Concrete Middle Fingers

Not to make you nervous or feel threatened, but I'm contemplating announcing the formation of my own religion this afternoon assuming it's a slow news day. I think the timing is right on this one. This is the church and this is the steeple. Open the door and see all the people. Where do they all come from?

My marketing folks are thisclose to finalizing arrangements to name peyote and licorice whips our religious drugs of choice (if the endorsement deal with Coca-Cola falls through) and intend to construct a backyard pool for baptisms and the occasional walk on water. I may be seeking donations to construct a video display screen for those, believers and non-believers, who pass by in the front yard, but more on that later during the sermon.

In fairness, as it is budget season across CT and here in Norwich, CT I should tell you I will expect a property tax refund, of course, for the religious exemption and please don't be surprised if small animals, stuffed and otherwise, end up on the altar of placation I'm putting on the sun porch, well, after I build one. Anything you'd like me to pray for while I'm sacrificing a squirrel? Just shout it out, but I ain't no Hollaback Girl, er, minister. When you sup with the devil, you need to have a long spoon. I carry my own.

57 channels and nothing on. Still. Weapons of Mass Distraction. Beyonce's possible baby bump wipes actual news off the front page. Just as well. We can't tell one another the names of the members of our Congressional delegation (and we have a small state; what about California?) but most can get at least two of the Three Stooges right. Mom is so proud. Except Mom is busy playing Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas meets Baghdad-where you get points for shooting pimps and cops. Somehow our kids know none of this is real-what they don't know is how much is surreal. Not forgetting Kay E double L oh Double Good, which is cereal.
-bill kenny

Majoring in Recess

I came across a wonderful quote, from another Press Secretary for another White House, and another President, "The President has kept all the promises he intended to keep." What a crack-up! Is that great line, especially if you turn on that little boy charm, this particular Press Secretary had, with those big puppy-dog 'would I lie to you?' eyes.

How many of us get up every morning for the promises the day holds, or that we hope to redeem? And what happens to us as the day goes along? In most states, and it's true in CT, we spend three to five times more total on people in prison than on our education system. I think (=hope really hard) we Nutmeggers have fewer people in jail than in school, making the expenditure totals even more impressive, but I'm not sure.

I no longer have 'kids' in school. I have an adult daughter (she turns 21 in less than a month) at college. Her big concern right now is getting her license changed to the vertical format that visually indicated she's over twenty-one. I understand why this is an issue for her and know I do NOT want to ask about it under any circumstances. When she was 'itty-bit' I was amazed that I could have helped make someone so tiny. Her brother took my breath away when he was born in July of 1982--hours before the semi-final of the European Cup championships in Spain, the match between Germany and France. What a day, my wife had given birth to our son and the German national soccer team had defeated the despised French team.

Michelle was different-she was a girl and she was so much tinier. But she had this thing she did from the moment her lungs filled with air; she put her tongue on the ridge on the roof of her mouth and made this 'schnicking noise" as my wife called it. And that's how we knew she was hungry. Before she could see, before she could do anything-- she could do that. She was so small I could put her head in the palm of my hand and stretch her out and her feet came to the bend of my arm at the elbow. And now she wants to make sure bartenders realize three Fridays from now that she's old enough to drink. Yeah. I'm more than a little torn up over this but am learning to surrender everything but my serenity.

Actually my wife and I are lucky we had kids when we did (though I was too old for my son and way too old by the time my daughter went to school)-it saved us from schools today (not any given school system, but the process itself). I look at all the metal detectors-not (just) in our airports and government buildings; but especially in our schools. I read a story last week, or the week before, somewhere in Georgia about third graders who'd plotted/schemed/conspired against their teacher--the kids were nabbed with handcuffs, duct tape, a knife and no logical explanation of why they had this stuff. If I'd been their teacher, my transfer papers to another school in another town on another planet would already be on the Principal's desk. Earlier last week a middle school in CT went into a modified lock-down because a 12 year old brought a bomb from home. He made it from "instructions on The Internet" (gotta love that definite article). Walk down the hallway of a middle school just about anywhere and listen to the way 'the kids' speak to one another and realize there's only one place they can learn language like that and it's NOT at Berlitz. Gawrsh, Mickey! Is that the same mouth you use to kiss your mom?

We are in a culture where kids kill one another for the sneakers they wear-where we have twelve year old girls whose goal is to look like twenty-one year old women (thank goodness school lunch passes don't come in vertical format) and my generation was so pissed off at our parents. We really were hypocrites, I guess. All our folks had done was come of age when their parents had survived the Great Depression and fought a world war. And they who had grown up with so little wanted to make sure it didn't happen to us. And we took it all in and shrugged. When our kids have problems we buy them therapists and lawyers. Between them, they can sort it out and they both have billable hours. When I look at what we did with what our parents left us and what we've passed to our kids, I'm a little nervous about wondering if I'll ever meet grand kids. What will I tell them?
-bill kenny

The Land of Sharpened Elbows

I like driving home from work during Daylight Savings Time because there's so much more daylight. On days I take the interstate, like Friday, even though the skies are grey (it was beautiful Thursday and about 66 degrees Fahrenheit and Friday was more like 51 and crappy. Typical April weather swings.), against a background of clouds, you can see the faint, rosy promise of buds on the branches of trees that line the highway. Soon enough, we'll be worrying about how much the air conditioning in the car lowers the gas mileage, because it's certainly warm enough for air conditioning and we'll have missed that moment when the trees explode.

Speaking of wasted gasoline. Personal (sort of) for the fellow in the early nineties blue long bed Chevy pickup in the supermarket parking lot. I realized you were following me to my car practically from the moment I stepped out of the store. That there were hundreds of empty spaces, but all farther away than mine, was the sole reason you trailed me. And here's a hint: when you're shadowing someone, turn the country music down so that most of it is audible only in your truck (I may have actually been able to hear it inside the store).

That moment where my key fob/door opener didn't seem to work, and I looked around to hear which car was bleating and then 'realized' you were waiting for me and so I gave you a wan smile, pantomimed a look of befuddlement (not that big a stretch anymore) and set off to the far end of the parking lot as I heard you burn rubber letting me know that I'd wasted your time? Yeah, all deliberate. That kind of stuff, the idling in the middle of the lane, the pull-over into the fire lane for ten minutes while your better half grabs the makings of the evening meal, all that razzamatazz gets up my nose. Sorry. but not really.

And then I get gasoline after leaving the market. The station has a relatively small footprint probably unchanged since the late fifties or sixties when it had what looks like might have three service bays and the gas pumps. When everyone is going with the flow, like those credit card commercials, there's enough room for four cars at the four pumps. When an obliviot parks off my driver's side door, eight feet from the pumps, leaves the engine running while he gets out and heads for the convenience mart all the while speaking on his cell phone, all I can do is shake my head.

In an era of three-fifty for regular, Speed Racer is buying cigarettes (I smoked almost three packs a day for twenty-one years, so I understand the addiction. But they weren't almost five bucks or more a pack, back then), and because they are so expensive, he buys them a pack at a time. Transaction complete, as he's leaving the store, he's lighting up and walks between the gas pumps back to his still-running car and off he goes.
The Rights of Man don't mean a damn now in the age of style.
-bill kenny

Kodachrome

I think I get accused of being in my own world so often because I prefer it so much more. The movies I make in my head of what could happen are so much more vivid and logical (and dare I say artistic?) than real life, why spend anytime hanging out with Norman and Norma Normal.

Last night I attended a budget workshop of sorts, where the Norwich City Council, minus the Mayor, joined by the City Manager, the Comptroller and the Assistant Comptroller, sat down with the city's department heads and walked one another through the city manager's requested budget. I was a little disappointed in the turnout from those of us who pay taxes: Shiela, Andy, Marterese and me along with some guy who used to tend bar. I'm gonna start a rumor that we had pudding afterwards (and maybe they did. I really wouldn't know since I was there by a quarter of six, and it started at 6 PM (Norwich Time of course) but by a quarter of nine, and into the Board of Education's portion, my aching knees shared that they'd had enough and I crab-walked my way out of the hearing. Such is the life of a fallen Rockette, I guess).

Here's what I am pretending could have happened (dream along with me, please): The seats would be packed with people-thousands of residents yelling and hollering 'Bring on the next one!' (OK. At least enough people to fill the seats, if you insist on some reality) Since there were in 'real time' only two women and two men in attendance, in my movie, Shiela and Marterese knit as the guillotine does its work. Andy and I go out in the hallway and drag in the cart, rough-hewn wooden wheels clambering on the polished floors of City Hall and on the cart, sitting in a cage open to the elements on all sides, is a bedraggled department head pulled inexorably by the Two Yankers of the Apocalypse while Madame Defarge Squared knit.

The cart and cage are placed in front of the Council who are hurling pens and pencils, small notepads and cell phones with calendars through the bars all the while howling out budget questions in high keening voices like creatures of the Serengeti. 'And how many sandbags does the dump truck hold?' shouts one while the department director's eyes dart furtively around the room in search of any way out, but finding none. Another alderman demands, 'what about the lights at the Hamilton Avenue football field?' When the answers are incomplete, or mumbled or just non-existent, the Council members confer for a moment and then, as one, signify their displeasure with a unanimous thumbs-down. Me and Andy drag the caged birds and the cart back out into the hallway and, despite their protestations, push them down the stairs. Their screams echo in the hallways in the night and could melt a heart of stone but not ours. We turn our attention to the next cart and pull the luckless, lunchless little one into the Circle of Inquisition, Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down, and so it goes.

Now, that sounds like a really cool meeting, doesn't it? One that you're sitting there right now and reading about and saying to yourself 'By gum, they are colorful and vibrant folks what live in Norwich, CT. We never have such goings on in these here parts.' (or words to that effect). It sure beats the stuffings out of what actually happened. There was a lot of polite conversation (but NOT all polite) that touched on everything but everyone in the room believes the budget, brilliantly assembled and staffed, is too much for many here in Norwich to pay in taxes this next year. But none of us can figure out how to do anything about it and none of us are ever going to say that out loud and disappoint everyone else to whom we are handcuffed. If this isn't the Abilene Paradox, jet fuel from peanut oil corollary, I don't what is.

So, can you blame me for NOT wanting to hang out in the conventional world? Black and white with shades of grey. Unflavored gelatin because we don't deserve any better with a hearty helping of paste for dessert. What harm can a little whimsy do? Makes the day go faster and the humdrum more palatable. Of course, if large numbers of folks who weren't present for last night's discussion show up Monday night in City Council chambers to kvetch, I fear me and Andy (and maybe the former bartender, Craig (I think his name is; I didn't recognize him without his List)) are gonna be loading carts onto cages all night long. I can tell you one thing: We are going to need more stairs. And how do you like these scarves Andy and I have? They match our new sweaters (and they don't itch even a little bit). Guess who made 'em for us.
Gives us the greens of summer-Makes you think all the world's a sunny day.
-bill kenny

Brilliant Disguise

Quick plug: tonight at 6 PM in Room 335 of Norwich City Hall is a Council-hosted budget workshop with the city departments and agencies who asked the City Manager for money. They get to make their case, and handle some (lots, I hope) questions from the alderspersons on the why behind the how much. Where you live probably has something similar in either form or intent. I'd hope that those who do most of the living in this city and who pay most of the taxes turn out (it's a really large room with incredibly tall ceilings-ridiculously tall, to be honest) and follow along in the copy of the budget they've downloaded from the municipal website, and take some notes that will help answer some of those questions each of us has on the budget. I already had one answered and am better for the experience. For those in Norwich, if you care, be there. Sometimes the things you do speak so loudly I can't hear what you're saying (or writing anonymously in the comments section of a local newspaper's online version of the story).

Speaking of newspapers, I came across a small story, five medium sized paragraphs (or so), from Baltimore yesterday that seemed to be about one thing, but was actually about something else. The story was a report on a surgery accomplished over the weekend at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, in which six different patients simultaneously received kidneys from living donors. The previous high (I think saying 'record' makes this whole thing sound cheap, don't you?) was four and I think the organ involved in those transplants were lungs (or not). Reads a little like a Stupid People Trick, I know. I'm not the kindest person in the world and that's the conclusion I landed when I jumped.

What I had started reading because I hadn't fully grasped the headline and what I had concluded the story was about before I read the last sentence was this was some kind of a perverse attempt at a book of records entry and how sad, etc. It turns out, the true story is much sadder.

The recipient and the donors were all related, but not to one another. That is, through a joke God or Nature played on these desperate people, the kidney of a relative, normally regarded as the (best and) first choice for a transplant candidate, was not compatible for them. But, and I mean with a great big B, But the prospective donor's kidney was compatible with one of the other people who needed one. What are the odds of that? And, moreover, what are the odds of having it happen six times? Tremendous researching and cell and marrow typing and testing (and more than a little prayer I suspect) went into creating this pool of six and six.

And, here's the punch line, I guess. The surgeries were done simultaneously (and the article spoke of the number of physicians and supporting staff and the operating rooms and equipment employed and deployed) so that after the transplant operations had finished, the prospective donor could not now change her or his mind. My brother could have just gotten the kidney he needed to live but I've decided my promise of one of mine to your sister ain't happening. And this synchronicity of surgery was the most linear and elegant solution the surgeons, who are (after all) there to tend to the flesh and not to the soul, could devise. Obviated any and all concerns about a double-cross and made everyone generous, albeit at knifepoint (more correctly, scalpel, I suppose).

All this time I thought it was our ability with tools, our thumbs, and our higher consciousness that separated us from the animals.
I want to know if it's you I don't trust, cos I damn sure don't trust myself.
-bill kenny

Move over Timmy, June Lockhart is all mine

I had notes from two people in the last day, on different topics (and actually about different aspects of my life and interaction with theirs) that underscored for me, again (I need reminders as I'm getting a little thin in the grey matter department) how we are the sum of everyone we've ever met.

That said, these two people are, with apologies to Will Rogers, 'friends I've never met.' They were kind enough to invite me into their lives, though I neither knew that nor (had I known) appreciated it at the time. There was a joke when I worked in radio, 'assume the mike (microphone) is always hot', that I now have to wonder if I should sleep in a tuxedo in case I need to make a good impression on someone in a dream.

Because we are all connected, and inter-connected, on this ant farm with beepers (Dennis Miller is right, you know. Okay, he's a little crazy now, perhaps, but the insight was original and the observation terribly true) their kind words will shape and impact how I continue my bus ride through this life. I'm still stuck in an aisle seat, but the fog is lifting outside and the windows are pretty big and I might get a peek at where we're heading anytime soon now.

I was a big fan of a program entitled "What You Are Now Is What You Were When" (the original was very much a video of its time: big-lapel suit jackets with wide shoulders, side burns to the elbows; sort of That 70's Show without Topher and Ashton) and because of my advanced years, I've been able to synthesis a LOT of different people and their respective impacts and perspectives into my life to create who or what I am. It's nice to know even at this late date, course corrections are possible (and necessary).

I believe very much that you should be the change you want to see in the world (emphasis on the second person personal pronoun, since my 'best by' date has lapsed) so it was very nice to be on the receiving end of separate random acts of kindness. If I had a dog, today would be a day I'd pet him and not glare at him. Whether he'd return the favor is another matter.
What's the matter, Lassie? Is Kenny in trouble?
-bill kenny

The (other) Rite of Spring

The newspapers are starting the 'countdown to the IRS filing deadline' stories this morning, which makes sense since there's a week left to file your federal (and state and in some places, city) income tax return. It's one way of knowing it's Spring as these stories bloom every year at this time. I was reading about how, again and as always, Post Offices will remain open very late next Tuesday evening so that procrastinators can still get their returns postmarked under the wire. Pardon my faded, jaded cynicism. Show of hands: how many do NOT know that next Tuesday is the tax filing deadline? That's what I thought-keep those hands up for just another moment. How many can guess what date next year's filing deadline might be? Gee, imagine my surprise. Those who can't figure this stuff out, even allowing for weekends and Patriot's Day (in Massachusetts) are the same folks who lose track of when Christmas is this year or when, exactly, they are having their birthday. Please.....

In Norwich, CT, last night, the City Manager shared his vision of the 2008-2009 budget and offered a verbal overview of about six minutes that suggested he's been mindful of the City Council's desires to keep the rate of increase (and all of us knew there would be an increase because the cost of goods and services continues to rise) at or below the consumer price index and he suggested that he had, indeed, accomplished that. I hoped last week that, before my fellow Norwichians (Norwichites? Roseheads? Rosebuds? I have NO idea what our nickname is, though I, unkindly, have had a few thoughts on this. Key West has Jimmy Buffett and Norwich has Edwin Land and Benedict Arnold) show up for the public hearings on the budget to offer comments that they will at least look at previous budgets, also on line, and glance at a newspaper so they have some sense of what things in the real world cost.

Actually, an educational opportunity happens this Thursday as the Council holds a budget hearing to, literally, hear about why the monies requested by the various city departments were requested and what they intend to do with them (I'd love to hear someone, anyone, from a department stand up and say 'we're planning on blowing it, the whole wad, on candy! Heck with the taxpayers! Gummi Bears and M&M's for everyone!' and then run out of the hearing room). It will be this Thursday, starting at 1800 (6 PM) in Room 335 of City Hall (the room with the ceilings higher than those in a basketball gym. How'd you like to heat that room? Good news, if you live in Norwich, we do and pay handsomely I'm sure for the privilege) and the first public hearing will be next Monday, 14 April, at 1900 in City Council chambers.

I learned a couple of things last night (attention, fellow old dogs! Yes, while my slipper fetching skills are non-existent and advanced years have made rolling over more of a chore than ever before, I, too, can still learn new tricks and so, too, can you). It's been practice, as I understood the City Manager, for municipal vehicles, to include police cars, if they require refueling after the public works garage has closed for the day, to buy fuel at a regular gas station (I have to believe there are economies of scale benefiting all of us when Public Works buys enough fuel for all city vehicles) and he hopes the PWD goal for 24 hour operation and accessibility of the pumps will benefit the bottom line (law of unintended consequences says one or more gas stations will have a tougher time economically as their fuel sales drop as the PWD pumps' use increases).

I also found out (actually this part I knew before last night) that city employees get paid every Thursday and that if you swing by City Hall early enough Thursday mornings you'll see a line of municipal vehicles (no observation on where the fuel they're burning while idling was purchased is necessary by me) waiting for the finance department to open so the paychecks can be distributed. The City Manager suggested last night shifting the procedure to direct deposit at a savings in excess of $30,000 in costs to the comptroller's office (and who knows how much of a savings in unexpended fuel and non-productive hours) and I hope all new municipal employees are placed in this system as eventually that will mean everyone will be direct deposit.

In my perfect world, before the public hearing next Monday, each speaker would be required to take a short three-question test on the proposed budget, or funding levels in previous years for particular programs. I suggest this because I have no illusions and even less intellect, but I'm willing to concede that I don't know what I don't know. I'm always amazed at the number of people with whom I share the planet who don't subscribe to this belief. They may not be experts in affordable housing, but they disagree with the findings and recommendations of those who are. They don't own a pet but are convinced that $610,000 for an animal shelter is too much. Perhaps they all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, unless they're too smart to fall for that old gag. I'm just trying to manage the level of acrimony we'll end up with here in the Rose City where so many of us not only know everything, but know everything better. Actually, and we're afraid to admit this (but welcome to Life in the West), what we fear is that we know the price of everything but have learned the value of nothing.
-bill kenny