It's hard to believe today marks the END of the first of the fifty-two weeks that comprise this shiny and shining New Year we welcomed perhaps raucously (and perhaps too raucously) last Tuesday evening.
The premise of the promise behind all the excitement at the time was that we would be and do that which we had not yet or ever done before, or be better at it, or more true to ourselves because of it. And yet here we are, surprised that a week's race has already been run and we're still lacing up our shoes.
I've been assured that life is a marathon and that it's also a sprint. Not sure which is true if not both but am reasonably certain life is not a sitting still and allowing the events to wash over us like endless waves on a distant shore. I think there is something to be said for taking up arms against a sea of troubles and by thus opposing, end them.
How will anyone else know we were ever here if we behave as if we should apologize for our very existence throughout every day of it. Life is not something to be muddled through. It's a shout, a cry sometimes of anguish and sometimes of exultation, but always loud and always true.
Life is NOT a search for a reason to be here. It is the reason. Start acting like it.
-bill kenny
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Edward Montagu Would Be Outraged
Let's gently ease into the first full work week of the new year, not that I'm joining you in that endeavor. I am waiting until Wednesday and that's only because I'm not allowed to wait until Thursday. My wife who has had the pleasure of my company on a non-stop basis since December 12th is looking forward to our house again being her Fortress of Solitude.
But I digress, unless you have an appetite for adventure; as opposed to the appetite that Jerome Davis possesses or, according to this news report, possessed along with a pair of folding knives because crusts can often be difficult to remove from the bread.
I was thinking about my evil twin, Skippy, and of Jif, who is Evert's evil twin (he penned the well-known toe-tapper, There's No Place like Nome for the Holidays) while reading about The Miscreant Who Is Jerome (it looks more sinister when capitalized, doesn't it?). And working on quite a hunger, if I were to be honest with you.
I'm inordinately fond of grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches so much so that while I were eating one, I'd be grateful if you'd be preparing another one for 'while I'm underway' and then not get too annoyed when I unwrapped it and ate it in front of you.
American Cheese is fine and while toasted rye would be practically a slice (or two) of heaven, whatever you have in the bread basket is fine-especially the heel. And remember perfection is the enemy of good enough. It's lunch, not church so you needn't make a sandwich for the ages, just to get us to dinner.
-bill kenny
But I digress, unless you have an appetite for adventure; as opposed to the appetite that Jerome Davis possesses or, according to this news report, possessed along with a pair of folding knives because crusts can often be difficult to remove from the bread.
I'm inordinately fond of grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches so much so that while I were eating one, I'd be grateful if you'd be preparing another one for 'while I'm underway' and then not get too annoyed when I unwrapped it and ate it in front of you.
American Cheese is fine and while toasted rye would be practically a slice (or two) of heaven, whatever you have in the bread basket is fine-especially the heel. And remember perfection is the enemy of good enough. It's lunch, not church so you needn't make a sandwich for the ages, just to get us to dinner.
-bill kenny
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Seen in the Rear View Mirror
I walk around with my eyes wide shut-or else, my eyes are open but my mind is closed or some combination of both. Luckily I have people, admittedly from some of my other lives, who watch out for things and keep from getting too much of whatever it is I've fallen into from getting all over my shoes and trousers. For that, they would have my wife's undying gratitude but that would mean I'd have to tell her of my pratfalls and heartaches. Moving right along.....
Yesterday despite my ignorance, or perhaps because of it (I wouldn't know the difference, truth to tell), it was National Trivia Day. Sara J made sure I knew because otherwise I'd have never found out and there's some really amazing stuff to know. Not the gee let's scribble that down on a bar napkin in case we want to refer to it later kind of stuff-actual history and mystery and what a pity there's no third word to rhyme that with.
Yesterday's passing of Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers, reminded me of my favorite unfamous song from the duo from nearly forty years ago when their label was struggling to resurrect them as "hip to today" without ever realizing they were already timeless.
The single was supposed to kick start their comeback with an album released later, Stories We Could Tell, that didn't have the single on it. Brilliant marketing.
I remember an A&R guy visiting the station in Philly where i worked, very hip with blue sideburns down to his elbows, who had no idea who he was talking about but undeterred by his own ignorance, chattering away. The album went plywood in Indiana and sales weren't much better anywhere else.
Speaking of trivia, as I was in a previous paragraph, the guitarist in the Everly's band was Waddy Wachtel brought on board by the band leader, Warren Zevon. Yeah, I think that's enough trivia and pursuit thereof for one day. Let's look for Waldo, maybe he knows where Johnny is.
-bill kenny
Yesterday despite my ignorance, or perhaps because of it (I wouldn't know the difference, truth to tell), it was National Trivia Day. Sara J made sure I knew because otherwise I'd have never found out and there's some really amazing stuff to know. Not the gee let's scribble that down on a bar napkin in case we want to refer to it later kind of stuff-actual history and mystery and what a pity there's no third word to rhyme that with.
Yesterday's passing of Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers, reminded me of my favorite unfamous song from the duo from nearly forty years ago when their label was struggling to resurrect them as "hip to today" without ever realizing they were already timeless.
The single was supposed to kick start their comeback with an album released later, Stories We Could Tell, that didn't have the single on it. Brilliant marketing.
I remember an A&R guy visiting the station in Philly where i worked, very hip with blue sideburns down to his elbows, who had no idea who he was talking about but undeterred by his own ignorance, chattering away. The album went plywood in Indiana and sales weren't much better anywhere else.
Speaking of trivia, as I was in a previous paragraph, the guitarist in the Everly's band was Waddy Wachtel brought on board by the band leader, Warren Zevon. Yeah, I think that's enough trivia and pursuit thereof for one day. Let's look for Waldo, maybe he knows where Johnny is.
-bill kenny
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Not Channeling Vivaldi
I have a memory as a small child (emphasis on the small) living in Belford, New Jersey, and perhaps it's the vagaries of my memory or of global warming and its consequences, but I always remember the winters of my youth as ferocious with huge amounts of snow.
The winter in Belford I'm struggling to remember has a distinct recollection of my digging paths in our backyard with the snow piled high around me, literally over my head. Does that mean we had a lot of snow or was I the runt of the litter before my parents had a litter?
Believe me when I tell you my animus towards snow is not a passing fad. I gave up downhill skiing in my teens and never took to cross-country. I had terrible ankles before I had broken ones so ice skating has never been attractive and I'm far too brittle to be any good at sledding or snowboarding.
A year spent North of the Arctic Circle keeping an eye on Ivan the Russian Bear at the Top of the World, in Sondrestrom, Greenland, did not improve my affection for winter at all.
It was already below zero when we stepped off the C-130 in September 1975, and totally dark which it remained until some point in February of '76 (very bicentennial of the weather I thought) but not before it went to -75 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Eve and stayed there for three weeks with winds off the ice cap at greater than 50 miles an hour. Felt like one of Santa's elves.
I've always lived where we have four seasons, even if I think Vivaldi laid it on a little thick, at least for my taste, and while I kvetch about it and rub liniment on to sore muscles I didn't realize before snow shoveling that I even had, I do get the chance, as I did yesterday in the late afternoon when any hope of warmth from the sun was as cold as the winds blowing around me, to look around at where I live and smile at my own good fortune.
The winter in Belford I'm struggling to remember has a distinct recollection of my digging paths in our backyard with the snow piled high around me, literally over my head. Does that mean we had a lot of snow or was I the runt of the litter before my parents had a litter?
Believe me when I tell you my animus towards snow is not a passing fad. I gave up downhill skiing in my teens and never took to cross-country. I had terrible ankles before I had broken ones so ice skating has never been attractive and I'm far too brittle to be any good at sledding or snowboarding.
A year spent North of the Arctic Circle keeping an eye on Ivan the Russian Bear at the Top of the World, in Sondrestrom, Greenland, did not improve my affection for winter at all.
It was already below zero when we stepped off the C-130 in September 1975, and totally dark which it remained until some point in February of '76 (very bicentennial of the weather I thought) but not before it went to -75 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Eve and stayed there for three weeks with winds off the ice cap at greater than 50 miles an hour. Felt like one of Santa's elves.
I've always lived where we have four seasons, even if I think Vivaldi laid it on a little thick, at least for my taste, and while I kvetch about it and rub liniment on to sore muscles I didn't realize before snow shoveling that I even had, I do get the chance, as I did yesterday in the late afternoon when any hope of warmth from the sun was as cold as the winds blowing around me, to look around at where I live and smile at my own good fortune.
Hope you can smile throughout this first weekend of 2014.
-bill kenny
Friday, January 3, 2014
Think of Me as the Voice of Joyce Kilmer
The last mail of 2013 brought me a large envelope containing, it said, the "2014 Connecticut Tree Survey." I don't know a lot about surveys and even less about trees than most dogs but I'm thinking a printed survey of legal paper tells me someone is not heeding their own message on the importance of the preservation of trees.
The headquarters of the folks conducting the survey, the Arbor Day Foundation, is in Nebraska City, Nebraska (my brother Adam has a marvelous joke about what the "N" on their university's football tram helmets is for), which is (perhaps) their homage to New York City, New York, but I wouldn't bet a chainsaw and a hockey mask on that if I were you, Jason.
The survey's statement of intent is endearing: "We'd like to ask you about trees. Whether you climbed them as a child, cultivate them now, or if you've lost interest, we want to know." I'm going out on a limb (pun intended) and think 'if you've lost interest', you've already chucked the survey, hopefully in the recycling container as opposed to the trash bin.
And that's too bad because as an incentive to fill out the survey, they offer you ten (yep, 10) 'flowering trees' which I assume vary from locale to locale. Here in the Norwich, Connecticut area, I'd get three, each, Redbuds and Dogwoods (I thought at first it said Red Bulls) as well as two apiece of Flowering Crabapples and Washington Hawthorns. I type that sentence like I know what any of them are.
And by being among the first of 50 respondents, I can win twelve, ten-ounce bags of "delicious, shade-grown, rain-forest saving Arbor Day Specialty Coffee." I think I know where I'd like to enjoy a cup, and the view, at the same time. That the tree house is constructed of wood I feel should be worth double points, but we're not playing scrabble.
After perusing the survey twice, I am starting to get a yen for a season's pass to Walden Pond, a box of Walt Whitman chocolates or at the very least asking one of the plaster casters how they're coming on that retooling of Pinnochio. Madam Defarge is already working on the sweater.
-bill kenny
The headquarters of the folks conducting the survey, the Arbor Day Foundation, is in Nebraska City, Nebraska (my brother Adam has a marvelous joke about what the "N" on their university's football tram helmets is for), which is (perhaps) their homage to New York City, New York, but I wouldn't bet a chainsaw and a hockey mask on that if I were you, Jason.
The survey's statement of intent is endearing: "We'd like to ask you about trees. Whether you climbed them as a child, cultivate them now, or if you've lost interest, we want to know." I'm going out on a limb (pun intended) and think 'if you've lost interest', you've already chucked the survey, hopefully in the recycling container as opposed to the trash bin.
And that's too bad because as an incentive to fill out the survey, they offer you ten (yep, 10) 'flowering trees' which I assume vary from locale to locale. Here in the Norwich, Connecticut area, I'd get three, each, Redbuds and Dogwoods (I thought at first it said Red Bulls) as well as two apiece of Flowering Crabapples and Washington Hawthorns. I type that sentence like I know what any of them are.
And by being among the first of 50 respondents, I can win twelve, ten-ounce bags of "delicious, shade-grown, rain-forest saving Arbor Day Specialty Coffee." I think I know where I'd like to enjoy a cup, and the view, at the same time. That the tree house is constructed of wood I feel should be worth double points, but we're not playing scrabble.
After perusing the survey twice, I am starting to get a yen for a season's pass to Walden Pond, a box of Walt Whitman chocolates or at the very least asking one of the plaster casters how they're coming on that retooling of Pinnochio. Madam Defarge is already working on the sweater.
-bill kenny
Thursday, January 2, 2014
An Oft-Heard Definition of Happiness
I love news-from-the-newsroom-floor type of stories. They're not front page, they never are nor should they be. They're those items that tend to end up on the first column of a left hand inside page, and are items like "Snake eats sleeping guard" or "Jujubes linked to infertility in parakeets" (there are no hyperlinks since I'm hoping I made those two up, especially the latter one).
Take this one, which, however, is a really and truly story, it seems. There's a great deal of schadenfreude involved of course (rejoicing at the misfortune of others is a universal constant) but, underneath that, let's face it, it's funny stuff. Admittedly not for the 'unidentified man' to whom it happened but for a lot of the rest of us.
Talk about clean-up in aisle four, this is a winner alright. I imagine the ambulance ride was one guffaw after the other and I think the capper would have been had the EMT's dropped the 'unidentified man' while he was on the stretcher because they were laughing so hard at the circumstances.
Just me or more often than not concerns about gun control AND birth control produce the exact opposite of the desired results. We've seen that trend continue in our war on drugs so I'm wondering if it's too late to make 2014 the year we champion public misbehavior, declaring people like Lindsay Lohan secular saints and then sitting back to see what happens.
Of course, we may have to limit ammo sales at some hardware stores to just the worms and the gnomes. Maybe open an express lane for speed loaders.
-bill kenny
Take this one, which, however, is a really and truly story, it seems. There's a great deal of schadenfreude involved of course (rejoicing at the misfortune of others is a universal constant) but, underneath that, let's face it, it's funny stuff. Admittedly not for the 'unidentified man' to whom it happened but for a lot of the rest of us.
Talk about clean-up in aisle four, this is a winner alright. I imagine the ambulance ride was one guffaw after the other and I think the capper would have been had the EMT's dropped the 'unidentified man' while he was on the stretcher because they were laughing so hard at the circumstances.
Just me or more often than not concerns about gun control AND birth control produce the exact opposite of the desired results. We've seen that trend continue in our war on drugs so I'm wondering if it's too late to make 2014 the year we champion public misbehavior, declaring people like Lindsay Lohan secular saints and then sitting back to see what happens.
Of course, we may have to limit ammo sales at some hardware stores to just the worms and the gnomes. Maybe open an express lane for speed loaders.
-bill kenny
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Writing 2014 Will Take Some Getting Used To.....
If you partied to close out the old year, here we are and welcome to the end of your first hangover of the new one. One of the nice things about not drinking alcohol anymore is that the looking out the window today at the first day of the next year isn't as dog-awful as it's been in decades past.
It wasn't that I drank that was the problem. It had a lot more to do with the fact that I swallowed. Even now, the sunshine bores the daylights out of me but I'm also deathly afraid of the dark, hence my dilemma.
So clear-eyed and empty-headed, I look out on the first day of our new year and can already see the gap between the promise and the performance at every level-personal, professional and political. I think I even got them in the correct order, for me at least. Your mileage may vary but not your result.
Did you make resolutions? And have you already broken one or more of them? I don't think the Guinness Records people keep track so you can safely claim whatever you wish and however you will. Of course, escaping your own judgment will be harder to do since you know best your own tricks and traps.
I have hopes not resolutions for 2014. I hope this year to be a better person to the people I have in my life and to whom I have sometimes been less than kind. I will try to be slower to anger and quicker to forgive. I should get plenty of practice and, I fear, in turn will provide it for others as well. I'll also add that I'm not going to allow the past to color the future and I accept I cannot be forgiven for sins I've not yet committed.
This is Day One. We can go anywhere and do anything. We just have to decide and then agree on what anything will look like.
A New Year is a little bit like a first snowfall. We're all very concerned about the first marks we make and then we just go about our business. Too bad we can't bottle that sense of unlimited optimism we feel on this, the first day of the year, and break it out when things get serious and the going becomes harder, like tomorrow and all the days that will follow it.
Be of good cheer (unless you were too much of that last night, in which case perhaps still be it, but quietly). So much happened in 2013-at times it felt that too much happened. But because and despite it all, it's 2014. The paths to today are many, the destination is shared. Some of us arrived in more comfort, health or wealth than others, here we are.
With all due respect to the more stridently jingoistic among us, the farther out in space you go, the more alike we look. Perhaps that might remind us that here on the big Blue Marble we should leave a little more for somebody else-perhaps take a slightly smaller piece of the pie as the plates get passed around and remember that lesson on the importance of sharing we learned back in kindergarten.
Enjoy today's still-has-that-New Year-smell-it's as close to heaven on earth as we will get, and for some of us it as close as we'll ever get. Es gibt viel zu tun, packen wir an!
-bill kenny
It wasn't that I drank that was the problem. It had a lot more to do with the fact that I swallowed. Even now, the sunshine bores the daylights out of me but I'm also deathly afraid of the dark, hence my dilemma.
So clear-eyed and empty-headed, I look out on the first day of our new year and can already see the gap between the promise and the performance at every level-personal, professional and political. I think I even got them in the correct order, for me at least. Your mileage may vary but not your result.
Did you make resolutions? And have you already broken one or more of them? I don't think the Guinness Records people keep track so you can safely claim whatever you wish and however you will. Of course, escaping your own judgment will be harder to do since you know best your own tricks and traps.
I have hopes not resolutions for 2014. I hope this year to be a better person to the people I have in my life and to whom I have sometimes been less than kind. I will try to be slower to anger and quicker to forgive. I should get plenty of practice and, I fear, in turn will provide it for others as well. I'll also add that I'm not going to allow the past to color the future and I accept I cannot be forgiven for sins I've not yet committed.
This is Day One. We can go anywhere and do anything. We just have to decide and then agree on what anything will look like.
A New Year is a little bit like a first snowfall. We're all very concerned about the first marks we make and then we just go about our business. Too bad we can't bottle that sense of unlimited optimism we feel on this, the first day of the year, and break it out when things get serious and the going becomes harder, like tomorrow and all the days that will follow it.
Be of good cheer (unless you were too much of that last night, in which case perhaps still be it, but quietly). So much happened in 2013-at times it felt that too much happened. But because and despite it all, it's 2014. The paths to today are many, the destination is shared. Some of us arrived in more comfort, health or wealth than others, here we are.
With all due respect to the more stridently jingoistic among us, the farther out in space you go, the more alike we look. Perhaps that might remind us that here on the big Blue Marble we should leave a little more for somebody else-perhaps take a slightly smaller piece of the pie as the plates get passed around and remember that lesson on the importance of sharing we learned back in kindergarten.
Enjoy today's still-has-that-New Year-smell-it's as close to heaven on earth as we will get, and for some of us it as close as we'll ever get. Es gibt viel zu tun, packen wir an!
-bill kenny
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