The Years Just Flow By Like a Broken Down Dam

Right now, for me, this is the roughest time of the year. The calendar says Spring is here and when you look outside, you're inclined to agree. Except more often than not, as is the case again this year and this season, it's brisker and crisper than we'd like and the breeze is more of a shriek than a whisper.

Major League Baseball starts the 2011 campaign this Thursday afternoon at one for a season that will, as has been the case in recent years, end in November, which is way too long for anything other than a fantasy involving cooking oil, satin sheets and a lady named, well, I'm not allowed to detail any more of that in this space today (or any other).

I love baseball though I have close to no idea what kind of a Grapefruit League season "my" New York Yankees had and since the games don't count, I don't either. I've rooted for them most of my life, with a brief interlude emotionally elsewhere as I was entering double digits, when Joan Payson owned the New York Metropolitans.

I no longer root for Mr. Met for all the reasons, and many others, captured in Jimmy Breslin's meisterwerk, Can't Anybody Here Play this Game?-if you haven't read it you should. And no, it's not a book I'm sending to anyone in Afghanistan (though I suspect everyone could relate) because as I remember it, one potential reader is sort of a Padres fan.

But that's not really important-what is, I think, is that on Opening Day, everyone's team, whoever they are, is in first place. Every pitcher's earned run average is a Hall of Fame worthy 0.00 and you can't help but believe 'this is the year.' No one wins the World Series on Opening Day so, conversely, no one can lose it. And that's as it should be.

More so than in recent memory, this year we need all the optimism and enthusiasm we can gather, from whatever source for as long as we can keep it. Even if the weather were to dawn rosy-fingered and flawless tomorrow we'd still have a peck of troubles with which to contend. But between now and Thursday worrying about all of that is only going to ruin your anticipation of Opening Day.

All Opening Day should do is whet our appetites for the months ahead. We get from Point A to Point B in a variety of ways but in the same number of days. Whether we live them in hope or in dread is a choice we make and then must own. "Just give me one thing that I can hold onto; to believe in this living is just a hard way to go."

-bill kenny

New World in the Morning

Sometimes the easiest way to see how far you've come isn't by looking at the road ahead, but, rather, looking behind to see the distance covered. The challenge in government, as in so much else of what we do and who we are, is to see a beginning in every ending and another start even as we finish.

Today is a good example of important meetings in Norwich that, ideally, you'd want to attend all three but, because of time and distance, you'll have to pick and choose. Let's start at 5:30 in Room 210 of City Hall with a regular meeting of the Redevelopment Agency (it's Capehart, by the way) followed by the final public hearing on the downtown revitalization bond and program set for 7 in the Council Chambers of City Hall. There's always room for improvement and the plan is better now than when first offered because of comments and ideas from across the city. This is your chance to stop talking about making the difference and to be the difference.

At 7:30 in their offices at 5 Connecticut Avenue in the Norwich Business Park, the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments (SCCOG) holds a public hearing on the Long Range Regional Transportation Plan (FY 2011-2040). There's been a lot of buzz on resurrecting Route 11 in recent months, but reports on where the plan recommends concentrating efforts may surprise you (pleasantly or unpleasantly). Tonight's the night to make your voice heard.

Tuesday at four in the Central Office of the Norwich Public Schools' conference room, it's a regular meeting of the Building and Space Committee. With NASA winding down its operations, local efforts will become even more important though I'm not sure we can ever get a whole building into orbit. I'm hoping for a grant from the Sachem Fund to build the Ralph Kramden Space Center to launch my weather satellite, Alice. (We'll have to do it at night because it's easier to see the moon.)

At seven, there's an "important meeting at City Hall," in Room 335 (the routine and mundane meetings are usually held on the second floor) to show support for the Downtown Chelsea Arts District and the Norwich Arts Center. If you enjoy local performing arts, I suggest you attend the meeting because you should support these activities with your discretionary dollars. Unless we're also going to subsidize cat rodeos and dwarf tossing contests in an expanded definition of 'local performing arts' (and I've a suspicion that we're not), leave my money alone and spend your own.

At seven in the basement conference room of the Planning Department at 23 Union Street, it's a Special Meeting of the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) of the Commission on the City Plan (CCP) to select a consultant to assist in the development of the next ten year plan (NAA; no acronym available).

Wednesday morning at eight in the Norwich Public School's Central Office conference room is the next NEXTT meeting (I didn't stutter). At seven PM in City Hall, no room listed but it's probably Room 335, there's an Informational Budget Forum or "Town Hall Meeting with Representative Chris Coutu (R-47)" with video courtesy of Comcast, perhaps. (As I recall both video and audio were the challenge when Governor Malloy came to speak).

The last meeting of the week is actually the first in the month of April, Team Norwich, on Saturday morning, beginning at nine o'clock in the Central Fire House at Ten Thames Street. And if I may be snarky (and don't dare say 'what do you mean by may?') in a city with the largest population in New London County, it would be nice if more than six residents showed up to interact with those whom we elected to city government. Sometimes it really is just the thought that counts, from now on.

-bill kenny

Desperately Close to a Coffin of Hope

If history is written by the winners, and it most assuredly is, what should history make of the passing of Geraldine Ferraro yesterday from blood cancer at the age of 75. Ms. Ferraro was the Democrat's choice for vice-president with Walter "Fritz" Mondale on the top half of the ticket against the incumbent, Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The Reagan/Bush (H not W) slate carried 49 of 50 states that year (and barely won Mondale's home state of Minnesota), but the trail had been blazed if you will, the toothpaste was out of the tube and a start had been made.

I'm not sure the former Governor of Alaska would be thrilled to have anyone suggest that without Congresswoman Ferraro there could have been no Sarah Plain and Tall, but I think you can make a good argument for that being the case. In many respects what we are now is what were when, and when Geraldine Ferraro was on the ticket with Fritz Mondale, we were a very different country-not better necessarily, just different. Cue Word: again.

From my perspective of 58 years and eleven months, the slightly more than a quarter of a century since that campaign raged has gone by in a flash and the issues of that time have paled in comparison to the ones now facing us. What may be lacking are leaders of substance and character-though there's a school of thought that suggests persons are forged by the crucible of events in their lives, so maybe we're closer to having those who have The Right Stuff than I should dare to hope.

I'm not always good at seeing where we're heading as a nation and I get confused sometimes by what's going on in the other lanes as we all struggle to read the map. The only certainties I have sometimes is that I still believe if you work hard enough and never give up, you can become the dream you've dreamed (all evidence to the contrary) and that the light's always red in the rearview. Thanks for making a few more of those green across this nation, Congresswoman Ferraro.

-bill kenny

THUG LIFE Meets Real Life

I'm at an age where I don't need to suffer fools gladly, or any other way. In many respects, I've retired from my chosen avocation, irresistible force to pursue the more sedentary pleasures of being the immovable object. I spent decades on the fringes of the rock and roll circus (I'd called shotgun in the clown car) which affords me a somewhat different perspective when watching the antics of the Hollyweird and Those Who Would Be Them.

I fell across a story about Chris Brown, a bully who beats women, or in this case striking his then-girlfriend Rihanna, who threw a hissy fit when Robin Roberts asked him about his life and times (and Rihanna) recently on Good Morning America, instead of shilling for his new album.

Not sure which title I enjoy more, "Forgive All My Enemies" or "Fans Are My Everything" to hear Chris tell it. My own imagination immediately latched on to a shortening of fire-truck (but as a gerund), and went downhill after that but I'm sure we have some lovely consolation prizes for such a talented and tattooed young man.

The whole 'here's what we want to talk about' fact sheet is such an established part of traditional show business and press agentry from the days of the studio player when Talkies ruled the earth. I've got to tell you, it's refreshing to me, as someone who last waded into rock and roll waters almost two decades ago (as those fact sheets started to surface), to see that even in disparate pursuits such as urban music, or as I like to call it, (c)rap, the softball question cheat sheet has emerged victorious.

That Robin Roberts, cancer survivor and (I've never met her) a seemingly classy lady could resist the temptation to whack Missy Chrissy with her stool and, instead, went straight at him (not that he'll admit it, but she did talk about his 'new album') to address various aspects of his life and career (that his audience, unless they are morons, must know already), I find very admirable.

Maybe because I don't have the physique for it myself, I've never understood how people assault one another or, in this case, how one person chooses to stay with someone who did this to her, repeatedly. I so hoped Ms. Roberts would bring Chris' ex in via satellite to address that obvious question, but you can't have everything. Perhaps when Rihanna is hawking her new LP (called, I believe, "A Hair Color NOT Found in Nature"). Here's hoping.

"Here we go again. It's so insane, 'cause when it's going good, it's going great. I'm Superman with the wind in his bag. She's Lois Lane. But when it's bad, it's awful; I feel so ashamed. I snap. Who's that dude? I don't even know his name. I laid hands on her. I'll never stoop so low again; I guess I don't know my own strength." But you can bet she does, Chris, and if she didn't, she sure as hell learned by now, didn't she? But it's okay, keep telling yourself it's all in the past because I love the way you lie.
-bill kenny

No Days You Can Borrow

I had a surprising appointment with my primary care physician yesterday. By surprising I don't mean he lept from behind an examining table or was dressed like someone from Jersey Shore (he tends to look more like an extra from Grey's Anatomy).

I thought I was heading for a semi-annual carotid scan (it's like a semi-professional rodeo rider without the horse but most of the horse$hit) but instead it was a "full" physical (the expression kept being used perhaps to differentiate from partial ones?). My least favorite part of these has always been right after I turn my head and cough and yesterday was no exception. I've gotten to the age that back when I was a kid I never thought people could reach because I didn't know anyone that old and now that I'm there I still don't know anyone that old. Except me.

I've collected quite an assortment of traveling companions as I spend so much time in the breakdown lane on the human highway. I have a posse of physicians, to include a cardiologist, an endocrinologist, (I realized mine looks and sounds like this guy and when I mentioned that my doctor this morning he agreed with me. I've no idea how I'll ever be able to go back to see him) a nephrologist, a rheumatologist and an orthopedic surgeon. On the reserve bench I have a gastroenterologist, a now-retired vascular surgeon and an opthamologist. I have enough wrong with me to keep them all gainfully employed.

I don't think either of us learned anything this morning we didn't already know, though speaking for me, I did find out more details about stuff I wish I didn't know how to spell. That expression about 'and the truth will set you free'? Not now, John, we've got to get on with this. I tend to use the ride back from the doctor's office to work as the decompression chamber. A couple of years ago, the news had been so upsetting one visit I had screamed all the way to the job and spent the afternoon with a sore throat.

Yesterday was more of a comfortably numb ride and I had taken the day off so I was making like Frost's hired man which afforded me the opportunity to marvel at how life imitates art. Less than a week ago, my brother, Adam, had offered a few somewhat whimsical thoughts on time and distance being relative functions of one another in this, the only plane of existence any of us will ever know. I didn't learn anything yesterday morning I wasn't expecting to hear; just a few intimations of what I had hoped to avoid a while longer.

Drawing a line under all the poking and prodding and reviewing the sum of all of my fears, I have a few more aches and pains than I had this time a year ago and now understand that there will be more in store whether I accept them or not despite the kabuki theater we're about to do in comfortable examination rooms across New London County. My suggestion: the nine o'clock show is completely different from the seven. Dress accordingly.

-bill kenny

Blame Is Better to Give than Receive

One of my favorite expressions is "He who abandons a sinking ship that doesn't sink, needs to be a very good swimmer." Or at least look presentable in his Speed-O's and bathing cap. This is the time of year to be getting some laps in at the old swimming pool unless you can walk on water.

I've written about the six phases of a project: Enthusiasm, Disillusionment, Panic, Search for the Guilty, Punishment of the Innocent and Award/Honors for the Non-Participants. We use this model of dynamic interaction in our everyday interpersonal relationships (how quickly do couples go from 'we're thrilled we're having a baby' to 's/he forced me into this child' all the way to how the child, once born, is treated within the family).

Whatever we do for a living and wherever we do it, the same pattern holds true. We all cheered Digby when he volunteered to lead the team that would turn peanut oil into jet fuel, but once it was demonstrated that it absolutely, positively couldn't be done, all we could do was shake our heads and roll our eyes when Digby's name was mentioned ('I coulda told ya...').

Look to our nation's capital if you want to see a collection of people dedicated to the proposition that government of the people, by the people and for the people should go chase itself, Lincoln be damned. But, if you watch only one minute of C-Span it'll prove my point, all of them are so relentlessly polite and respectful to one another while being disagreeable in the most agreeable way imaginable. Thank goodness for The Loyal Opposition and My Distinguished Opponent. Whom else would we, currently in charge, blame for all manners of awfulness and illness if we didn't have The Other Guys and Gals?

During the last Presidential election, we couldn't give the party residing in the White House the heave-ho fast enough--and for good measure, we made sure the same party kept both houses of our legislative branch. By last year many decided that arrangement wasn't our cup of tea and went in a completely different direction. Sure, we picked a lot of 'Washington is the root of all evil' cats and kittens to replace the inside the Beltway boys and girls we had. And yeah, then we sent all those outsiders to Washington where they...umm...became...well, they became....oh dear. Next position, please.

All, or nearly all, of the 'issues' and 'hot buttons' that have driven our national discourse over the last three (and more) years are still with us like Banquo's Ghost. They've actually gained a few pounds and some fellow-travellers. We have more wars, less money, more anger and fewer reasons to be hopeful than at any point in my almost fifty-nine years here on The Big Blue Marble (I'm not suggesting cause and effect and would ask you refrain as well).

I'm sad not so much that we seem to have lost our way (an unoriginal thought we've often had in our two hundred and thirty-five year history as a nation), but that we're not inclined to want to find our way back to who we are. We decided, it seems sometimes to me, to settle instead of to continue to strive to succeed. It's as if we got to the Mississippi and said to one another, 'y'know, California and The West are fine ideas, but who really needs 'em?'

We don't even hear the cognitive dissonance as the gap between what we say and what we do grows wider. Vox Populi has been replaced with STFU and e pluribus unum is now rendered as nolo contendere and is usually part of a plea bargain for time served coupled with a weepy-eyed televised apology where we take 'full responsibility' whatever that means.

If our children ever figure out what we allowed to have happen to their dreams, they'll murder us in our beds and they'll be right but everything will still be wrong. You can break things only so often and only so badly before they cannot be made whole again. We may be nearing that moment, Armageddon, End Times, Oops!, whatever it's to be called. We will not have to worry about what the day after that happens is called because we will not be here to experience it. But don't worry, we'll blame somebody (just not ourselves) because that's how we're wired.
-bill kenny

Eating the Seed Instead of Planting It

I barely know my way around the produce department of my local grocery so you'll have to ignore (or try to) the presumption of agricultural expertise I'm attempting. Every spring my daughter and I have a go at a backyard vegetable garden--in some of our early attempts we often had bumper crops of weeds. Imagine how disappointed we were to discover no amount of salad dressing helped.

In more recent years, we've shopped for seed packages early and worked hard to prepare our plot prior to planting (say that three times fast; I almost broke my fingers typing it) and with enough water and work, we've had some delicious tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables.

The key, we long ago realized, is in the seeds--having them, having enough of them, having the right kinds and taking care of them and tending them once they're planted and keeping an eye on them through harvesting.

Even though Norwich may not look like a garden or a farm, the value of seed, knowing when to save it and when to plant it, is still important and perhaps no one knows that better than the volunteers on the Sachem Fund Board who, in the last (almost) three years, have sown three quarters of a million dollars worth of seed (a 50/50 split between the City of Norwich and the Mohegan Tribal Council) across the city for forty-five different projects ranging from the Semiseptsentennial through the Norwich Winter Festival to the Otis Library.

You may have thought hard economic times had ended the work of the Sachem Fund Board but meeting last week, the Board decided to use the funds it still has (or some of them depending,on the size and scale of the projects) to again serve as an impetus for the economic, cultural and recreational growth Norwich needs to maintain and enhance in its efforts to become again someplace its residents wish to come home to.

Applications for the Sachem Fund must reach the office of the Comptroller by 4:30 PM, Monday, 2 May. Application information and details can be found on the City's website. Those whose initial applications are accepted will make presentations to the Fund Board Wednesday evening, May 11th and final decisions will be announced on June 1st. If you don't ask, the answer is automatically 'no' and for too long too many have felt there's a "No" in Norwich, so if you have a program and need help, you should apply for consideration.

The challenges facing the Sachem Fund Board as they begin their selection process are many, aside from the obvious, 'to whom should grants be given?' Gauging the impact of supporting one project over another, analyzing the return on the investment to the city and measuring the overall positive effect in enhancing our quality of life are all integral to the very reason why the fund was created and are important components in assuring the Sachem Fund serves its vision and purpose.

When you look at the budget of the City of Norwich in the last three years, it's more than three hundred million dollars, which dwarfs the three quarters of a million dollars in disbursements from the Sachem Fund. But don't tell that to the Chelsea Gardens Foundation, or to Artworks, or to United Community and Family Services, all of whom asked for and received money for people and programs we all use and from which we benefit. Sometimes, size isn't as important as knowing what to leverage for maximum gain and when.

It would have been easier, especially for the volunteers on the Fund Board, had they distributed all the available funds last May-but instead of eating their remaining seed, they've gathered it up and are looking for the most worthwhile projects in which to invest it. If you've always had more will than wallet, this is your time to stand up and stand out.
-bill kenny