Jump

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jump but time it perfectly......

The building in which I work isn't especially old, but isn't always maintained as well as those of us who work in it might like. It's a five story building and every picture tells a story, don't it? Sorry. The preceding attempt at humor was made possible by a grant from the Rod Stewart Wastrel Fund (he was once called Rod the Mod. Memo to trousers: you're out of here).

We have massive stairs made from slabs of slate or kryptonite (Jor-El has an office on the third floor and spends a lot of time looking through the walls out into the hallway) or some natural wonder that no one dares wax because if you slip and hit your head, you're toast and then a ghost. I have been told the stairs were hand chiseled as single pieces to fit the dimensions of the stairwells. I keep seeing Michelangelo chipping away at these itty-bitty pieces of marble because 'they don't look like David' and wonder if I walk with a limp because someone is pulling my leg.

Speaking of which, because I have Steve Austin loaner knees, and am now older than dirt, I no longer bound up the stairs every morning, like an outtake of Release the Hounds when I first started working here in aught 91 (you do the math, smartie), but head instead for the Johnny and Shuggie vertical conveyance of convenience.

But for the last two weeks or so, the elevator has been Hal to everyone else's Dave, as opposed to just being Hal David (I can't help it. I've got the music in me). It stops at random floors and often between floors, or starts to open the doors before it has stopped. Since I tend to leave my helmet out in the car, entry through the emergency airlock is not really an option (and I think it, too, must be out in the car) so many of us spend most of the day trudging up and down the majestic stairs stopping at each landing to see if this might be where the elevator is chillin', usually greeted by a bright white glowing light from the elevator button where another trudger sought to summon it, but failed.

The repairman has been out numerous times (= I don't how many) and last time he was here, the elevator worked flawlessly, while he was here. Tuesday, I watched him backing the repair truck out of a parking space while hearing a colleague down the hall curse the elevator that knew Elvis had left the building.

I'll say this-you think twice about 'running an errand, I'll be right back' to another floor when you won't be right back, or if you are, you're all winded and wobbly. Productivity has skyrocketed since we stay at our desks. I heard a rumor that we're selling off the stairs to somebody with a big state or a large country with enough space so they don't get in the way. If that happens, I'm making sure I have an extra locking carabiner in my desk drawer. I'll keep the other one in the boot of my car, along with my helmet; just in case I find that airlock.

-bill kenny