of this holiday weekend in my part of the world-not too hot, breezy, no humidity, glorious skies a deeper blue than the ocean, tempered by the realization that Autumn, as wonderful as it is, will not last until the Spring this year.

I had little use for winter even as a kid. I remember living in Belford, New Jersey, with snow in our backyard so deep, it was over my head. I was also a runt, which had something to do with that, I realized (years later). We had a dog, Sandy, a cocker spaniel who absolutely hated me. 

It was a present from Grandma and Grampy, my Mom's parents, and we always pretended how much we loved the dog when they came to see us (neither of my parents liked the dog; I stayed away from it to the point that it was months after we stopped having it that I noticed it was gone).

The house we live in now has a front lawn and a backyard. They were both great to have when our two children were young, as it gave them and their friends someplace else to play. Our kids are adults now, so we spend a lot of time alone, watching the grass grow and cursing the lawn. This time of year we watch the leaves pile up as the season changes, but there are no trees to speak of on our property.

Do you remember those propeller pods from when we were kids? Another great invention by nature to better assure the perpetuation of all the various species of trees-not that we ever saw it that way when we were smaller. There are so many this time of year, and so many of them land on the walk leading to the house that every footfall sounds like you're walking in Rice Krispies.

The squirrels in the neighborhood love the helicopter pods and can tear through them in a blink to get to the seed in the center. The pods are so numerous that the squirrels have actually been leaving the peanuts we throw to them for later while they gorge themselves on the pods. Unfortunately for them, the blue jays are quite happy to eat their share of the peanuts.

It was cold yesterday morning-crisp is a word my father would use, and so do I, in his honor, and that's the signal the next phase of the journey has started. The darkness comes earlier now, and the shadows lengthen sooner as the afternoons move on. 

Soon the winds will shift and more often come out of the north, pick up in speed and intensity, and the simple joy of crunchy sidewalks while out walking will be gone as the animals and birds spend more time gathering and storing food with one eye fixed on the fall skies as a hazy shade of winter creeps inexorably closer.

-bill kenny

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

When we were kids, Columbus Day was a big deal. In New York City, the Department of Public Works used to paint the white line on Fifth Avenue purple for the annual parade that was always held on the real date of the holiday, October 12. 

In light of so much, I, as a man of seventy-four years plus now, know that as a boy of twelve I didn't know about the Rape of Paradise which ensued after Columbus' arrival; perhaps blood red might have been a better choice of colors. 

All I ever cared about was the day off, just like kids across the country. We all recited the rhyme because that's how we knew what (little) we did know about Columbus and since there wasn't a snappy couplet about genocide, we didn't hear anything about that aspect of discovering the New World (I also don't remember the Arawak natives part, but some of the little gray cells have had some rough days). 

Looking at the world as it is and how all settlement and civilization have developed, I'm not sure it's just Old Chris we should be putting in the defendant's docket and charging. I'm thinking a look in the mirror as well as a glance out a window might increase our catch significantly.

And to compound the cacophony of facts clashing with opinions is the realization that not only did Columbus not discover the New  World, but he wasn't the first. We've spent hundreds of years observing a historical event that is neither historic nor an actual event. Sort of like being the second skinniest Kardashian at a family reunion.

And now, as it's the dot on the "i" in today's holiday, we have another excuse (and sale opportunity) to buy bedding, or is that just me in the last couple of days? I'm not sure there's any more of a connection between one and the other than there was to India from Bermuda back in the day. .        
-bill kenny

There's No Good Revolution

We are a culture that celebrates ourselves as unique individuals; except, for the most part, we don't define ourselves by our humanity but, rather, by our utility. We are what we do. 

Our unique specialness is tied to our place in the world instead of the other way around. In essence, we already know what we are; all that remains is agreement on the price.

In these challenging times, which are still going on for many in our county and for many others around the world (when America gets a cold, other nations are in intensive care), a hidden cost harder to recover from than a bank overdraft is the injury to that part of ourselves we can't put a price tag on, our pride in who we are.

We have a lot of people who have done nothing wrong and who have lost their jobs, perhaps their families and homes, places in their local circle of friends and acquaintances, who end up losing themselves. 

I knew a German in one of the places I worked while living in the Federal Republic who often teased that "Americans are people who buy things they don't want with money they don't have to impress people they don't like." We're nearing the point on the calendar, as a nation, where the bills are coming due. Wer soll das bezahlen? Wer hat das bestellt? Wann man nur wusste.

In the frenzy of election season where there's more action than date night at Piranha High, the highs are higher, and the lows are deeper; blame is abundant but solutions are hard to come by. At least when the other side is telling the story. 

But the thing to NOT lose sight of when the edge is off of the rhetoric on Wednesday, November 4th, no later than noon (or when the ballot counting ceases), when we realize there is no revolution, just power changing hands, is that a few more of us have become the walking wounded. That old coaching admonition to just 'shake it off' only goes so far.

An adult without hope or dignity hurts and then, in turn, hurts others, usually those closest to them, so what began as a personal tragedy too often becomes a community calamity. 

-bill kenny

Between the Silence of the Mountains

It's a little more than three weeks until Election Day, and I can't wait for it to get here and then be gone. It's not because I don't believe in democracy or whatever version we have; I do. Growing up in Jersey, we were taught to vote early and often. One of which I still do. 

I'm exhausted from all the commercials that pop up not only on television but on all sorts of social media platforms. In my case, all of them are a waste, as I voted absentee last Saturday. 

I don't know what the people running for office near your house are spending to get elected in order to represent you (ayup) but I have feelings of inadequacy when I look at the totals here in The Land of Steady Habits that I might not be worth it. 

I mean, who spends millions of dollars running as 'anti-Washington' to be elected to go to Washington? Did I miss something? When did 'I know you are, but what am I?' become an approved debate format? 

Your mail person will be filing for a work-related disability by the time the election season is over, if our mailman's daily load is any indication. And if you're running for office in my area, 'load' is the correct term and I'll leave it at that. 

Open question: is anyone anywhere engaged in a campaign seeking to identify the root causes of our national economic dysfunction and moral and ethical malaise and then offering a plan to address them? 

Oops, as Mom would say, 'don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer.' 
-bill kenny

Microscopic Michelangelo

And despite what you've guessed, this isn't about one of the Ninja Turtles.

Colossal

This fellow is incredible; see for yourself.
-bill kenny 

Child is Father to.....

I often wonder whether we're not the best humans we can be when we first arrive on the planet, rather than who we are in the here and now (in my case, nearly 74+ years of hanging around the water cooler). Maybe we're best in every way when we're born. I study every photo of my grandson looking for clues and will report my findings at a later date.

I got to thinking about this reverse smart-stuff again when I rediscovered an amazing article I first encountered in the Huffington Post a decade and a half ago (I throw close to nothing away, electrons included).

Amazing article and Huffington Post is not a turn of phrase I use lightly or often, so this is quite impressive stuff. I was and have always been mostly neutral on the HufPo, except for this, "18 Things Children Can Teach Us About Happiness."

How are you coming on getting the backing off that Band-Aid anyway? Look at that Owie, will ya? Maybe I'm gonna have an amputation or something. Don't you have anything besides those Powder Puff Girls? All power to the Band-Aids!
-bill kenny

Making the Colors Bright

Sunday afternoon while searching (in vain) for the Germany-Greece UEFA Nations League Soccer Football Match, I came across the Pillow Fight Championship on some variation of ESPN that doesn't seem to have as many gambling odds and over/under point spreads crawling across the bottom of the screen as all the other ESPN channels.

I was mesmerized, especially when one of the announcers referred to the two people in the ring clutching what looked like overstuffed pillowcases as 'warriors.' Yes, sir, buddy. I'm sure they are. I'm just not sure in what universe.

I used to watch a lot (more) ESPN, but ever since they decided to go all in on gambling and fantasy sports and hitched their ratings wagons to Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith, my ardor has cooled noticeably. I think I figured out what the "A" as his middle initial in Smith's name stands for, but, then again, McAfee would also need one.  

Sorry, but I don't get them at all. I grew up with Howard Cosell and 'Speaking of Everything' which he did. He was well-read, well-spoken, and very well versed in whatever he chose to speak about. Whether I was interested in it or not meant little to nothing to Howie. He loved to hear himself talk, as do both McAfee and Smith. The difference, to me, was that he actually had something to say.

The nicest thing about the Professional Pillow Fight Championship is that neither McAfee nor Smith were involved in it. Making the tragedy of the other twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week programming on ESPN almost unbearable. 
-bill kenny

Emptying the Ocean with a Teaspoon

Given the summer we had in these parts, we should see a reasonably sedate autumn, with local voters paying close attention to the issues at hand and on hand, listening carefully to neighbors seeking office, and making choices that benefit us all. 

Ha, ha! 

I just crack myself up sometimes. Forget what you've heard: peyote buttons aren't found on southwest sweaters. 

But seriously. 

The higher up the governmental food chain you go, the less functional everything seems to be. Helps explain the chaos emanating from the UN and let's not spend a lot of time talking about the goings-on in Dodge City, okay? We're going to elect 435 congressional representatives, about thirty Senators, and close to the same number of Governors come November. 

What still works does so best when we're closest to home. Stands to reason that while I may not be able to see the White House from my house, I can still see yours, and while I'm happy you're waving, I'd be happier, still, if you used more than one finger. Just sayin'. 

Here's my point. People prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not. I arrived in Norwich, Connecticut, 35 years ago and fell in love with the possibilities here, albeit for the most part, still unrealized.

We need doers and dreamers and people to encourage both, who can have patience when the path forward is arduous and show some grace when a project doesn't work as planned. 

We are all we can count on to improve our city; it's time we start treating one another as partners in our progress in building the Norwich we want to come home to. Something (I hope) to think about as Election Day 2026 approaches.
-bill kenny

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

In Case You Skipped this Space on Saturday

Many of us refer to the World Series as the Fall Classic, while for others, autumn is a time to watch professional football on television every Sunday, Monday, and occasional Thursday, while high school football happens under the lights on Fridays, and college football is reserved for Saturday afternoons, evenings, and seemingly random weekday nights.

None of those, in my opinion, is what Autumn in New England is all about. 

What defines the season here is gassing up the old leaf blower, slapping on the Mickey Mouse earphones so the roar of the engine doesn't deafen you like those Iron Maiden shows of the early Eighties used to do (still have the T-shirt, do you? Run for the Hills indeed!) and then gathering up the falling and fallen leaves, getting them together in large piles and placing them into your composter (I have two of them I got from Norwich Public Works in the corner of the backyard). 

Or not.

Many people with leaf blowers have the gasoline-powered versions because they're just a lot louder than the electric ones and you can go anywhere with those bad boys, and they can blow any and all leaves they find on their property out into the street or onto a neighbor's property, because somewhere in an obscure codicil of the Bill of Rights or an addendum to the Articles of Confederation grandfathered into the Constitution is a provision about your right to arm bears and to be obnoxiously loud, befoul the air with gasoline fumes and poison your relationships with those living next to you.

Leaf blowers are uniquely American. To my knowledge, no one else on earth has them, and most people in whose countries I've lived or visited cannot comprehend having a device as irritating and harmful to the atmosphere as a leaf blower. In many ways, it's a better symbol of the United States than the bald eagle, in my opinion, and maybe the closest thing any appliance could come to representing most of our recent Presidential election campaigns.

Except that it wouldn't work, because all successful sports have television contracts; I can see a new national sport with people in golf carts driving around (blindfolded? why not!), talking on a cell phone while their partner in the shotgun seat operates a leaf blower, trying to coerce a small animal into a shoebox that closes down with a satisfying snap on the little furry fugitive.  

Ideally, everyone would be so busy trying out for a place on one of our local teams that the leaves might fall unnoticed for decades, renewing the earth and returning to it some of the nutrients and minerals we have thoughtlessly plundered from it as we evolved from the primordial ooze to the clad-head-to-toe-in-officially-licensed-team-paraphernalia we wear that differentiates us from the lower primates and others on this orb. Thankfully, like snowflakes (and leaves), no two of us are the same.
-bill kenny

A Legendary Rumor

Let's face it, there are a lot of things we don't do well, for the most part, and while this isn't a complete list, it's a pretty good start:

push the chair back in under the table when we get up;

put the seat down on the toilet;

come to a full stop at the red light before making a right turn;

not talking on a cellphone while driving

and definitely not voting in municipal elections.  

We complain about a lack of freedom of choice, but I think we actually prefer having freedom from choice. By insisting that 'there's nothing I can do' or that 'no one cares what I think,' we absolve ourselves of all responsibility and blame when things fail.

And as we all know, things fail frequently. It's all part of life and why life is a contact sport. You can continue to claim you're a victim or you can listen when a candidate for office stops by and tell them what you'd like them to do for all of us. What are they gonna do? Tell you to shut up? They started it!

We can keep telling each other that 'it doesn't make any difference' and 'one vote doesn't count,' and guess what? Eventually, we're right. We become our very own self-fulfilling prophecy-aside from maybe winning a T-shirt, I don't see what the benefit is to that kind of behavior.

Did you ever hear about that city in Connecticut whose residents became more passive in each successive election until they barely reached double digits in voter turnout? You haven't? Neither has anyone else.
-bill kenny

One or the Other

Leaf peeping isn't the only thing we do in New England in Autumn. 

Upper Yantic Falls, Norwich, Connecticut

Not everyone has the time to admire the foliage.

One or the other. Choose wisely.
-bill kenny

Democracy Is Coming to the USA

Election season is like Trick or Treat for adults, except we registered voters seem to end up with a lot of Mary Janes and saltwater taffy and way too few Dove Bars and Reese's Cups. 

Thirty-two days from now, unless you've availed yourself of early voiting or an absentee ballot, we'll be knee-deep in big muddy hitting levers, blackening circles, chopping chads (and jeremys in Florida) as the will of some of the people (at party nominating conventions this summer) is transformed into the will of all the people. The miracle of democracy, coming to a ballot box near you.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard ." Sing it, H. L. I'll hold the hymnal while you turn the page. Of course, in this country for the most part, hardly anyone has an opinion on how well democracy works since we rarely get above thirty percent turnout by registered voters in an 'off-year' (= non-Presidential) election.

Living in one of the thirteen original colonies (I still think we should get silk jackets, have colonial colors and maybe a secret handshake), I'm watching the wheels as I'll have the opportunity to vote for a state representative, a state Senator, a United States Senator, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a parsnip in a bear tree, to say nothing of a slew of State Constitutional officers, culminating in a new Governor. Plus, in my town we'll have a local referendum question, though the pygmy pony initiative failed to make the ballot. Again.

You'll have about the same range and scope of choices where you live-but only if you choose to vote. The same folks who'll sit on hold for twenty minutes for a call-in radio talk show can't take ten minutes to go vote on Election Day. Maybe they think you have to pay a fee to cast a ballot, or lack a calendar that tells them when Election Day is. 

The same people who call Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent hundreds of times to get their favorite advanced to the next round don't think it's appropriate to have an opinion on the direction their state or nation should take.

If you don't choose, you lose. And don't tell me you don't have enough information. In this country at this time in our history, if there's one thing we have TOO much of, it's information. The trick is to turn it into knowledge you can use to make informed decisions. Because that's what we're lacking....
-bill kenny

How About Norwich Crabs?

Tonight at seven is possibly the most important and also contentious meeting of the City of Norwich Inland, Wetlands & Conservation Commission in the city's history. Let me add substance to what you may have read as bombast. 

Here's the proposal the commissioners will review at tonight's meeting, as outlined on the Norwich Community Development Corporation (NCDC) website, like the many municipal commissions, agencies, boards, volunteers (and paid staff) who work to expand and enhance the Grand List of our city. 

Tonight's meeting is a small piece of the entire decision-making process, and there may not be a 'final' decision, so to speak, tonight at all. A lot has been written on both sides of the issue, and much of it unkind, demonizing those with whom we disagree because that's how we roll (and so do you, to be honest; human nature is often very inhumane).

I'll keep my opinions on the entire project to myself, except to note as a homeowner, when I bought our house eight years ago, my monthly mortgage payment was a shade over $1500, and it's now north of $2400. I could use a little help in funding my city government, so if not this proposed project, feel free to make a suggestion. I'm keen to listen.

Having typed ALL of that, I wanted to resuscitate an observation from a very long time ago whose truth is still current. I thought this was as good a day as any to return to it. It's not an original thought but, rather, what I remember of what someone from the Connecticut Business and Industry Association offered in conversation.  

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

If You Think I Mean You, I Do

(If this helps, and it won't, feel free to substitute the name of your town for the name of my town, even if you don't have a body of water bigger than a puddle.)

Dave and Dan were standing on the dock near the Howard Brown Park in Norwich, crabbing. They'd known one another for many years and had watched as their city, so bustling in their youth, quietly disappeared one business, one restaurant, and one block at a time, leaving nothing behind for anyone. For them, crabbing was more than relaxation; it was a diversion to take their minds off their city's troubles.

Except Dave had other troubles as well. As quickly as he caught crabs and turned around to drop them into his twenty-gallon catch bucket, one or more of the crabs already in the bucket would make a break for it. Dave spent almost as much time chasing fugitive crabs skittering down the dock and back into the river as he did fishing for them.

Dan took his crabbing at a very different pace. He worked with a small hoop net and bait cage, catching no more than one single crab at a time and when he did catch a crab he'd spend minutes turning it over, examining it from every angle, holding it up to the light, looking at the cheliped, the apron and the walking legs. 

Sometimes, after concluding the examination, Dan would drop the crab into a child's sand bucket that was his catch bucket and the most recent captive would settle down in the water coming to rest on top of another unfortunate crab.

At other times, Dan, when he'd finished examining his catch, would simply throw the crab back into the river, rebait his trap, and lower his hoop net over the side of the dock and resume crabbing.

As the hours wore on, Dave spent more and more of his time struggling to keep any of the crabs he'd caught in his dockside catch bucket, often first hearing the lid clatter as it was pushed off by one of the crabs, then chasing it down the dock before, with one final leap, it eluded his grasp and reached the freedom of the river. 

Dan watched Dave struggle, slowly shaking his head in sympathy, and, as the shadows grew longer in the afternoon sun, he offered his friend some advice.

"You're doing it all wrong," Dan said. Dave stared at Dan for a moment before pointing out, "It looks to me like we're both doing the exact same thing-so I don't understand what I could be doing wrong that you're not. Point is, Dan, I've caught a LOT more crabs than you have, but I'm not able to keep them because they never give up trying to escape and eventually get away!"

"Yeah," said Dan, "that's your problem. It's what you're catching."
Dave, by now nearly furious, could feel the gorge rise in his veins as he practically shouted at Dan, "How can there be a problem with what I'm catching? I'm catching crabs-you're catching crabs. We're both catching crabs!" 

"True enough," Dan said, "but you're catching all kinds of crabs. I'm only catching Norwich crabs." Dave stared at his friend. "What do you mean, you're catching 'Norwich crabs?' What the hell is a Norwich crab and how could that possibly make a difference?" Dave demanded to know. 

"It's the most critical difference," said Dan. "With Norwich crabs, when you have one and put him in the catch bucket, if he tries to get out, all the other Norwich crabs hold on to him very tightly and keep him from ever succeeding."

When I was first told this story, I thought it was extremely funny. It never occurred to me that it was also true. If we, and by "we" I mean you and me, whoever and wherever we are, don't learn to let go of the hurt and anger from previous failures and choose instead to reach for rewards, despite the risks, at our next opportunity, this story goes from being very funny to very sad all the way to being our last story and the one that becomes our epitaph. Trust me on this one.

-bill kenny