The End or the Beginning?

I have no idea how I lived before the internet. I've checked my birth certificate, and I was around for decades before any of this stuff that we take for granted had ever been thought of. 

Maybe like you, I can go online to look up a particular topic or event, and hours, if not days, later, I will look up to realize I'm still at the computer. Every click becomes a revelation, if not a revolution, and more often than not, the original reason for the search is forgotten. 

Just the other day, I found something online that I had to tear myself away from to tell you about, knowing that when I do (and you try it out), we may never see one another ever again.

Are you ready? Go. 

See you in the next life.
-bill kenny  

Talk about a Short Trip

You may not have yet started to notice, but the days are getting shorter--yes, I know, hot summer nights and all that, but since we've had the solstice, we're already on the downside of the slide to the longest dark day of the year in December. 

I guess the good news might be if you want Santa to bring you a sled, you only have to wait one hundred and seventy-nine days.

And you thought I'd say something chirpy and perky to start your week? Silly rabbit!
-bill kenny

Sunset Doesn't Last All Evening

It happens every summer in the parts of New England that aren't actually parts of any part of New England. When we think of Massachusetts, we think of Patti Page and Old Cape Cod, but for an hour's worth of your drive out to the Cape, it looks more odd than Cod.

Same for Southeastern Connecticut. People think Mystic (curse you, Julia Roberts, and those great cheekbones!) and other touristy locales, but a lot more of the area is quite a distance from having any mystical qualities at all.

I think the weather has caught up with me and cast me down a bit. We get this every June. It rains like the dickens, then it stops, and the clouds part; the sun comes out, and then the cycle starts all over again. Like the Itsy Bitsy Spider has been left in charge and found the keys to the liquor cabinet.

I've started to get a lot better at looking and seeing (physical and cognitive functions together) small strokes and nuances instead of looking at the big picture and struggling for meaning. Something Harry J taught me in video editing some forty-five years ago, 'watch the whole frame,' has uses beyond the box, but I suspect he knew that and just wanted to start small. 

"Know your audience" was another thing he used to say, usually when talking to me. I have a sneaky feeling he was laughing up his sleeve when he said it.

Out walking the other day, I looked overhead, and I smiled to myself. It was early, and maybe nobody else saw the brightness in the day before it was overtaken by the clouds that had chased it across the heavens, but I had seen it. And I knew, proof positive again that all things must pass. But in so doing, they leave a little bit of themselves for all to enjoy. 

-bill kenny

Raising Our Voices Instead of Elevating Our Arguments

Driving through Taftville the other day, heading to the post office, passed a house with three or four lawn signs all reading "Norwich City Council Sucks." Brevity being the soul of communication, I understood almost instantly what the signs meant. The owner still had a 'Get Fired Up-Support Your Volunteers' lawn sign as well, and to my eyes, didn't have a lot of lawn left (which is a clever way to avoid mowing, I guess).

There's been a months-long argy-bargy involving our City Manager and the Chief of the paid fire department, and three of the four volunteer fire departments, about what, I'm not quite sure. It started out as a shouting match of sorts, 'I'm the Boss!' 'You're not the boss of me!' 'Oh yeah? Yeah!' and is now 'We'll see you in court.'    

There is no happy ending to any of this, and that is more than a little sad, as we're doing great things as a small city in Southeastern Connecticut, and I think the only direction we're heading is up. 

We're conveniently forgetting, as is so often the case, not everyone gets everything--it's true in government as it is in any other relationship, so perhaps we might spend a moment and define what our relationship with our city government is, and/or should be.

We form governments, local, state, and national, to do for us collectively what we, as individuals, are unable or unwilling to do for ourselves alone. Some of the tasks are easy--provide for the national defense. Some are harder to define and execute, providing a quality education for our children to enable them to be productive members of our society as they become adults.

The challenge is in the details. Compound all of that by putting a price on each action, and every step of each action, until the municipal budget exceeds one hundred and sixty-seven million dollars. That's a lot of money and a lot of responsibility. 

I voted for neighbors, known and unknown to me, who volunteered to do their best as they saw it on my behalf, no matter how I felt, personally, on any given issue before them. And I believe with possibly two exceptions, all of them are trying to do just that. The open question, regardless of the issue, is: do you do something right, or do something right now?

Politics is often called 'the art of the possible', but we, the people (at all levels of government), can make that art impossible by elevating our expectations and the volume of our voices when speaking about our expectations.

Not helping matters is our representational form of government, where, from the speaker's podium at a city council meeting to and through the curtain at the voting booth, we can drown out one another if we work at it.  

No one wants to have fewer policemen, or more children in a school classroom or a library that can't be open to serve the general public in need of its services, or gaps in our fire protection and public safety.

A lot of us remain very unhappy at the state of affairs in The Rose City and the rate and pace of change and improvement still needed. But we have to work together. To discover and then celebrate the commonality of our shared vision of what we want Norwich to be, and decide how important our differences are in pursuit of a common goal. To stop saying 'this is the way,' and start saying 'let's find a way.' 

Hurling invective at people with whom we disagree will benefit no one. We can disagree without being disagreeable. Sadly, I fear that won't fit on a lawn sign.
-bill kenny

Got Your Weekend Covered

So many people complain that there's nothing to do in Norwich, Connecticut. I no longer waste my breath or time arguing with them, but simply smile smugly because I know they're wrong, and that means all the cool stuff you can do around here will have smaller crowds.  

Except for this weekend. You really need to make a plan to come and join us.

The Rose Arts Festival is a perfect reflection of all the good things and great folks optimists like me see when they look at Norwich. You should really try it as well. See you there?
-bill kenny

The Difference Between Justice and Just Us

Life in Twenty-first Century Amerika can get confusing. 

Subject to your questions, this concludes my briefing.

-bill kenny 

We've Worn Out that Song We Used to Sing

I'm not doing political agit-prop (at least not today). Looking at my country right now, and the shape it's in,  I don't care which party is to bless, or who is to blame. A pox on both their houses (of Representatives and the Senate) if that helps move us forward, and to hell with all of them if it doesn't. I'm starting to wonder as we near the 4th of July if one revolution really was enough.

Remember how our folks told us 'to get a good job, get a good education,' so we did. And that's what we told our kids and watched as they borrowed boxcars of money for college degrees that have qualified them to do what, exactly? 

Fill out crossword puzzles in Esperanto while waiting for a callback on that dental technician job that 145 other folks applied for, or be a gig worker for Uber? Time to downsize those big dreams, sweet-cheeks. Money doesn't talk; it swears, and empty pockets say nothing.

In the last two weeks, our newspapers were saturated with photos of young people just starting out, leaving high schools and colleges to take on the big, bad world. It's a little slow right now; we're telling one another, what with summer and all, things will pick up by the fall. 

Unless they don't, and then what? Don't even start on the why, because all that will do is make you sad and your children mad. Maybe it's always been this way, or maybe I just never noticed how much closer to hopeless we've been sailing for well over a  decade now. 

We're going faster and getting nowhere-burning through our lives and resources so quickly the debt each of us owes is crushing us before we were even born. And still, we get up and go running up the mountain to see what we can see and stay plugged into a game that's long since played out.
-bill kenny  

Leave the Driving to Someone Else

According to some, 'this is the age of miracles and wonders.' And maybe it is, but one of the more amazing things to me, child of the library card since the late 1950's, is how the synergy between convergence and connectivity brings the world to a screen near me 24/7 and 365.

I don't even need to know what I'm looking for, and a search bot will find me something, anything (animal, vegetable, mineral) bring it back to the screen and after I've cast it aside, review other sites it has retrieved for me, and via one or another algorithm,  start to guess what I might like/want or need and finds that. Eventually, an Ethernet happy ending of sorts.

We live in a state well-known for its perceived wealth, Connecticut, one of the Original Thirteen Colonies with astounding affluence along what we call The Gold Coast (though not all that glitters is gold; in some instances it's bling) and crushing poverty and squalor in places such as our capital, Hartford.

Our infrastructure, from interstates to fiber optic networks, is aging (and near failure) as it is across the Northeast, with little investment in any of it since the Korean War. And if you think our bridges are old, you should see our population. 

Actually, you're reading one of them now. I've lived here with my family since the fall of '91 when I was in my late thirties. I was 74 in April and get the senior discount at the local coffee shop. No one was more surprised than I to wake up this morning to find that I'm old. Except, it's been happening for years and not just to me.

But that's why I was mentioning search engines and items of interest at the top. Humor a geezer, willya? It takes us all night to do what we used to do all night, and if I need an extra paragraph or participle to get to my point, what's your rush? I will, in all certainty, probably end up dying in a place I had never heard of until I lived here. There are worse things of course, so don't wish too hard.

It's nice enough-some improvements would be appreciated. A few more pony rides for birthdays wouldn't kill anyone, and while there's always room for Jell-O, there's not a whole heckuva lot of pie from what I've seen. 

Tell you what else we don't have a lot of-and not just us, but almost everyone east of the Connecticut River: mass transportation. If you don't have a car (or a truck) you are so screwed in terms of shopping, working, socializing, living in general.

Never regarded mass transit as mythical or mystical, to say nothing of magical. But we're going to have to start to change how we manage it and how willing we are to use it and make it pay for itself, especially before the kids put us in the home; otherwise, how else are we ever gonna see the grands?
-bill kenny

I've Been Mick Jaggered and Silver Daggered

It's graduation season all across the nation and I'm always impressed reading in the newspapers about guest orators and those receiving honorary degrees and who offer, in retun, some words of wisdom for graduates contining their journeys into the Brave New World.  

Again this year, despite all the high schools and colleges in our immediate area, no one reaached out to me with an invitation to speak. No hard feelings, there's always next year (fingers crossed), but in case there isn't, here's what I would have offered.

Always have pens with black ink-blue ink sucks and if you have to make a copy of something you've signed in blue ink, it looks goofy and is barely visible. 

If you have to smell food in your refrigerator to see it's still edible, it's not and throw it away. 

Get the gas money up front, NOT at the end of the trip or you won't get it at all. And no, claiming 'I got the snacks in Butte, remember?' isn't the same as kicking in for a fair share of the gasoline purchases. And if that screws up your friendship, you didn't have one.

Be what you want to be-I've spent most of my life being what others have told me. Look at what it's gotten me and proceed with caution. I'm fine and you will be, too.

But don't let people whose lives have foundered sink you and your dream no matter how stupid your dream is (sarcasm as humor). Oh yeah, no dream is stupid if it's yours and if you find someone who shares it, sees it or gets it, marry them, regardless of your sex or theirs and you'll be ahead of the game and definitely ahead of most of the rest of us here on the ant farm.

Return the gowns to the graduation coordinator immediately after the ceremony to make sure you get your deposit back. 

When you choose to use the word "truth," always use it with the indefinite article, "a" rather than the definite one, "the." 

Something about sunscreen but I'll be damned if I remember what. 

Be an exclamation, not an explanation.
-bill kenny

Two Ships

Happy Father's Day 2026 to those who observe. 

William P. Kenny, Sr. 1923-1981

Here's some advice I wish I had when my own journey was beginning. Enjoy.
-Bill Kenny 

"Ninety Percent of Being a Dad..."

Tomorrow is Father's Day, and of course I have a memory. When I was in the US Air Force, after I was married but before we had children, shortly after Easter in 1980, I happened upon a tremendous card that was pitch-perfect for my dad for Father's Day.

I was in the Rhein Main Base Exchange, and the thing you have to know about US military overseas shopping opportunities, be they exchanges (like department stores) or commissaries (like groceries) is when you see it on the shelf, buy it. There's no 'look in the back room for more,' no 'we're expecting another order in a week.' It really is a case of 'he who hesitates is lunch.'

When I saw the card, I knew it was ideal for two people who had long ago come to the realization they had nothing to say to one another but neither wanted to be the first to admit that because an admission such as that would be giving up, and these two Thick Micks never gave up, ever.

Our relationship, and as I discovered, that of my brothers and sisters as well, to varying degrees, frequently had more turbulence than tranquility. I used to say my father was the angriest man I ever knew until I caught a glimpse of myself one morning in the mirror. I then stopped saying that.

The card captured all of that, and when I got home I signed it, wrote a note whose every word I still remember, addressed the envelope, put a stamp on it and put it in the hand-tooled leather carrying bag Sigrid had gotten me for our first wedding anniversary and into which I dropped any number and manner of objects as I went about my life.

I next saw the card some six months later, when Sigrid, Frau Ordnung Muss Sein, was cleaning out my bag and held it out to me in soft, silent reproach as we sat in our living room. She pursed her lips and waited for her spaetzen-hirnn husband to grasp what the object was and then, realizing he did, slowly shook her head.

For my part, chagrined as I was, I insisted it wasn't that big a deal, as I could save the card for next Father's Day and thought no more of it. Sadly, the universe did. My father was to die in his sleep of an attacking heart the following May. The words I'd always meant to say but needed thousands of miles of ocean to actually write were never shared.

I became an adult when I bought my first beer legally. I became a man when I took a wife (or more exactly, when she married me). I became a father with the birth of our son, Patrick, and of our daughter, Michelle. When I looked at my dad 'back in the day,' I saw him differently than I do now, shaped and formed by the crucible of events controlled and beyond our control each of our lives has contained.

I've learned not very much in seven plus decades here on the ant farm except, tell the people you love that you love them when they and you are here so they know it and don't be surprised that they already did and that in their own way they love you too. Tomorrow, to my brothers and my brothers-in-law, fathers all, and to you as well and always, Happy Father's Day.
-bill kenny

Juneteenth 2026

Today is Juneteenth Day.

I could offer you an explanation on the origins and history of the day, but that news article does a better-than-good job of it, though I think for us in Norwich, we have a softer and celebratory focus on the day and the events around and behind it.

It's also called Emancipation Day, and words mean different things to different people, to say nothing of hiding things that would better be brought to light. Today's a holiday but don't kid yourself, there's unresolved sorrow, fear, resentment, anguish and anger associated with the origins and causes for the system of oppression whose end, in the United States as we knew it came back on June 19, 1865, when slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned the War Between the States had ended months earlier on 9 April and they were now free. 

Events begin at five o'clock tonight at the David Ruggles Memorial Freedom Courtyard at City Hall. It is the 37th Annual Observance of Juneteenth Day and promises to be quite the do. Everyone is invited, and anyone who chooses to attend will be welcome.

Holidays bring different people, and peoples, together to reflect on who they are, who they were, and who they are on the way to becoming. Ideally, each of us sees in one another a reflection of ourselves as well as a better understanding of our unique talents and gifts-the stuff that makes us, us. 

That's why the celebration an dflag raisng at City Hall is important; not only for all the people who are going to be there, but for all those who've come before them and those as yet to be born who will fulfill their promises and who will dream their own dreams and then live those as well. 

So celebrate with us here in Norwich or wherever in the world you find yourself today. Sometimes, unless and until you look back, it's hard to see how far you've traveled. It is easy to realize the journey has a distance yet to be accomplished and to feel daunted by the challenge of that task, but the travel is sweeter and sweetened by the knowledge of where we were and where we are now. 
-bill kenny

It's the Song that They Don't Sing

Out walking the other day, I passed a Chevy of some kind (I think) with Connecticut tags wrapped in a chrome frame with black lettering inset that, above the plate, read: "Sexually Deprived" while below it, "For Your Security and Protection."

I had walked perhaps three steps beyond the car when my brain managed to make my legs stop as it finally processed what my eyes had told it, and I walked back to take a second look. Yep, that's what it said. Would that there had been nothing more, both I and Edgar Allan might have been content, but no.

On the back window shelf, facing whoever would be following the car, was a stuffed brown and white toy bear, maybe ten inches high or tall, wearing a red negligee and black racing goggles. 

Looking again at the car (tearing myself away from the Teddy in a teddy was an herculean struggle), I realized the car's tires had four different rims as well. If the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse decide to use the HOV lane, I have a funny feeling I've just spotted their vehicle.

I've spent a great deal of time between then and now pondering all of this, and not just because my life is surprisingly empty. I'm seeking an explanation that would, in turn, lead me to a conclusion as to its meaning, and I have to tell you, I have nothing. Nichts, Nada, Zip.

I'm left to wonder if it's part of a postcard from a brave new world tomorrow or just more roadkill on the human highway. I fear it's a whole lot of nothing and a little bit of everything.
-bill kenny

You Were Bigger than the Whole Sky

The Age of Connectivity has enabled us to attempt relationships with people from across the globe whom we might not otherwise ever know or know of. I joke, but not really, about answering 'YES!' to the question, "Are Friends Electric?" because in my case, I have ten times more online ether acquaintances than actual flesh-and-blood ones. 

The interactions, as you know if you too are a netizen, are so much easier than in real life. You choose to respond to someone, or you stop responding. No awkward silences, no sense of guilt, just ones and zeroes.

And there are so many platforms to choose from in which to be alone in the crowd. Whether you choose to embrace the world or hold it at arm's length, you have the control, but it comes with a price. Real human emotions, happiness, anger, sadness- the whole panoply on the spectrum can be voiced in cold type, but the heartbeat behind the machinery can be lost or misconstrued.    

This stopped me cold yesterday, as the hole in this person's heart is so large and so deep, even if every one of us responded to them, it would be meaningless. 

Saying goodbye to someone whose existence you never knew is worse than failing to say hello to someone you'll never meet. And it's the price we pay for the shared community we think we're building online.
-bill kenny

The Only Consonant Is Change

Have you ever heard 'no good deed goes unpunished'? Now you have. The other day, exiting my local grocery store and walking through the parking lot, a car passed me in search of a parking spot. He found one just up ahead, signaled, and made the turn into the spot all in one motion. Game over.

I continued to walk towards my car, which took me past his. The driver was just getting out as I walked by. My Imp of the Perverse, having successfully ignored most of the world's population for most of yet another day, decided that social intercourse and human interaction were just the ticket and lurched into action.

My ears heard my mouth offer in an extremely cheerful voice (I hate when I do that bonhomie 'hail fellow! well met!' crap) 'just so you know, your driver's side brake light is out,' which, as a conversational opening gambit, falls squarely in the innocuous bordering on moronic scale of exchanges. The driver, now standing beside his own vehicle looking at me evenly, noted in a flat tone of voice, "what's your fluckin' point" (but without the L).

I've collected good questions much of my life. I started out trying to pair each of them with good answers, but that rapidly became a bridge too far, so questions it is. And this was a fine one.

All I could do was smile-no words could adequately explain to the driver that I had only attempted to be helpful, but no worries (as my children's generation was fond of saying), SB, it won't happen again. Ever. As for that good deed, hardly a trace left in the here and now, just junk all across the horizon-a real highwayman's farewell.

-bill kenny

Busy Weekend?

If you weren't following World Cup first-round action, or the rage in the cage event on the White House lawn, I'm telling you something you already know.

Riddle me this: who had his name taken off a Washington, D.C., landmark almost as quickly as he forced it? I'm sure the President isn't happy about this turn of events, but before he has Kash Patel unleash the FBI to investigate all the folks on scaffolds who made it happen. 

Equal parts unseemly and illegal, though neither of those reasons is even vaguely compelling for the crawlers who enable the man and reinforce his bad impulses.

I propose a compromise to satisfy all parties. No, President Trump's name will not be on the Kennedy Center, but we'll put up something that will instantly call him to mind.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one of all.
-bill kenny

No Flag Has Ever Stopped a Bullet from a Gun

Between now and Election Day, we will hear every single person seeking office in these United States of America invoke 'the flag' in support of whatever it is they are advocating.

That is their right, just as it is mine to arch my right eyebrow and aim a caustic comment or two (I get them by the gross, they're much cheaper that way) in their general direction, certainly no longer in the hope of dissuading them or any adherent from pursuing a particular course of action I'd rather they not, but because it's hygienic and perhaps therapeutic for my own mental state.

I, along with millions of others since before this nation was a nation, served in its armed forces, wore its uniform, followed the lawful orders of those placed in leadership positions, and did as best I could what was expected of me in defense of my country and my family. In recent times, we've had ample, egregiously awful proof of the importance of defining and defending both in the broadest sense possible.

The American flag is a symbol of that nation and means to each of us what we wish to see in it when we look to it. Today is Flag Day, and we are going to hear a lot about 'the flag' and 'our country' before we make decisions this November about who we are and who we shall continue to be. 

I always think of Carl Schurz's words about "my country" and how far too often pseudo-patriots have selectively edited and condensed/corrupted them to support their own agenda. Here's all of it in one place: 

"(O)ur free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”

It doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, so you rarely hear the whole quote in much the same way as we use the flag to cover a multitude of venalities. Today, Flag Day, it's good to remember our flag shouldn't be a prop of personal or political posturing but rather a symbol of our nation's resolve and unity.
-bill kenny

Thinking about Mom

At some point on most days, I have a moment where something triggers a memory of my mother, who passed away several years ago in 2017. The memories are always happy, which I think she would have appreciated. This was my celebration of her birthday from a very long time ago. I called it: 

Expecting Me to Remember

Timing is everything, and if I wait too long, she'll probably be at the beach, just leaving for the beach or returning from the beach. Today is my mother's birthday, and when you live in Florida because you hate the snow of New Jersey, that's how you roll.

My mom married my Dad shortly before she celebrated her twenty-third birthday and was my mother before she was twenty-four. She lived with and loved a man who loved her and all of us very much but didn't know how to say it or show it. She could hear it and see it, and that's all that really needed to count. It took me a lifetime to accept that.

When I was a kid, she was my intermediary in every transaction with my dad-walking a fine line between a proud man and a headstrong son who were so alike they couldn't see the forest for the family tree. 

She negotiated not only safe passage for me to adulthood but for all of my brothers and sisters, including the youngest three for whom she was all the parent they were to have at a critical point in their lives when Dad died.

My mother is not a sweet old lady-she is a tough broad who has stared into the maw of terrifying illnesses and diseases and never blinked. She doesn't meddle in the lives of her children or those of her grandchildren, but when you ask her for advice, you get it with the bark off. When you buy a ticket from Joan, "Joanie" as her younger brother Jim always called her, you get the whole ride.

Whenever I call her at the holidays, be it Christmas or Mother's Day, she's on beach time. Hell, I could call her on Two for Tuesdays at Hannafin's, and she'd be calculating high tides at the beach, which is on the other side of the road from where she lives. I promise her someday we'll get down to see her, but I am my father's son, and she knows that won't happen and she's okay with it.

I'll spend a great deal of time today trying to get her on the phone. And when she answers, she'll be surprised that I called, as she always is even though I always do. 

Some Moms are frozen in a moment. Others seize the day and live every moment of it and more. Happy Birthday, Mom. Life's a beach.
-bill kenny         

Pop Goes...

What did I do before the Internet? Drink, mostly. Okay, not all the time, only while awake. Too much sharing, perhaps? Fair enough. 

I used to type on a keyboard connected to a typewriter that had a computer screen (word processor), and when I would reach the end of my story and letters and punctuation, I would turn off the monitor and off to heaven went the words (I guess). It was a hard life, but I was happy.

Now, I have more bandwidth than cents-but not by much, and some days, not at all. The amazing thing about the internet is it exposes you to a reality far more surreal than any Hawaiian Hallucination Song could ever produce. 

Here's what I mean. 

I've always loved James Joyce. The Dubliners and Ulysses are true wonders of wordplay. "'History,' said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.'" No worry about hitting the snooze button today.

It is against just such a verbal banquet that you must judge this paragraph from an ancient Associated Press report. The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker answered, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

Take that Beckett and the Waiting for Godot you rode in on!! 

We have your sweeping narrative-your dynamic tension and your unresolved drama. I'm in love with the notion that none of the characters in this story have names-they are pawns in a game of which they have no awareness, much less chance of winning.

The names have not been changed to protect the innocent-the names haven't been used at all because they're not essential to the story. But what is essential? It's in the second paragraph, my friend, everything you, the lonely sojourner on your unarmed road of flight, needs to know: it's a marten carcass and NOT A WEASEL. Thanks for making that clear. "Meanwhile, way across town in the penthouse suite of the tallest building..."
-bill kenny

Wondering Where the Lions Are

Every day, my health hill to climb gets a little steeper and a little longer. As a kid who rooted for the Yankees, I remember a quote from The Mick (Mickey Mantle) when he received a liver transplant after a sports career of hard living: "If I'd known I was going ot live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself." I know that feeling and never wore pinstripes. 

Was seventy-four in April, and as a kid don't remember knowing anyone who was that age, to include my grandparents, though I'll admit I didn't spend a lot of time wondering about their ages. And now, I'm their senior, I suspect. 

Have spent decades not being especially religious, but in my defense, also not being egregiously sacrilegious. For many years, The Lord and I have had an informal agreement to see other people, though exactly whom was never made clear, at least to me. Here's what passes as some thoughts on immortality from a very long time ago. At the time, I called it:

What if God Were One of Us.....

Every organized religion, and a couple of the somewhat disorganized ones, have sacred writings, scriptures if you will. No matter the region, or the religion, it's part of our human genome, the need to be a part of something bigger. 

Be it the Koran, the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the latest roman à clef by Danielle Steel, there's a narrative-a place to go look for details. When you argue a matter of theology and someone says, 'you can look it up!' the texts are what they're referring to.

There's the blood of the Lamb, the descent of the dove, the tongues of fire, the burning bush, and an almost unending number of symbols and signs that The Lord (however you perceive Them to be) uses to get our attention and pass along the Word.

What if we were the first generation of people on this planet who had a Deity? I don't pretend to know what all of those before us had; I'm just saying we're the first, and Our God uses the tools we have today in much the same way as in the days of old we've read about. 

Someone I encountered recently speculated God would communicate the Ten Commandments in text. Sounds reasonable.

Perhaps:
1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
2. dnt wrshp pix/idols
3. no omg's
4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool
6. dnt kill ppl
7. :-X only w/ m8
8. dnt steal
9. dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl. ttyl, JHWH. ps. wwjd?

What would you ask if you had just one question?
-bill kenny

Only Two Words Needed

The greatest sporting event on earth starts tomorrow.

Let's Go!
-bill kenny

Saw a Deadhead Sticker on a Cadillac

I had a cut on my finger the other day and (perhaps senility has already arrived?), thought it would be a good idea to put some Bactine on it before applying a BAND-AID (I never knew legally it was all capital letters).

My bride, who maintains the medicine cabinet, assured me we do not have Bactine. And, point in fact, for the length of our marriage (forty-nine years this October, though she says it feels a lot longer (because the Germans use the metric system)), we have never had any. Misty-water colored memories, or so it seems.

That led me to think about all kinds of products that I grew up with, and in many instances, old, that have disappeared, and not just from my medicine cabinet. And I suspect that after you watch this; I will not be alone.    

Sears, K-Mart, Blockbuster, and a million or so pieces of the past.
We thought they'd last forever, but they are long gone.
-bill kenny

Into Every Life, a Little Rain Must Fall

In less than a month, we celebrate our Semiquincentennial, but it doesn't feel much like a party atmosphere, does it?  We have so many daunting challenges facing us here in the Land of the Round Doorknobs that we're in danger of being overwhelmed.

Who knew life would get so hard after the fall of the Evil Empire? Seriously. 

I grew up a Cold War kid taught to duck under his wooden desk in Mrs. Hilge's 3rd grade classroom on the top floor of St Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, NJ, and to turn my face away from the window (like that would help in the event of a nuclear attack). Of course, my classmates and I came of age in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and if you want to read quaint, it would certainly qualify.

The world was so much easier when all we thought in was black and white. Now we're not only in color, but we're also in high definition. But if we are, how come so much is so fuzzy so often?

We used to celebrate our ability to disagree and not be disagreeable, e pluribus unum; out of many, one. Those days are over. And the horse you rode in on. Now we're all about Shut the F-well, you know what you can shut, and we have operators standing by to make you do it, so don't you make us, okay? 

Every time I think we're too shrill or strident, I count to ten, and we double down and turn it up to eleven again. Can you even imagine how totally screwed up our political discourse will be by the time we get to the Presidential election in 2028? Not me. 

Talk about spooky-we'll be in downtown Creep City by then. Everyone will be supporting a candidate who sets a neighbor's teeth on edge, makes a family member's skin crawl, and who elevates our own blood pressure so much we'll have folks croaking from Apoplexy Now.

I'm afraid we've lost sight of how important we are, especially to those who aren't us-but who have striven and streamed to arrive on our shores, by any means possible, in historic numbers since the Founding of the Republic. 

I hope we've only momentarily lost our way and not permanently lost our minds. If I could, I'd pray that more reasonable voices from all sides of the political spectrum could regain not only the middle ground but also our middle ear, so we might have a return to balance. We don't need to wave a million bloodied banners if we can follow the flag together. 
-bill kenny

Donmandias

 "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,

"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

Short Thoughts on the Longest Day

The farther out in space we go, the more alike we look. It’s only when we re-enter our atmosphere that the effects of gravity and tribalism become more pronounced.

Residing as I do in Global City Norwich, I smile as we punctuate our lives with a variety of celebrations of many of the different stories we are as the people who all happen to call this place our home. And yes, I'm always saddened by the often ignorant and arrogant online observations of so many on social media platforms and their reactions to those stories.

I wanted to emphasize the importance of stories because when we speak of History, which is really the story we tell ourselves of who we are and how we came to be, we usually think in terms of capital letters and monumental events, forgetting that all of us are the authors of our own tales of our time here on earth.

In deference to, and respect for, Edward Shepherd Creasy, who authored “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,” almost a century before the beaches were stormed at Normandy on this date on June 6, 1944, D-Day wasn’t just a battle historians concluded ultimately won World War II and saved Western Europe, but may also have been the milestone in our country’s journey of political, social, military, and economic ascendance in a world landscape littered with sometimes petty parochial and ideological loyalties.

We think of larger than life men and monumental moments when we study D-Day, and there are many to choose from, but we risk losing sight of the human element of our own humanity in the details that the day involved, which is what we should remember.

The survivor stories, so many people in the same device, fighting not only for something grand and noble like a Free Europe and, by extension, the free world but also for one another. 

They sought out a protected position where the sea met the shore while being raked by weapons fire without rest or respite. Waves of troops waded onto the beaches and wrote with their blood and sacrifice the first chapters of what was to become our modern, Post-War World where we hoped cooperation would replace confrontation.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to walk the beaches of Normandy and struggled to imagine the carnage and brutality of the conditions on that day and the courage it would have taken to overcome them. It’s a way of learning history that books and classrooms, while important, can’t really touch, but for many of us the stories, more so than the lessons, are all we have.  

And many of those D-Day stories are deservedly well-known, while others less so, but I’m always struck in reading and remembering June 6, 1944, by what we, the inheritors of the world who never saw the dawn on June 7, have done with it. And by how much harder we should still work.  

-bill kenny 

A Petard Would've Been Cheaper

The master of the Art of the Deal, Mr. Three-Dimensional Chess Grand Master, the Teflon Don, has gotten himself caught in a trap of his own creation. 

Unfortunately, most of the rest of us worldwide have also been ensnared.

And meanwhile, those Epstein Files won't release themselves.

Jail to the Chief (and all his anblers).
-bill kenny

If I Were a Good Man

 

"If I were the moon, I'd be cool
If I were a rule, I would bend.
If I were a good man
I'd understand the spaces between friends."

-bill kenny