When the Hatred Within

Today is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I was someone who, while living in Central Europe, strove to visit the various and far-flung KZ always attempting, but failing, to understand the evil genius which grafted pure hatred to the Industrial Revolution and produced the hellish horrors of mass murder on assembly lines utterly beyond comprehension.

If the term Yom Hashoah is not familiar to you, maybe you can take a moment and (I'd hope) find a source of solace in a visit here. It's hard some days for the child I once was to recall being told I was made in the image and likeness of God. Harder still, to look at today and everything it commemorates and wonder what happened and why.

לעולם לא עוד 
-bill kenny

Requiem Aeternam

I confess that I had almost forgotten. I only vaguely remembered we in Norwich honored the men and women who served in Vietnam on the last Saturday of April while on my way walking back from the Stop 'n' Shop as I passed by the Chelsea Parade. I hurried home, put away my purchase and returned to join a very small crowd.

The weather was less than kind to us who gathered which was somehow ironic when I recall how we as a nation once treated so many who traveled so far and sacrificed so much for so few of privilege and power. I have long since conceded those who served did so for one another as they saw next to nothing from anyone else.

It was nice to spend a few moments conversing beforehand with State Senator Cathy Osten, like me, a Vietnam-era veteran. I appreciate her sharing part of what we spoke about with those who came to the event but more especially how she chose to keep parts of our conversation private.

We are as a nation a half century separated from the start of our engagement in Vietnam and pardon my aged and ancient cynicism, but based on the hash we have all made of the Second Act in Afghanistan, we have learned nothing. I cannot tell if I am more saddened or angered at how we continue to fight and die for Standard Oil and Coca Cola while nitwits of all political stripes manipulate us into thinking we and they are a team working for the good of the world.

Standing in the drizzle yesterday, and I hate drizzle because the weather doesn't have the courage to be a full-blown storm, I thought about standing in pretty much the same space some years earlier after musing about what that day might have brought us. Turns out peace and acceptance weren't it.
-bill kenny

The Picture Comes with the Frame

Today is my birthday. That I have reached two and sixty, zwei und sechzig, kommt mir sehr komisch vor, strikes me as funny. Considering I am usually the punchline it's odd to have the last laugh, at least once a year. 

There's a small chance of cake and pony rides, I am a huge fan of BOTH, because originally the plan today was helping neighbors across town clean up a recreation area alongside an historic and breathtakingly beautiful Shetucket River dam. I am very much a believer that if you can't find someone who's making a difference in our world, then maybe you have to be one. Bad weather today has postponed our collective good deed but I'll let you know how that all works out.  

I should offer Natal acknowledgements because they are deserved as opposed to the ones I'll be getting all day long for really not doing anything but (unwittingly and unknowingly) allowing biology and gravity to have their say. My mom will call today because she always calls and we both know I should be calling her as she did all the work and yet she'll congratulate me on my birthday and I always but not quite want to congratulate her for starting with me. 

It was a very different world 62 years ago and she and her husband, my Dad, Bill Sr., set off on a New Frontier about a decade before JFK named it and told us all where we were going, and was murdered for his trouble. 

I suppose to my younger brothers and sisters, I am the practice child. Every family has one. That you got to stay up after seven PM on a school night was my doing, because I didn't. On the other hand, all of my clothes were mine and never somebody else's sometimes before, sometimes after and more often than not, both. Thank you not having tried to choke me out every moment of every day since we each became adults because you certainly had, and often still have, perfect justification for so doing.

That all said, since the last time I had an original idea it died of loneliness, I've dusted off some notes I offered a year ago because I liked the way they read then, and even more so, now. I might have been smarter at the time, especially if you remove the 'smarter' part.  

This is a new kind of birthday complete with my browser hovering over the Google Chrome logo and because I'm on Google plus (Michelle, our very smart daughter's, theory) there was a caption wishing "Happy Birthday William!" (I may have added the exclamation point; Google is very much a declamatory operating system). 

More interesting and amazing, as a man who can count his friends on fewer than five fingers of one hand (and you've guessed which finger I am), I received the most cheerful of greetings and salutations in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Farsi (I believe), German and English as well as Jersey (ha-ha! THUNK! Sound of me laughing my head off).

I call all Social Media Facebook, FB, and I've mentioned the dichotomy of flesh and blood friends (F&BF) and Facebook Friends (FBF). With my mad math skills I calculated of the birthday greetings I received, 99.79% were from people I have never met, not shall I ever (in all likelihood). We aren't familiar strangers-neither they nor I would know one another if we tripped over ourselves.

Are the contrivances and edifices of Social Media a form of cloaking of those of us who are members of the lonely crowd or are we creating variations of Erich Fromm's egoism a deux? Are we now more, or less, alone than we were a decade, a generation, a lifetime ago and for what end and to what purpose have we allowed these invisible airwaves to weave a tableaux, a Story of Us, we can tell to ourselves to keep the dark of night at bay?
-bill kenny

Rupert, though Not the Bear

Behaviors and motivations are two different and observable entities. You could see me drive by you very quickly and conclude from what you saw that I'm a thoughtless asshat with no regard for others' safety without ever knowing I was actually rushing home because of a family emergency (we were all out of saltines; did I mention I moonlight for First World Problems? Don't get me started on cell phone charging cords that are too short. Oh, the humanity.).

In my fitness center (they haven't changed the sign yet to "Bill's Planet Fitness" though it seems to me, staring at it from the parking lot hanging over the entrance doors like there's plenty of room, a fellow in the guy's locker room was quoting some famous fitness (or do they use PH? I get confused) person to a newly-joined club member about 'you lose weight to fit into your clothes. You get into shape to look great naked.'

Those are the kinds of observations within conversations that usually cause me to consider getting changed in the car, while driving if I have to. I don't know what to do with stuff like that-it doesn't fit me. I'm of average height, hopefully about average weight for that height; older today than I was yesterday while knowing I shall never be this young again and wear a medical alert bracelet suggesting to EMS people, "some assembly required."

I roll with the dawn patrol and am usually on a treadmill or a cross trainer by about a quarter after four in the morning staring at the large panel TV's halfway across the room that silently assail us with pictures of just about every passion imaginable.

After I start perspiring profusely, the only way I ever sweat, and my glasses get foggy and wet and I take them off, I can see just about nothing on the other side of the room which matters not as I have my earbuds in while listening, most recently, to ABC News on Slacker Radio so I have some idea of what's going on in the world. If I take a break while at work and end up in the gym near my building, all they watch there is Fox News which means I have less than no clue about everything.

I was concentrating, sitting on the bench near my locker in trying to roll up the cord from my earbuds so as to not need ten minutes tomorrow morning to get it undone, knowing as I do this everyday, I also fail at it. The appeal of the ritual, regardless of the outcome, is something I find very reassuring.

So engrossed was I in my Promethean Undertaking that it was only by the ensuing silence that I realized I had missed a verbal cue. Looking up and around I met the gaze of the Physically Phit Philosopher who offered, "and you? I see you here all the time. What's your goal? Fitting Into or Looking Good?"

I was going to remind him it was God, Himself, who told us, or at least Adam and Eve, to wear clothes but I don't think #TBT was ever intended to include the Old Testament. As I pulled on my jacket and  jammed my now wadded up headset into my pocket I conceded I watch what I eat and lean more towards strenuous than tenuous in my gym activities but my goal differed from his. I told him I'm trying to escape.

And in the echo of those words off the locker room door, I made good on one.
-bill kenny

Record Setting

Last Saturday was Record Store Day and I, having spent most of my life cultivating a vinyl jungle of  long players, singles and extended play pieces of plastic that now number into the many of thousands, needed little incentive to take a short car trip to a town at the mouth of the Thames River (we pronounce both the "t" and the "h" as in 'thame thit, different day'), New London (Connecticut), rather neatly bookending the one I live in at the river's headwaters, to shop at a local independent shop, The Telegraph.

Earlier in the week, based on pop-ups everywhere on line I had formed a vague plan to shop for a copy of Bruce Springsteen's American Beauty and my brother's notes gave me the rest, I suppose so shopping I went and returned home to wrestle with the turntable, the amplifier and the speakers.

The struggle was worth it. I had nearly forgotten what music sounded like in our living room, or any room for that matter. I tend to devour music through earbuds hooked into my phone while out walking or Planet Fitnessing* (*first use as a gerund in this hemisphere).

I'm not sure our neighbor upstairs was even home but had she been I'd have heard from her, I'm sure, as I had a reasonable amount of volume behind what is either truly a remarkable four song postcard of where Springsteen has been or a map of where he's heading.

Rock and roll does a body good-and when you play it loud enough your whole body can feel it, I suspect it's a work-out for your soul as well. I missed this at The Telegraph later in the day, but it makes me smile still and I admit I am ever so tempted to crank it up. But only to eleven, honest.
-bill kenny

Days of W(h)ine in the Rose of New England

If one of your hobbies is complaining about how little there is to do in Norwich, in light of activities this weekend just about everywhere, if you're looking for sympathy from me you may have to check in the dictionary. Drop me a line. I'll tell you between which two words to look.

I'm sorry to be out of patience on that subject and its companion troll, 'there's no place to park downtown when there is something to do.' I suppose that means I won't see any unhappy folks, or their cars, anywhere near the Otis Library for the Friends of Otis Library Book Sale which starts Friday (with a private showing and a ten dollar admission that morning from nine to ten for those who want a head start on the weekend's steals and deals) and then continues on Saturday, starting at 10 before concluding on Sunday, from noon until three.

Our daughter, Michelle, and I always hit the book sale on Sunday and come home with bags of books, but you needn't wait and do not get fooled by that banner on Broadway near Washington Street trumpeting a "Book Sale."

To be both honest and accurate, it should really read "The Gently Used Book Sale, to include, Biographies, Autobiographies, Memoirs, all manner of Fiction as well as Mystery, Arts and Crafts, Classics, Cook Books, Non-Fiction, How-To books (though almost no why-are-we books), History, Gardening, Sports, pony rides (wanted to see if you were still reading), Science Fiction and Books for Children of All Ages. As Well as lots of audio cassettes, CD's, DVD's and Stuff You'd Have to See for Yourself." Of course, if the banner said all that, it would stretch all the way up to 395 North, Exit 93, or thereabouts.

Let's just say the selection and the prices are both terrific. Don't be surprised if you rub elbows with collectors from across the Northeast. That's why I wear hockey pads-libraries are the next contact sport-who are panning for undiscovered and unrecognized gold and who know great deals when they find them. And they do.

And because Otis is situated in just about the middle of downtown, as you pass all the restaurants that line or border Main Street on your way there, you can see all kinds of folks, clutching newly-purchased books, mingling with the regular patrons and eating a late breakfast, or having lunch, before returning to one of the municipal parking lots that ring downtown and head home. The Book Sale is the perfect excuse to table hop and finally stop into one of those restaurants you promised yourself to hit 'the next time I'm downtown.' Enjoy.

Doncha hate when all that downtown stuff to do gets in the way of complaining about the lack of downtown stuff to do? Yeah, me too. But wait, as those late night infomercials say, there's more.

The Leffingwell House Museum on Saturday, starting at noon, is hosting readings of some of the historic sermons written by the minsters of Olde Norwich Town, from the Revolutionary War and other eras. Even then, it seems we needed all the prayers we could get. It's a great way to renew your acquaintance with the Leffingwell House Museum which many regard as a critical component when talk turns to historic tourism in the region.

And, in honor of Earth Day, "rain or shine," the Greeneville Neighborhood Revitalization Zone is cleaning up the Greeneville Dam Trail, starting at eight Saturday morning, as well as sections of the Village itself.

You know how you always intend to check out something new in the neighborhood over the weekend? Bring some work gloves and work boots-I've helped out on this before and these people are into serious clean-up and more helping hands are always welcome. Still complaining about nothing to do? Amazing what happens when we close our mouths and give our eyes a chance. See you out there?
-bill kenny

"We Have a First-Time Caller on Line One...."

Somewhere, Roz would have smiled though I fear Dr. Frazier Crain, having already left the building, might still grimace.

In a piece of political theater I would have assumed was last practiced when NBA players wore Chuck Taylor high top sneakers, my favorite coward, "Are You Ready" Ed Snowden, popped up, like John Hartford on Glen Campbell's TV show, smack dab in the middle, metaphorically speaking of Vlad Putin's televised call-in show last week in Russia. Let's hear it for planned spontaneity.

I'm not being mean or jumping on (or off) a bandwagon. I admire Mr. Snowden for his role in revealing egregiously heinous behavior my (actually our) government was, and presumably still is, engaged in supposedly on my behalf and for my safety and security.

I find myself recalling Poor Richard's observation "(t)hey who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I suspect that it's a good thing he's been dead for the last 225 years or so because that's really the only reason we haven't rounded him up, slapped him in an orange jump suit with a Spanish English dictionary jammed in his pocket as a cell-warming gift and deposited his seditious butt in GITMO.

As I understood Mr. Snowden in the early days of print media's disclosure of his offered information and then the revelation of his identity, he, too, was willing to go to jail for his beliefs. I was going to say, 'think of Joan of Arc' but Chelsea Manning's supporters have the trademark on that. Actually, I guess, he watched what happened to so many recent others who had the courage of their convictions, emphasis on the latter part of that phrase and reconsidered.

The stipend you earn from working in the prison laundry will not help you build a retirement account and so Eddie became peripatetic and heavily ambulatorily airborne. That he and Vlad found one another makes me smile as they fit together wie eine Faust auf ein Auge. Wait until Ed fully appreciates that when he negotiates with a shark. Eventually you run out of body parts with which to negotiate. Ask the Georgian Republic or the Ukraine.

 "And though (s)he feels as if (s)he's in a play, (s)he is anyway." When you sup with the devil, Eddie, you need a long spoon.
-bill kenny