Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow

We, at least me, are halfway though a weekend that's been equal parts driving, family fun and nostalgia. We rolled on down the highway from The Land of Steady Habits to Whatchew Lookin' At? (Connecticut to New Jersey) as Margaret and Adam's son, Rob, wed his true love, Jess.

It happened, as so many Jersey romances do DTS, down the shore. We even had enough time for me to half-heartedly search in a target rich environment for a watering hole from my youth, The North Pole Bar, in Point Pleasant that had a 364 day Santa who greeted customers (you can guess what day, or more specifically night, Santa was off), but some things are not to be, and the North Pole Bar was one of them. (Unless maybe it was in Point Pleasant Beach and if you don't think there's a difference in that distinction you don't get DTS).

It's been four decades since I spent that much time on the Parkway and it can be another four before it happens again and I will not complain, but driving the Parkway is like revisiting an old house you lived in along ago, and all the uneven floors and squeaky doors are still where you remember them.
I was half expecting the view out the car windows to be in black and white as the Parkway has always struck me as more ancient than timeless.

We're drifting back north today, in no especial hurry, I confess. I think I drive slowly when I'm home mainly because New Jersey isn't my home anymore, no matter how much I like to think otherwise. I realized I always expect to come upon myself as I was in my years at Rutgers, maybe buy myself a beer and tell the young me stories of the Great World beyond George Street.

I'm an expert now, too late, but not too far gone. I don't think he'd believe me. When I was his age then I didn't know anyone my age now-come to think of it, I still don't and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. What I lack in photographs of those back-in-the-day days, I make up in memories, so clear and detailed they frighten me as they steal up on me, usually as the long, late afternoon rays of the sun are relinquishing the light of the day and things often seem to be what they are not.

"It must have been summer...The Beatles were singing 'Love Is All You Need.' I held her hand as we walked through the arcade, two young believers on a three dollar spree."
-bill kenny

The Union of Your Spirits Here

I have often envied my youngest brother, Adam. He, unlike most others on the planet, has the good fortune of having a handsome and talented, as well as witty, oldest sibling (still working on modesty and self-esteem issues obviously).

However, I have rarely envied him and his blushing bride, Margaret, more than I do today as their son, Rob, and the love of his life, Jess, marry.

As a father myself, I know the striving and desire to want your children to be happy and healthy and how nothing beyond that is anywhere near as important as you'd always been told. And in one act today, in the blink of an eye, Rob will be both.

He and his about-to-be deserve every happiness and my brother and Margaret have earned every smile they should wear for the entire day. "For if loving is the answer, then who's the giving for? Do you believe in something that you've never seen before?"
-bill kenny

(Hobnail) Boots of Chinese Plastic

It was still very early, pre-dawn actually, when the Goddess of Democracy created with such wild-eyed enthusiasm during the heady April Days of the People's Uprising proved no match at all against the modified T-72 PLA Main Battle Tanks the Chinese government deployed against its own citizens 25 years ago this week in Beijing's Tienanmen Square.

Not everyone was impressed with the mechanical behemoths' agility.

It's believed a quarter of a century on, very few of those living in the People's Republic of China have anything beyond a smattering of knowledge (and probably less understanding) of the events before, during and after the end of the innocence.

The Chinese government discovered (or perhaps re-discovered) what those in power have known for all the years of the Electric Fire and Global Village-while the 'world is watching' may be the case, it's a long way from watching to doing anything about what is being seen. And if you don't think so, visit a Walmart and enjoy the perceived savings.

Ever since Nixon in China in 1972, we've told ourselves here in the Land of Round Doorknobs that if we give the Chinese mainland enough Mickey D's and Coca-Cola, we'll make 'em capitalists.

Maybe so, but maybe not. I was raised to be a church-goer so I'm conditioned to believe in things you can't see, but it takes a lot more faith than I'll ever have to see it ever happen in the world's most populous nation.

Eventually scar tissue grows over broken hearts and lesions form on painful memories. In another 25 years my question is not how many will remember Tienanmen Square but how many fewer will even care.
 -bill kenny

Finally

Two weeks from tonight summer arrives. Pay NO attention to the calendar, trust me, when baseball gets here, it's summer. And baseball arrives at Senator Thomas Dodd Stadium at 7:05 PM Wednesday June 18th as the Connecticut Tigers host the Lowell Spinners, the baby BoSox if you will, under the lights (eventually) in their home opener of the New York-Penn (Short Season Single A) League.

The Spinners have been at this baseball stuff while, getting started in 1996, and have sold out every home game for the last eight years (!). There's a waiting list to buy Spinners' season tickets (and their stadium seats close to five thousand folks).

We here in Norwich have had professional baseball at Dodd Stadium for twenty years. After starting as the Double A affiliate of the New York Yankees and then teaming up (didja see what I did there?) the San Francisco Giants, the Connecticut Tigers moved in for 2010 season and the Boys of Summer have called 14 Stott Avenue home ever since.

Dodd Stadium has been a field of dreams for a generation of professional baseball players whose careers are just beginning and it's a great place to watch a game. As a matter of fact, for serious fans of the game, there have already been opportunities galore to check out how the stadium and the turf survived this past winter as the Northeast Conference (NEC) Baseball Championships were there about two weeks ago with the Bryant Bulldogs repeating as champs, followed last week by the Eastern Connecticut Conference (ECC) Baseball Championships, won by the Waterford Lancers.

The Connecticut Tigers put a 'great product' on the field every game-speaking as a life-long Yankees fan, I sometimes wish they didn't-and are an integral part of the Detroit Tigers farm system.

Before the first tarp came off the field this season, actually back in January, the parent club extended its Player Development Contract (PDC) with the Connecticut Tigers for four more years through 2018.    

In announcing the extension, Detroit Tigers Director of Minor League Operations Dan Lunetta offered,"(T)he superb operation of the team, quality of the facility and the Norwich community along with the Connecticut Tigers desire to remain affiliated with Detroit, has provided us the opportunity to now enter into a four year extension of our PDC... It is with excitement that we look forward to the next five years of continuing the pride of Tigers baseball in Southeastern Connecticut. "

Yes, of course, Minor League baseball is about winning-but it's about learning the trade of a professional baseball player. And we've had opportunities to see some terrific talent just starting on their ride to The Show.

Make no mistake-I love Major League Baseball but I don't love driving to Fenway or Yankee Stadium and spending the equivalent of a car payment to see a game, have a hot dog and a soda and park. Especially when it's a short drive to the Business Park, a pittance for parking and the most expensive seat, appropriately called Premium, costing ten dollars. Baseball at a bargain.

And because Minor League Baseball is family entertainment there's always something happening on the field between innings, be it a base running contest through chicken dancing (or what may be chicken dancing, depends on the dancers to be honest).

It happens right here, in our backyard and don't let anybody tell you we don't have fun, and get change back and support a local business, the CT Tigers, who support a lot of other local businesses (check out the in stadium concessions). Tigers' baseball is a great night out that both you and your wallet will appreciate.
See ya at Dodd!
-bill kenny

Served Cold

I got off to a good start to my week with a clever though imaginary conversation with a H & M (High & Mighty) whom I nearly encountered in, of all places, the fitness center I visit on workdays from about a quarter of four until five in the morning, precisely because at that hour I rarely run into anyone I know.

I saw him nearest an ESPN wall-mounted monitor actually on the cross-trainer that I normally like to be on for Monday mornings so I can catch up on the pictures of weekend sports while listening to Willie Nile and Graham Parker (not that they complement the visuals-I can't imagine ESPN using You Can't Be Too Strong for a weightlifting segment which is about the limits of their creativity) but so I don't have to listen to semi-inane banter masquerading as wit.

But not yesterday, not with H & M pulling on the handles. I met him about twenty years ago when me and my family were still pretty new and didn't know who anyone was so we judged people on who they were, not what they could do for us (which was nothing) and he didn't do much for me then on a citizen committee we both volunteered to serve on and even less as the years went on.

I didn't make eye contact with him and grabbed a machine on the far end and took my glasses so if I inadvertently glanced in that direction all I would see was fuzzy-wuzzies. Some years back, our son had a job he enjoyed very much and at which he was very good (he's actually very good in all of them-he has his Mom's people skills rather than his father's fear of and antipathy towards the rest of the ant farm) and he ended up in the offices of H & M in Norwich showing him and his staff the new devices the company had purchased.

Our son didn't know I knew H & M and I never thought to tell him (we'd be at this all day, every day, if we decided that was a good idea) so he was caught unawares when H & M asked him "are you Bill Kenny's son?" The reward for saying yes was a tight, thin smile and a semi-caustic "I see where you get it from" as the employees nervously laughed.

Yeah, this is a guy who did so well his son went to federal prison for heavy-duty financial shenanigans-and our son was guilty of having my sense of humor? What was it my old man used to say about a sense of humor? Oh yeah, you have to have a sense of intelligence to have one. Thanks for playing.

Didn't engage yesterday but was tempted to wander by and feign surprise (I am very good at it through many years of practice) and do that 'Hail Fellow! Well-Met!' hand jive that I see so many grown-ups do. Social intercourse I've heard it called. Since I don't do tall talk, I can't do small talk.

Meanwhile, we'd exchange light banter about spouses because that's part of the ritual and vacations we haven't taken and then the old reliable, how's the family? Great, I'd say; our boy hasn't been to prison even once-can you say that?
 -bill kenny

For those Who Clamored for a Pound of Shineski's Flesh

We all know Eric Shineski resigned Friday as the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs and because the news cycle in this country moves at hyper-speed and we suffer from national attention deficit  disorder when there aren't blue skies and green lights welcoming every patient today at a VA facility, feel free to ask your Congressional representative, especially ifs/he is a Republican what should happen next.

Here's what's already happened.

November cannot come soon enough. Hope the Koch Brothers kept the receipt for the seats they bought, it would be a pity to have nothing to show for all that money  expended except the XL pipeline and the fracking industry. But for the wounded in battle and the weary and sickened, the song remains the same.

Here's some light reading for those in VA clinic waiting rooms, and elsewhere from Common Sense, authored by Major-General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, who twice received the Medal of Honor. His words are new to me, but they're not new but rather from November 1935. I'm thinking this is what they mean by 'timeless.'

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force---the Marine Corps. I have served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to major-general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers, In short I was a racketeer for capitalism

"Thus, I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place to live for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in…. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American Sugar interests in 1916.

"I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years I  had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.

"I was rewarded honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. War Is A Racket."
-bill kenny

The Day Rock 'n' Roll Came of Age

I was barely fifteen and needed rock and roll to get through my every day. Like every other fifteen year-old everywhere, boy or girl in the history of the world, I was having the hardest time with everyone; school, friends, family-they were all on my case. No one could ever understand any of it (and so it goes)....

I had no older brothers or sisters so it was The Beatles who introduced me to rock and roll-not Elvis or the Everly Brothers. I couldn't spell hootenanny and still can't (thank goodness for spell-check). If you had told me George Harrison invented the guitar, I'd have believed you and if you are very convincing, I might still.

I was an accidental anglophile-Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Chad & Jeremy, Peter & Gordon, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, and hundreds more (perhaps thousands).

Around the time of Rubber Soul, someone played me electric Dylan and I was intoxicated by the word play. I already loved The Byrds and all the bands those members evolved into and the bands that people they played with created. Strange days, indeed.

Civil rights, a half million men on the ground in the jungles of Southeast Asia, space race and short skirts. Rock and roll was growing up, leaving June, moon, croon lyrics far behind and then on this date,  in 1967, (it was forty-seven years ago today) s*it just got real and nothing was the same ever again.
-bill kenny