Not All Who Wander Are Lost ...

...Unless as you've traveled through Norwich, you've had the misfortune of stopping to ask me for directions as I've hiked from Point A to Point 3 (I wasn't good at either geography or math in school). If so, there's an excellent chance I got you lost.

Much of the time motorists are looking for directions to one of the casinos and while I know where they are, despite almost three decades here, I'm not always great with the names of the streets that lead to them making me truly the embodiment of 'your mileage may vary.' And proving it really is the journey and not the destination (and you're welcome, by the way).    

Norwich is built among some gently rolling hills so I burn more calories getting in my ten thousand steps a day and far more than from jumping to conclusions (which so many of us around here, myself included, do on a far-too-regular basis). You should try it.

We own a perfectly good automobile that spends a lot of every week in our garage as, weather permitting, I walk just about everywhere in Norwich (and don't understand why I don't see more of us as pedestrians along the way). We live less than two minutes from Chelsea Parade so I make it a point to inspect what I consider my neighborhood to include the Yantic Cemetery and Uncas Leap on a practically daily basis.

My walking is much less exotic, strenuous, or adventurous in real life than I'd like it to be. Much, if not most, of my meandering, is in and around what many regard as the Norwichtown and Down City areas. If no one else were to ever walk the Heritage Trail to the Norwich Harbor, I've still gotten all of our money's worth from it as it's a favorite of mine at any time of the year. This right here is the Upper Falls yesterday afternoon.

I'm not above a weekend walk to the Greenville Dam and the NPU pocket park over by the Eighth Street Bridge which also allows me to enjoy Faith Satterfield's mural as I take in the roar of the occasionally-mighty Shetucket River over by the fish elevator. She has another mural on the side of the Chestnut Street Playhouse that brightens my day whenever I walk past it.

On fewer occasions, I've enjoyed Taftville's Ponemah Mills from the Lisbon side when, during the summer months, the skateboarders are out in force enjoying the ride while I admire the engineering effort to harness the river that made Ponemah Mills an engine of economic development more than a century ago.   

I haven't done as much walking across Thamesville, the East Side, Occum or Bean Hill as I'd like though all of them have destinations and points of interest (I find it easier to walk towards something rather than just wander around) and I'd hope to do just that once the winter weather (assuming it gets here) eventually leaves.

Armed with my cell phone camera (if not always a perfect sense of direction), I like to take pictures (for my Celebrating Norwich Connecticut Facebook page) while leaving only footprints. I'm often not sure just how much of a success on either count I have been but tomorrow is another opportunity to find out. 

And maybe, just maybe, we'll pass one another along the way and smile and nod to one another just the way neighbors should, no matter how you define your neighborhood.
-bill kenny

First Sunday Deja Vu

This is my blog entry from the first Sunday of 2010, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was in a Steeleye Span frame of mind at the time and called it:
 

Fare Thee Well Cold Winter

It's the first Sunday of the New Year and of this new decade. Still has that just baked aroma. I'm glad I was born a human since I lack any special skills or abilities that would have enabled me to survive to anywhere near my current age as any other life form on this planet. ('Look, Livingston! It's a ring-tailed bandicoot trying to access blogger.com!' Or not. And thus ends my homage to H.H. Munro (I hope it has earned your seal of approval)).

No other species divides the rotation of the earth around the sun in quite the rigid and unyielding demarcations we create-and let's be honest here, we are very good at it. Because we wind up with extra hours and fractions of time that accumulate as merrily we roll along, every four years we have a leap year, though this isn't one of those. I've never personally known anyone born on the Leap Day (if that's what February 29 is called) but I've read enough stories about the birthday celebrations and such to be happy that my mother had the good sense to wait until Spring to have me.

Meanwhile, it's a new calendar page, but the challenges and opportunities look very familiar, don't they? We need to resolve (assuming you didn't make any resolutions (I always resolve to NOT keep any I might make and therein lies the contradiction)) if such a formality is, indeed, required, to move from the 'talking about a problem' to 'finding a solution' (the use of the indefinite article is deliberate there. I'm always disquieted by folks who tell me they have found 'the' way rather than 'a' way. (Not that I don't admire their confidence; I just don't share it. See: YMMV.)

My concern in this New Year, much like in the one just passed (and many of those before that one), is that we get distracted while on the way to addressing a situation, and end up accepting less than our best effort as a solution and leave undone something we meant to do. And then at the end of the day, or the end of a life, we don't reflect on where we started and how we got there, but rather turn the page and begin again oblivious that we've lost a day but are no wiser or better for its passing. 

Perhaps this is the year we try "a small sprig of time and as much of prudence, you mix them all together." Thanks for the recipe, Tim Hart. It looks like we'll go the rest of the way without you.
-bill kenny

Because We Can

I think I prefer "far side" to "dark side" but then Gary Larson gets upset.

All that you touch 

All that you see 

All that you taste 

All you feel. 

All that you love 

All that you hate 

All you distrust 

All you save. 

All that you give 

All that you deal 

All that you buy, 

beg, borrow or steal. 

All you create 

All you destroy 

All that you do 

All that you say. 

All that you eat 

And everyone you meet 

All that you slight 

And everyone you fight. 

All that is now 

All that is gone 

All that's to come 

and everything under 

the sun is in tune 

but the sun 

is eclipsed by the moon.

The world's first image taken on the moon's far side after the Chang'e-4 shuttle landed

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

-bill kenny

Shadows Are Falling

This broke my heart in thirteen or more places when I first posted it eleven years ago. 
Not that one syllable of what I offered at the time was worth a tear but because of the discovery I had made in the process of writing it. 

At that time I called it:
 

Zevon meets Donne

An amazing aspect about technological applications and evolutions is the development and dissemination of information that can be shared by an infinite number, but which is, simultaneously, beyond formal communication channel constraints and constructs.

That's not always a good thing, and in wandering the Net, you either learn to read some folks and NOT read others, or you are trapped on line all day in an unending do loop. 

Sitting in Norwich, CT, my view of the world (which actually becomes my world), is very different from yours-not superior or inferior, just different. An ongoing challenge is a micro-topic, something I think is worth writing about, and offering it within a macro-context (it ain't called the World Wide Web for nothing, Starbuck).

So while I had thought today I'd offer a modified rant on an issue of some import here in The Rose of New England, some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. Hope you have a napkin. 

I never had an opportunity to meet Major Andrew Olmsted, US Army, though I read and enjoyed his blog on a regular basis until this morning. His final entry is literally that. If you can read it and keep from crying for him (and for all of us), tell me how, as I cannot stop.
-bill kenny

The Mild Ones

Spoiler alert: 

This news nugget's dateline is Florida. 

Like you wouldn't have guessed that.
-bill kenny

Though Torn in Two

By my count, we’re only at twenty-four and change hours into the New Year, so this may be a little rash especially since the sample size is small but I think 2019 has been a pretty good year so far.

Okay, I spent a good part of it so far sleeping and have only recently gotten out of bed, but, let's face it, these are some trying times in which we live and I would know, having been called trying by some of the best (just trying to keep up).   

I'm not going to waste your time telling you what a turbulent year 2018 was. If you're able to read this, you already knew that and you have it from far more authoritative and knowledgeable sources than a pinhead like me.

And while the last week to ten days has been interesting as we revisit in print and on television the big stories of the year just passed, I think we all reach a point where we just wonder what the purpose of the nostalgia really is. Yes, it’s good to remember and to look back but it’s probably better to realize that’s not the direction we’re heading in or should be.  

I’m not from Norwich (you know that); I wasn’t born here, but I’m from here now, and I choose to look forward to this year, 2019, with the same hope for continued progress personally, politically, economically and philosophically that I had when what’s now the old year was itself a hope-filled new year.

As partners, parents, and neighbors defined (or not) both by who we are and where we live, we should promise ourselves and each other to work harder and smarter which I think is a big part of what we need, not just in the New Year but for every day and not just in Norwich, but across the country. 

A lot of the challenges we face here in 2019 we've been staring at for quite some time (that whole nostalgia thing again) and while too often we prefer problems that are familiar to solutions which may not be, this might be a good year, if not the best one so far, to stop looking for somebody to step up and help out and, instead, be that somebody ourselves.

As a rule, I don’t make (or keep) New Year’s resolutions (the only one in recent years was the one to stop having them) but I’m not above attempting alliances and seeking partnerships and I’m betting/hoping that you are, too.

I think we get daunted by what we see as the enormity of the tasks we face be they in our personal lives, interpersonal relationships, and here where we live. I don’t think I’m the only one and if you’re the same way that would make two of us and that’s a good start. And on this, the second day of the new year, a good start is a good place for all of us to be.

-bill kenny     

We Are Here

Where we go now is up to us.
-bill kenny