Synchronicity, Too

The memories are flashes more than full sequences. I can recall a white mug with a round soap in the bottom of it, a brush with the softest bristles I could ever imagine standing on its red handle like a bayonet not yet fixed next to it on the shelf to the left of the mirror and a double-edge single-blade razor that used Gillette Blue Blades (Look Sharp! Feel Sharp! Be Sharp!)-none of that multi-blade $hit or heated shaving gel.

On Sundays, we had every newspaper you could imagine scattered all over the kitchen table from the local (then called) Daily Home News (Nat C worked for it a lifetime later; enjoy the bigger and far better he went on to; breathtaking stuff) through the NY Daily News that, before our parents met and became our parents the Mayor of New York read on the radio during a delivery strike just before World War II ended, through the NY Times, America's newspaper of record and the dreariest newspaper with NO funnies of any kind and hardly even a photograph on the front page.

The good thing in going to church on Sunday was the breakfast that followed and entrance into the kingdom of Heaven (wanted to get that in just in case Monsignor Harding is reading this despite his being dead and all). After Mass there were hard rolls with scrambled eggs and bacon. Actually the bacon was cooked first and the grease used to cook the eggs that were made with milk and fluffed so big they looked like yellow clouds.

Our father died thirty years ago this past Memorial Day; my brother's recollections of his last day with Dad ring as true as any memory I have of the man. I'd spent part of every day since his death trying to have the last word of a discussion I never started with him, hoping but never believing, I could finally understand him. For too many years, I was terrified of him-his wit, his insight, his caustic observations, his heavy hands, his unyielding expectations that each of us be the absolute best it was possible to be, always.

For too many more years, I hated him. I vowed to be everything he never was and, instead, along the way became, in so many ways, the person he wanted me to be because he wanted me to be the best me I could. I didn't know that had a lot to do with my inability to see who he was and to know who I am. He was right, of course, you cannot define yourself by who you are not, but only by who you are and what you try to be.

We were six children but really more like two cohorts of three children, each group relatively close in age with disparate interests and ideas. We have all grown to be adults he would have enjoyed-whether he could have ever made us understand that is another matter entirely. Our father was very complex, with delights and demons in almost equal numbers. I see him when I see pictures of my brothers and I feel his nearness when I am with my own children, who are confident if not outright cocky, bright if not brilliant, fabulous if not also a little flawed and I realize the hardest job he ever had was in being our father.

I'm grown old thinking I could know everything and have had to grow up to accept I will never know everything better. I remember the fights though never the causes. I can recall the antics and reactions but never the background or the final resolutions. I can't tell you if we had a million arguments or just one that lasted for decades but I know now it took two of us to create a blaze that could consume two people so completely. I have scars that will never heal and the realization I gave as good as I got.

This year, after thirty, I can close the book on the bitterness of memories I can't change and put the shadows of what could have been to bed for the rest of my life. I can do nothing over but my children are proof I can do everything better because of what I learned and from whom. I cannot believe I finally got to this place. Happy Father's Day, Dad, and to you reading this, whoever and wherever you are on this Father's Day as well.

"Now the years have gone and I have grown from that seed you've sown. But I didn't think there'd be so many steps I'd have to learn on my own. I was young and didn't know what to do when I saw your best steps stolen away from you. Now I'll do what I can. I'll walk like a man."

-bill kenny

Every day I get in the queue

One of the most amazing things to me, child of the library card since the late 1950's, is how the world of 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 (actually, he didn't; you can ask Tipper. She on other hand...) 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 59 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 fnd 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 anyway? Whippersnapper. (I guess my old eyes just found the wrong link, eh? The look on your face was priceless.) I will, like many of us, probably end up dying in a place I had never heard of until I lived here. There's worse things of course.

It's nice enough-of course 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 is 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. And from what I've been reading, it's going to get a lot worse for a lot more of us across this land and the prognosis isn't good in the long run or short term.

Never regarded mass transit as mythical or mystical much less 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

And Each Small Candle

In Germany, before the Reunification, today was a somber reminder of what could have been as seen in West Germany and as a non-event in its totality in the East. Heute ist der 17 Juni. Today marks the remembrance of June 17, 1953 when Soviet tanks crushed any illusion anyone in the world had that you can negotiate with sharks.

Without putting too fine a point on it, the rebellion in Libya, the blood between the tank treads in Tiananmen Square (you can only dream the world could ever forget), the slaughter of innocents in Syria, the victims of the Arab Spring, the death and destruction of families and friends in Hungary in 1956 and in the Prague Spring a decade later all began Unter den Linden.

The synthetic separation of one country into two nations that the division of Germany represented created two armed outposts for the military and political blocs that shaped the post World War II dynamic for decades, the Warsaw Pact (Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire") and in opposition, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (a/k/a The Good Guys).

My service in the US Air Force-for our two children, How I Met Your Mother-was shaped by my years in uniform in places like Greenland where the airbases built on permafrost north of the Arctic Circle kept the Distant Early Warning sites fueled and fed as they warily watched the Russian Bear (and it, us). When I arrived in the Bundesrepublik, there were two full US Army Corps and I don't know how many air wings and Allied men under arms squaring off, we were told, against 22 Soviet divisions and a similar number Ost Bloc soldiers facing us from Poland through Romania and all points in between.

It was in Germany where I first heard the expression, now used everywhere bankrupt political systems operate, that 'a refugee is someone who votes with his feet.' It seemed everyday along a border that stretched forever was, indeed, Election Day and the stream of fleeing humanity threatened to become a deluge. It was obvious even to a thoughtless prat such as I that soon all that would be left from Leipzig to Rostock (and all points in between) were the lame and the lost.

What kind of a government would construct border towers and barbed wire fences with gun emplacements that face its own people? Ask Ulbricht the Geissbock, the liar. Another picture postcard from The Workers' Paradise. So terrified of the truth were the monsters who built "The Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" that no historical mention of 17 June 1953 was ever permitted and don't wait for an apology. It's been almost six decades since those who yearned were told to shut up and sit down by those who ruled, and, except for the language and location (and weapons of enforcement), little else has changed.

Cairo to Khartoum and beyond. Benghazi can look like a lot like Damascus through a sniper scope. And when the light of day seems too distant to ever get here, just remember there was only one 17 June. Everything changed despite and because of the efforts to hold fast to a past that had stayed in the darkness too long. Each small candle lights a corner of the dark. When the wheel of pain stops turning and the branding iron stops burning, when the children can be children and the billion candles burning lights the dark side of every human mind, it will be time to turn the calendar page and start anew.
-bill kenny

From a Smile to a Tear

I may have mentioned I'm a pack rat -- at least I should have. I save everything, even stuff I know has no value or meaning. The biggest example of this is hanging in our garage-it's an old children's chalkboard with magnetic letters that we used when our son, who is almost 29 years old, first started kindergarten. My wife spelled out 'my first day' and the date (alles auf deutsch) and then took a picture of me and Patrick. We have the photo in a frame and I have the moment in my heart.

So why some years ago, while cleaning out the basement, did I balk at putting the now broken blackboard out for trash pick-up? Hard to say. Yeah, I was also the reason why it was packed and shipped to the Land of the Round Door Knobs back when we left my wife's country damals. So here I am, refusing to let go of what's left of all my memories even it that means preserving only some of them.

Someone sent me a joke the other day 'that's perfect for you and your wife' (even though it really wasn't) and I'm going to share it even though I'm actually terrified to fly in anything, anywhere at anytime. That's not integral to making this joke funny (or not) but it is true.

Bill and Sigrid went to The Big E every year. And every year Bill would say, 'Sigrid, I'd like to ride in that helicopter.' And Sigrid would always reply, 'I know, Bill, but that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks.' The next time Bill and Sigrid went to The Big E, Bill said, 'Sigrid, I'm getting old! If I don't ride that helicopter this year, I may never get another chance!' Unmoved, Sigrid replied, "Bill, that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks. Damit, basta, ende."

The pilot overheard them and said, "Folks I'll make you a deal. I'll take the both of you up for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the ENTIRE ride and not say a word I won't charge you a penny! But if you say ANYTHING, it's fifty dollars.' Bill and Sigrid agreed and up they went. The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard. He did his daredevil tricks over and over again, but still not a word...When they landed, the pilot turned to Bill and said, 'I did everything I could to get you to yell out, but you didn't. I am impressed!'

Bill smiled sheepishly and replied, "Well, to tell you the truth I did almost say something when Sigrid fell out, but as she always used to say 'fifty bucks is fifty bucks!'"

Maybe you had to be there; but it's a funny joke. The mention of the helicopter reminded me of Magnus und Marchy (bear with me). They were two German kids popped for dope, actually hard drugs, as I remember the sporadic letters in tortured English arriving from JVA Stadelheim and, more often, Neudeck (where the women's jail was/is) who listened to a radio show I did thirty or so years ago. They weren't married, I don't think, but were boyfriend and girlfriend; at some point, on the outside, they had become junkies together.

When they started writing-actually Marchy did as Magnus knew close to no English--they weren't clean but they were in jail. I didn't know how long they were in jail for or how much longer they had but I did get the sense it was a long time. I'd hear from Marchy with a request, not always for Magnus but often, about every two weeks or so. You had to keep track of her letters since she'd reference something in one note and mention it in later correspondence in much the way you'd return to a topic in a conversation. Marchy's letters kept me on my toes.

I recall she requested for herself--"I'm Going Home by Helicopter", from Ten Years After (with Alvin Lee, whose blazing guitar licks were stupifying especially at maximum volume). TYA had lept into American rock awareness with a blistering performance in the Woodstock motion picture. I hadn't realized until I'd needle-dropped the record that Marchy was right-listen to the intro yourself, Alvin Lee does say 'by helicopter.' I had never heard it in all the times I'd listened to the song.

I smiled just now remembering the smile I had when I played it for her. A memory sparked by a helicopter joke and then I recalled the letter from Magnus, actually by someone else in the cell block who could write English, some days after I'd played the song thanking me for it and telling me how much Marchy would have loved hearing it if she hadn't deliberately overdosed the weekend before.

And then suddenly my smile gets very tight until the jaws ache and I realize you can lose people more than once and that no matter how often you do, the pain is real because the loss still hurts.
-bill kenny

Just a Mile Outta Hell

Bob Dylan, perhaps channeling Ben Franklin, once suggested 'money doesn't talk, it swears.' The two most important questions we ask one another every day especially while we wait for the recession that we're told has ended to finally disappear are "what does it cost?" and "what is it worth?"

The dollars for the former question, be they federal, state or local, are usually pretty easy to figure out-but the latter can sometimes be harder to define. And, perhaps it's our (too) human nature, we tend to pay more attention to the dollars when they're large sums. Programs costing seven, eight and more figures cause us to notice a lot more and a lot faster. So if millions and billions shout and scream, thousands and tens of thousands seem to do little more than sigh.

In the last four years, the City of Norwich has adopted operating budgets that have exceeded, in total, over four hundred million dollars-a very impressive sum while at the same time volunteers have helped parcel out Community Development Block Grants totaling almost three million dollars to dozens of deserving neighborhood programs and outreaches.

Except for the size of the sums involved, that's pretty much the case from town to town across the state and throughout the country. However, in Norwich, as a result of foresight and cooperation between the City of Norwich and Mohegan Tribal leadership, we also have an additional resource, the Sachem Fund, which, with disbursements last week of nearly $183,000 have now provided nearly a million dollars in the last four years for fifty-five different projects, to include, in this most recent round, an internship program at the Otis Library, support to build two houses for Habitat for Humanity and assistance for the Norwich Historical Society to catalog historical assets throughout the city.

The Sachem Fund has had some hard times in recent years-but then again, who hasn't? Contributions from both the City and the Mohegan Tribe were suspended because funding just couldn't be made available and the scale and scope of assistance was offered had to be downsized as well. But a fund balance was still available and the volunteers on the Sachem Fund Board decided in light of last fall's vote by Norwich residents to invest in their own downtown to use a not inconsequential amount of the available funds as a stimulus for the economic, cultural and recreational growth and momentum Norwich needs to develop and maintain.

Not everyone got every dollar they needed but many deserving projects received help and with next year's city budget projecting a $50,000 payment to the fund, with a match from the Mohegan Tribe, all added to the thirty thousand or so dollars still remaining, there's still a lot of good yet to come from the Sachem Fund.

The members of the board will be meeting in the coming months to better address the types of concerns many had as the selection process went forward this spring, most especially in terms of better defining how a request for assistance measurably improves the city. For those who attended the meetings in May and June, it wasn't just a matter of picking one project over another. The board wrangled and struggled with defining what they wanted as a return on their investment for Norwich and in developing a measurement of the positive impact on our community. If those sound like the reasons why the Sachem Fund was created, you're right and the board members want to make sure the Sachem Fund remains true to its vision and purpose.

It might have been tempting-it most certainly would have been easier for the Sachem Fund Board to distribute the slightly more than $220,000 they had, pronounced themselves pleased with their work and go home. Except, funnily enough, Norwich is their home, too. And all the members agreed they can, and will, do better most especially because there better days ahead.

-bill kenny

No Worries Except My Own

It wasn't until I came across Adam's blog yesterday morning that I could finally exhale and stop walking on eggs, all at the same time. I had attempted, for one of the few times in my adult life to be a conscientious adult son and call our Mom Sunday afternoon and wish her all the best for her birthday which was actually yesterday (happy birthday, now belated, Mom).

When the first time I called she didn't answer, I did that stare at the wall clock thing and noted to myself 'she's probably at church' (minus five hundred points if you just noted to yourself 'Why wasn't he at church, too? Wasn't it Sunday in Connecticut as well?'). I rang back a couple or three hours later and this time when there was no answer I figured 'she's probably at the beach' (which is, I'm told, across the street from where she lives in Florida).

Our Mom is a seashore type of person. She did a lot of lakes when we were kids and, to my knowledge, she ain't done any since we are all growed up. Yes, I am suggesting cause and effect and thank you for noticing. Can't blame her-she was a child of the seashore herself and some things are deeper in your blood than habit. If our Mom wants to smell salt air, then that's what she's gonna do and I wouldn't stand between her and the ocean when she has the yen, if you follow my drift.

However, that didn't help me understand the phone situation especially when even later, after I rang, I wasn't getting through. I need very little excuse to go to the little projection booth in the inside of my head and put a reel of 'really awful things that can happen to' insert the name of a relative or loved one here. I'm good, trust me on this one. As an oldest child I've had ample reason my entire life to not just fret but to take fretting to another dimension.

Not only was I in Full Fret Fever on Sunday evening I had to stifle myself because I didn't want to alarm my wife, Sigrid, that Mom wasn't answering the bell. My wife doesn't fret and wring her hands like her husband-she leaps into action and gets things done. I am always impressed and grateful but I didn't say anything to her because I wasn't sure and had nothing really to go on except Mommy wasn't picking up the phone.

It never occurred to me that she would be have decided to beat the Florida heat by traveling North and catching up with her children and grandchildren and, in some instances, people who look like both but are possibly neither. She's only been doing the North Trek for a decade or so-not sure why I thought this year would be different.

Anyway, reading Adam's notes I discovered again proof that the brains of the genetic inheritance were placed on the opposite to Bill end of the family tree. Aside from my not having to worry my brothers and sisters for what would have really been absolutely nothing at all, the even better news is that I now have an empty take up reel from that scary movie I don't have to show and I know just how to use it.

-bill kenny

...A Long, Lonely Taxi Ride Going Nowhere

Small towns spend a lot of time in a chamber of commerce equivalent of pecker checks and score keeping which is why this week could be a good week to be Norwich whereas last week was an awful week to be our neighbor, New London. And we thought it was a bad thing when that proposal for fountains near Howard Brown Park went nowhere...

This afternoon at five it's a regular meeting of the Ethics Commission in Room 210 of City Hall and it looks like they have a full night ahead of them, especially when you read the May minutes as a prelude and background for unfinished business for June (and beyond, I suspect). At five thirty in the Latham Science Center on the campus of Norwich Free Academy, it's a special meeting of the Board of Trustees who will be in Executive Session so save yourself the trip (the school's motto strikes me as a little Twilight Zonish or maybe that's just me....).

Though I thought otherwise, Karen B was correct. Admittedly reading and re-reading page eight of the 6 June Council minutes might lead you to conclude differently, there really and truly is no City Council meeting tonight (I'm sure the alderpersons are releived to learn of this except they already knew). Should I have assumed as much when I couldn't find an agenda? Pshaw! I refuse to take the hint.

Tomorrow at 5:30 in the Kelly Middle School cafeteria, it's a regular meeting of the Board of Education and you can expect a lot more discussion and decisions on the dollars for the next school year though I wasn't able to locate the meeting agenda.

And at seven in the basement conference room of the Planning Department at 23 Union Street, it's a regular meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals. You can review the May meeting minutes to get a flavor for the community issues that make up so much of the ZBA's workload.

Wednesday morning at nine o'clock, in the community meeting room of The Dime Bank on Route 82, it's a regular meeting of the Norwich School Readiness Council (Children First). I'll spare both of us a reprise of my well-worn rant about the amateur manner in which these people manage public awareness. If you have a child dependent on their advocacy, you have my sympathy.

At five thirty in the Norwich Arts Council Coop Gallery, it's a regular meeting of the Downtown Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, it says on the municipal meeting calendar. But remember, please, the website hasn't updated the membership of the board nor posted any of the meeting minutes so I don't know what's real on the city's site or surreal (or cereal, come to think about it and breakfast is the most important meal of the day).

Also at five thirty, the city's website says "A.M." but I think not, is a special meeting of the Dangerous Buildings Board of Review on the next step to take with the (former) Buckingham School.

Thursday afternoon at five in Room 319 of City Hall it's a regular meeting of the Historic District Commission though this note can be removed from the city's website as it's outdated (and don't get me started on that topic). At six, in The Rink, it's a regular meeting of the Ice Arena Authority, and no minutes of any of their minutes for ALL of 2011.

And at seven in City Council chambers it's an update and progress report by the Redevelopment Authority to the members of the City Council (and the rest of us) on where they are and where they're going, on a variety of projects they have been engaged in. You can stay home and listen to gossip on what's going on by people who have no clue, or you can be part of the discussion. We wanted a more proactive and engaged local government-when you buy a ticket, you get the whole ride; strap in and hang on.

And Friday morning at nine in Room 319 of City Hall it's a regular meeting of the Chelsea Gardens Foundation about whom absolutely nothing is posted on the city's website-no listing of members, no enabling ordinance, no posting of previous meeting minutes. Maybe that's what the Sachem Fund Board grant can help pay for? Would certainly be a start...

Don't forget Saturday morning, starting at ten (Jill B is correct it's on city's website), in Howard T. Brown Park it's the 23rd Annual Juneteenth Celebration, a cause worth supporting by everyone of every race, creed, religion or background. Just another reminder of where we live is more than a collection of buildings and an assembly of streets and sidewalks. We are our city.
-bill kenny