I 'Kin Seek Absolution

On weekends, I get up and go to a fast food place (a 'joint' I have been told, is, technically, a place that sells alcohol. Which, just me maybe, I think would do wonders for breakfast sales. 'Heck with the Grand Slam, gimme a Harvey Wallbanger'-I can just see the TV spots for it now, during the kids' cartoons.). Usually I buy a newspaper, not the one with my town's name in the title (because some days that's the only thing about Norwich in the paper), but the other one, and I stand in line inside and order at the counter, face to face with (technically) another human being and sit at a table and read my newspaper and eat my McWhatever and enjoy the pleasure of my own company.

This morning, not sure why, I wound up at the other place and at the drive through. All I could think of was being eight years old and in the basement of St Peter's Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Confession was heard. When I was in grammar school, right up the street, we used to be marched down enmasse (pun intentional) for confession before First Friday Mass, every month from September through June. First graders, eight graders, thugs, slugs, made no difference. We may have been all God's children but we were definitely Sister Mary Jean's charges and she had a clicker (and knew how to use it). Synchronized sanctity. On her command, we'd all stand, sit, kneel and had she so ordered, I suspect, rolled over and played dead.

The confessional, as a small child, was a scary place. It had a high ceiling with two holes shaped like crosses to let light in. It was made of dark wood and I was forever missing the kneeler as I'd enter from the (relatively) bright outside into the cave darkness of the booth. I was often never aware if the priest was already on my side or busy with the other penitent. I was in no rush. I'd hear a shifting of weight and the muffled sliding of a small window, closed, and then louder the sliding of a small window opening and I knew it was showtime.

Same kind of feeling this morning, with the engine running and the radio turned down. Pulled up to the display of all the different offerings (do I really need to see a cup of coffee? I am reasonably familiar with the concept, you know), not that the one in the bag you're going to buy will look like the one in the picture (I've spent many years seeking out the stores and fast food places I always in the TV commercials, to no avail).

This drive through, for all I knew, was outsourced to some third world nation (I've read about this, but don't understand what the point of that might be and am afraid someone will tell me) and is on the far end, and around two corners from the window where they keep the human in a glass box. I thought the person was ready to take my order when she welcomed me and I had to stop and start again which confused her a little bit which then confused me and then back to her. For a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee (illustration, optional) there was a lot of hullabaloo.

Much like the kid in the confessional, the codger behind the wheel of my car peered at the speaker as if by force of will I could see the person taking the order who may or may not have been the person filling the order. The microphone and the speaker (and probably the wiring for all I know) isn't designed by audiophiles. There's a distinct lack of fidelity throughout every transaction. I long ago gave up trying to guess what people look like by the way they sound on the drive through speaker. Otherwise, again this morning, Saul and I might have had some surprises on our way to Damascus.
-bill kenny

nearly Haiku

Someone challenged me the other day to author an entry of only three words.

I respond:

You lose.
-bill kenny (channeling Calvin Coolidge)

Why not a Tag Sale?

So it's come to this: "a deficit reduction lotto". The CT Legislature is looking to fill the chasms, not holes, in the budget, by any means possible and if some of the ideas are unveiled during Problem Gambling Awareness Week, well, what were the odds of that happening, do you suppose?

I'm still trying to understand when gambling became 'gaming' and why that happened. It's like the difference in definitions between 'disposable' and 'discretionary' income. Sort of a Good Girls Don't distinction that's wasted on me. I always thought the latter was a reference to the folks with the super fast computers, the "Mask of Frodo" game cartridges and the rather limited social horizons. But now we use it in Connecticut, to talk about casinos and big ticket lottery prizes.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average might be on a (momentary) downward glide slope, so your broker could suggest adding lotto tickets to your portfolio. When you talk about diversification, you could mean a mix of powerball and scratch tickets. Why not? After all, as is all gambling (sorry, gaming), it's fun until you lose more than you have and more than you can get back no matter how hard you play. That's when you discover while you were playing there were other forces working and it's not nearly as much fun and games as you thought.

The CT Lottery took in about 998.5 million (= real close to a Billion) dollars last year. Once all the revenue goes into the General Fund, good luck finding the buck you spent on that Pick Three Ticket. But it doesn't change the question: what happens to the money? I have no idea how much money the agreement with the two casinos generates for the state coffers but I imagine it makes the lotto sales figures look like egg money.

All across the state, we read about city's and towns laying off employees and cutting back services--from New Haven to Hartford, maybe to where you live, too. In Norwich, everyone involved in trying to manage next year's budget formulation is approaching the idea as if it were a live grenade. And can you blame them? But our state legislators, and Governor, think that offering to work a day without pay, or to return 10% of the majority party's caucus budget or a freeze on buying supplies (any and/or all of these) will 'close the budget gap'.

We live in households with our family, right? And we earn paychecks and have to pay for housing, utilities, food and all kinds of goods and services. When we run out of money, there's not a lot we can do about it, as it's still winter and the Big Bucks Bush in the backyard isn't in bloom yet and we have no baby teeth left for the Tooth Fairy to help us out, so we've come to the place where the road and the sky collide.

We are addicted to spending and we need to decide if we're ready to go cold turkey in order to kick the habit. The most effective way through the current fiscal situation is to spend less money on everything. It's far more honest than travelling up I-95 North, past Darien, and catching Governor M. Jodi or Gentleman Jim running a friendly game of Three Card Monte at the rest stop. Welcome to the Land of Steady Habits.
-bill kenny

The Creep Factor

I caught a TV ad the other night for a fish sandwich at McDonald's that disquiets me a great deal. I understand the marketing concept: it's Lent, and for a burger joint, that fact presents, how-do-you-say, challenges. Times are tough all over and the last thing anyone, to include a meat-based restaurant needs, is another reason to not come through the door. And let's face it, when we're talking Lent we're talking a BIG reason.

It's not just the Billy Bass singing in a high whiny voice (actually a lot like Pee Wee Herman on whatever the opposite of helium might be, now that I think about it) or the bearded chair-boogie guy getting down with his bad self, so to speak, while the fish sings that ratchets up the makes-my-skin-crawl factor (though NONE of that helps the spot, in my opinion). What the heck is the guy who walks in with the drill supposed to be and why the heck is he being anything in the commercial at all? Just me or does he nod his head at the bearded guy (or is it the fish on the wall? And why is this spot starting to resemble an episode of Lost in terms of self-references?) Just strange stuff.

Reminds me of that whatever-it-was character that Six Flags had who danced. Remember him? Sort of a footrace to see which was stranger, the music Mr. Six danced to or Mr. Six. Always had that road kill on the highway attraction for me-couldn't look at him, and couldn't look away either. The Six Flags stopped using him a while ago but he was around long enough, I suspect, to scar a few minds and hearts. Thank you, Madison Avenue.

And why are the Geico people NOT leaving well-enough alone? Just when I think (hope and pray) they are finally done with the cave-spokespersons, they unveil those googly eyes on a pile of money with Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me playing in the background. I mean I don't begrudge the youngster the money from use of the song-it can't be the easiest gig on earth as Berry Gordy's son, Mr. Motown (Jr.), and it has been awhile between hits-but what's twenty-years among friends, right? I still don't understand the accent on the gecko but I'd imagine he'd get real shrill, real fast, if that Mickey D guy with the drill mounted him alongside of Billy Bass. With enough bread crumbs, I bet he, too, could taste like North Pacific cod.
-bill kenny

No Business like Snow business

Did you get whacked yesterday by The Blizzard? Yep, we did, too. After having watched the previews of the weekend to come on Saturday's The Weather Channel we stood with our neighbors in the lines in the local grocery store, stocking up on milk, white bread and toilet paper. You too?
I never understand why I do it. I go into the store to buy Pink Lady apples and the next thing I know, the spell comes over me and I'm cruising the aisles, filling up the cart. On some occasions, I've gotten home to discover whatever the original reason for the grocery store trip has been forgotten and I didn't get the item at all.

When I got up yesterday morning I called this number we have for inclement weather hoping against hope, and not being all that disappointed. The voice told me it was snowing and there was about four inches on the ground but that we were open for business. Just the kind of cheerful earful at 0425 on a Monday I so enjoy. The drive wasn't all that bad as long as you accept that in the snow you should drive slower. Many of us in the Northeast don't seem to fully embrace this notion.

We do stuff like turn on our fog lights because, of course, that's always the problem with snow early on Monday mornings. Very few of us have a fog light in the rear of the car, which I always found helpful when driving in Germany, but we have light stands up front that render second degree corneal burns to oncoming drivers but not to worry because we, the drivers, can see just fine.

I wagon-trained to work; that is, I fell in line with cars behind a snow plow. We all trudged (not sure that word really captures the speed) along behind one another like baby ducks down Route 12 past the Norwich Hospital Property on the right, looking very attractive as it was completely covered in snow, and past the cut-off on the left for the Foxwoods Casino (flashing for a moment on the number of folks inside who hadn't yet grasped that it was snowing outside, or who might never know because of how engrossed they are in other activities) and then passing to the right the Mohegan-Pequot Bridge shrouded in blowing snow to such an extent you couldn't see any part of the Thames River below the bridge .

Driving behind a snow plow is a happy-sad moment. Yippee! you say because the pavement is still clean and clear so the chances of slipping and sliding are diminished. Fudge! or other words that sound like it, as you realize the posted speed limit isn't happening today and you'll be lucky if the world whizzes by you at 20 mph. Eventually, perhaps made rash by all the fog lights coming at him, a driver somewhere behind you decides getting there first is much more important than getting there safe, and pulls out to pass.

The truck yesterday doing this hadn't actually put on his blinker indicating he desired to pass all of us, though that proved to be the least of his problems. I think I was seven vehicles behind the snow plow and this fellow was passing from what seemed to be a previous county (that's how far behind me he was). I admired the good fortune he'd had in not encountering anyone coming the other way, since that might have been dicey and as he pulled even and then in advance of me I noticed the flat bed part of his truck, with no weight, was doing a little jitter-bug as he skittered over the snowy road. The farther forward and faster he drove, the more frantic the back end was until by the time his tail lights disappeared into the curtain of snow, he was just about everywhere imaginable.

Our little convoy continued its slog. Nothing sexy, nothing stupid, easy does it. Some minutes later, near the incinerator to power plant over near Richard's Lounge, I think I saw the truck in the parking lot of the bar. Based on the tracks in the snow, he'd shot off the road and had continued straight instead of curling to the left, across a snowdrift and had stopped in the middle of the blacktop. I don't imagine that's where he was planning on ending up, though yesterday any landing you could walk away from was a good one. It looked to me like he stuck the landing but I could see in my mirror the Soviet judge only gave him an eight. So much for Glasnost, eh, speed racer?
-bill kenny

Instead of Waiting for Someone Else, Be that Someone Else

I was struck last Thursday afternoon at a 'special' meeting of the Sachem Fund Board that I see the same faces in the same places at Norwich meetings over and over again. It's interesting to me that I hear many other, and different, voices when I watch cable access shows in the early evening hours, or when I tune to the local AM radio station during the day (nice job updating the website, guys. Who'd ya get, the same folks doing the NCDC site?). Maybe I'm the only person with a totally empty life or maybe I, and the few of us who do talk up community involvement, are just not very good at persuading others to join us.

I hold the people I elect to the Norwich City Council and the Norwich Board of Education to impossibly high standards and I admit that. They have each in her and his own way sought my vote at Election time to be my surrogate and have my proxy on decisions affecting every aspect of my (and my family's) life here in The Rose City. So, yeah, I think I do have the right to insist they wash behind their ears and clean their fingernails, metaphorically and philosophically if not literally and to make a point out of watching them in action on a big stage, like a Council meeting as well as in a smaller venue, such as a committee or advisory meeting. Those in these elected positions are my neighbors, and yours, too, and it's a hard enough job when the milk and honey is flowing, not that it has around here in recent years, but when times get tough(er), the job of making the right decision is a burden sometimes much heavier to bear than at other times.

This week in Norwich is a quiet week for public meetings--not that the ones going on aren't significant, and more intelligently spaced and paced than they were last week (for instance).

To start, and it's not coincidental to me that as belts tighten, the buzz phrases 'regionalization' and 'cooperation' get used more often is a meeting this morning at eight of the Executive Committee of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Government, SCCOG. There's no minutes of their previous meetings nor an agenda posted (which is, disturbingly more often than not the rule rather than the exception) though the argument might be made that since neither the Norwich City Manager nor the Mayor is on the Executive Committee, how much concern should I, as a resident of Norwich, have.

I was digging through my notes a moment ago and realized among the many things I never hear about at City Council meetings are reports by either the City Manager or the Mayor on their attendance at SCOOG meetings, which I presume to assume they do on a regular and periodic basis. It's hard to think globally if you don't work to see the world beyond the end of your nose. I wear glasses, so my world view is even more narrow.

The City Council meets tonight 7:30 PM and will conduct a public hearing on the possible purchase of the old Simon Ford property as the site for a new police station. The actual new station will cost millions upon millions of dollars and have to be bonded and in light of the current economic and emotional climate, good luck with that. It seems to me that buying the property is part of that project, as opposed to a separate piece which is what the Council is doing tonight and so we have the possibility of purchasing property currently on the tax rolls and removing it while we wait I have no idea how long for the money to drop from the heavens to build the police station. Not sure this is the best approach but will watch and see.

As a former member of the Baseball Stadium Authority, I'll be be curious to see what happens with an item on the Council agenda for Executive Session, 'Stadium Lease Negotiations'. The baseball team owes the Authority the better part of a quarter of a million or more dollars in past due rent payments--plus, in recent weeks, there's been reports of the team being wooed by an out of state ownership group who'd logically enough move the team but, there's a clause in the lease that requires the team to indemnify the city if they move before 2012 (when the lease runs out). The figure is pro-rated so that leaving at the end of this season is more expensive than next and etc. Considering how much the team owes the City already, I'd be (more) curious on how they might propose to pay off a future lease but already know who'll be doing their talking and he is quite persuasive (Tom Sawyer and whitewashing the fence persuasive.).
I'd stock up now on brushes if I were you, before the price goes up.

Tuesday morning at nine, the Housing Authority may be meeting (a local newspaper says yes, but the City of Norwich website says 'no'; ties goes to the runner, I suppose) but turnabout is fair play as there are two items on the City's website which don't surface in newspapers.

The first is at 6 PM Tuesday evening and is a Board of Public Utilities' Commissioners Special Meeting in their building on Golden Street and they, too, have an executive session slated, but it sounds way cooler than the City Council's: "To Discuss Confidential Trade Secret & Commercially Valuable Confidential or Proprietary Information Not Subject to Inspection or Public Disclosure Pursuant to Section 1-210[5] and 7-232a of the CT. General Statutes." Sort of like that moment in Catch-22 where you can get out of flying more missions, except it turns out you can't. (And people cannot understand my fascination with yo-yos...)

Simultaneous with the above meeting, in the same building, I think, is a Special Meeting of the Norwich Sewer Authority. Their agenda doesn't have anything as remotely cool as an executive session with 'commercially valuable confidential ... information' so if you have to pick one over the other, choose wisely and well.

Wednesday night at 7 in Room 108 of City Hall is a meeting of the Republican Town Committee. I don't think you have to be a member of the Republican Party to attend but I think you can't take part if you're not (which is only fair).

Thursday at seven at 23 Union Street (it's next door to City Hall) in the conference room in the basement is a meeting of the Inland Wetlands, Watercourses Commission--they didn't meet in February, so here's their agenda for Thursday night. Sidebar, sort of: all but one member's appointment has expired on this Commission, and not just expired, years ago. City Council, please do your job and rectify this situation.

Two things to watch for next week--neither on the calendar though one should be: Very possibly, on Monday, 9 March at 5:30 PM in room 335 the City Council will continue to work on the Ethics Review Commission report presented to them 51 weeks earlier and about which they had done nothing until two weeks ago. Wouldn't want to rush into anything, especially in terms of public perception of behavior. And who knows, maybe this time around, everyone on the City Council can make the meeting. Some of us live in hope....

The other meeting to plan on now is next Thursday, the 12th in the Otis Library at 6:30 PM when Alderman Bill Nash holds a constituents' meeting in the community room. He hopes to have the City Manager with him, but I can tell you, having attended his first one, it's an opportunity outside of a Council meeting to be engaged with an alderman. It was a good discussion that night as I remember it and if you have something to ask him, you should make it a point to stop by and speak up.

City government works as well as each of us wants it to work. If we lower our voices so we can hear one another, and our expectations so we can understand one another, as I've heard said in recent days, together we can build a better Norwich.
-bill kenny

As the Ides Approach

It wasn't that long ago, was it, that we were wishing one another Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, am I right? And what's all this now, the start of week ten of 2009. We are already into 59/60 days into this now previously-used year? Amazing, isn't it?

According to the calendar I use as a desk blotter, and whose monthly pages always end up with enough brown rings of varying hues (from my coffee cup I suspect; I am a sloppy drinker) to look like it's auditioning for the Olympics (and did you see where Chicago, as a part of a bid package for one of the upcoming Olympiads, I've forgotten which one, has budgeted ten million dollars to develop a mascot? A mascot(!) Pop Quiz: name the last five summer and winter Olympics mascots....HURRY! Okay, pencils down. Yeah, that's the same number and names I have, none. That's money well-spent but I guess it is better than blowing it on drugs, though it sounds like something a stoner would think of doing.), Daylight Savings Time returns NEXT Sunday.

I've never understood the springing ahead and falling back anyway. We are, to my knowledge, the only species on the planet that takes this kind of environmental management to the level and degree we do. There's little chance a colony of aphids in Georgia for instance is going to get up next Tuesday morning, and Herb Aphid is going to say to Eunice, his wife, how much he hates this daylight savings stuff while she points out 'Herb, it's nice to have the daylight at the end of the day, except it's easier for the birds who eat us to better see our kids as they walk home from Aphid Academy.' Or maybe not. People always think I should get out more. Except those who've met me when I do and they much prefer me to stay in my world. I cannot imagine why.

So with a little more than 16% of this year already in the rear view mirror, what do we have to show for it? I saw in the newspapers the other day, we own a sizable portion of Citibank. I'm pretty excited about that--heck I just finished last year paying off the car, and lookit me now. I've always wanted to be able to want into a business and strut around like I own the place, you too, I'll bet. And now we do! First thing, I'm doing the next time I'm at a Citibank branch is cutting the chains on those stupid pens with no ink that are out on those goofy desks to fill in the deposit slips. The bank doors are wide open, there's millions of dollars in the vault and what to they have they chains on? The ballpoint pens with no ink. No wonder we have economic problems.

Do they think Willie Sutton might choose a Tech 3 over a Tek 9?
-bill kenny