I Love a Parade

And to think earlier this season people were complaining about the lack of snow, confusing climate with weather as they sneered 'so much for global warming.' I do enjoy the arrogance of ignorance or is it the ignorance of arrogance of which I'm so fond? 

Moot point (and you can see for miles from it).

Speaking of the sights, I have the good fortune of having a wonderful and historic place to promenade proudly very nearly no matter the weather practically across the street from our house (actually, it's up the street but I was working on an attempted alliteration and needed the practically to close the trifecta).

On a day like yesterday, after the snow and ice had cleared out, I could enjoy this:

Which I most certainly did, especially since seventy-two hours previously, practically from the same spot I had this. 

Where's Rosebud when I really need it, Orson?
-bill kenny
  

Alan Eats Here

Pink Floyd made Alan Styles (no relation to Harry)  semi-famous decades ago and still (to my knowledge) he never ended up with a breakfast entree named for himself, proving that fame can be both cruel and fleeting. 

I love going to places, joints, really, where you can get breakfast any time of the day. A lot of places I've frequented in my life, I suspect, the only meal they did a decent job on would have been breakfast. 

One of the great things about social media is being able to look at slices of life from elsewhere but most especially places you have not yet, nor ever, been. I just checked  Google Maps and it would be close to a drive all night situation for me to ever enjoy dining in a Waffle House, but I don't have to imagine the tunes I'd listen to while on the way there.  Road trip, anyone?  
-bill kenny

WOW!

It was a very long time ago when I wanted to grow up to be an astronaut. I wasn't alone-there was a whole generation of us who watched Jules Bergman, 'Science Reporter for ABC', bring us all the rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, later Cape Kennedy, dreaming of being John Glenn.

Our window on the world back then was about fifteen inches diagonal and almost always in black and white. It was our electric fire with a place of honor in the living room. We didn't know any better, or any other, and were happy with what we had. Now we have so much more but there's a hunger and an unease that never leaves us. 

It was a time when you had a transistor radio with a white six-foot earplug and if your mom wrote a note to the teacher, you might be able to take your radio to school and listen in to the launches, but you had to promise to be so much more well-behaved than was humanly possible, it was hardly worth it.

Still, we all sat up, in my case on the upstairs landing of the summer house, catching glimpses of the flickering images in the living room from the TV showing the world as we walked on the moon. And now we have this as of yesterday, that puts me back on those stairs, and it's nice to be numbed again by the majesty of achievement that we humans are capable of when we really and truly try.

We've made a mess of so many things as a species. We're the hit-and-run artists of the cosmos but when we do something gobsmacking and over the top, there's a nonchalant arrogance, or perhaps an arrogant nonchalance that makes me grin from ear to ear. It's hard to be humble, sometimes with good reason, like today.

"Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
-bill kenny

Downhill Stuff

Hopefully, you've survived our recent rash of the white stuff. I think if I can type this, then I did as well and we can proceed from there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably live somewhere other than Texas or the East Coast of the United (for the most part) States and have gotten off very lucky this time (and good for you).

A lot of us had a lot of snow in the course of this week, though here in Southeastern Connecticut, it didn't really start to get serious until Super Bowl Sunday. But when it did, it really did. The snow started to pile higher and the wind the Weather Channel had warned us about for hours finally arrived ('hurray!' say the happy faces on the TV, 'we're right!' Well, yeah, even a blind pig finds an acorn) and all that wild guessing sure helped, didn't it?

As the week unfolded and we ended up with some snow seemingly every other day, more and more of us trekked out to the grocery store to get milk and toilet paper. It's what we do here in the Land of Steady of Habits. We may have clogged arteries, but our colons are so clean we can pass a Cadillac. In light of the snow we've had in the years we've lived up here, it's a miracle we have any cows left. And don't get me started on low-Flo toilets. You prepare for Armageddon your way, and we'll do it ours.

Of course, the store was mobbed. Each storm could be the one. Just like the previous one or the next one. You cannot be too careful. When you live in the oldest part of the country you learn to measure twice before cutting off your nose once to spite your face. Tell you what was MOST interesting to me, the number of folks going in and out of the liquor store near the mall where the grocery store is located.

At first, I thought maybe people had gotten confused as to where the gas station was located to get fuel for the snow blowers as that's just a little farther down the street. But as I'm waiting to make my turn against traffic at the light, I'm watching folks in my mirror come out of the spirits shop with every assortment of brown bag imaginable-and in this state, there's not a lot else that comes in brown paper bags except liquor (so much for sweet mystery), leading me to wonder if some of us prepare to get plowed at a more literal level than others.

-bill kenny

A Sentiment that Bears Repeating

There will come a day when there will be no need to yammer on about the importance of lending a hand to someone less fortunate, as I did a couple of years back to mark this day,  Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season, and its importance. 

But today, so far, is not that day, so here goes (again). The previous time I called it. 

Help, Lent, and Other Four Letter Words

Our winter weather has afforded me a chance to do something I don't do very successfully or too often: think. (I suspect the former is contingent on the latter). Let’s face it, even though we gripe sometimes (me especially), our lives are pretty cozy. It’s easy to think everyone lives as well because we may not know, or know of, anyone who wakes up in a cold house and has to choose between food or fuel, for themselves and their family every morning.

Certain times of the year, like the Christmas holidays, we’re better able to see those in our community who need a helping hand; but the need for assistance is year-round. And that brings me to now. We all understand the strain the pandemic has precipitated; money is tight, and so are the times. But if you're reading this at the breakfast table or on break at work, trust me when I tell you we are better off than many who live in our state, perhaps even on our street.

I have never needed to make a 'Heat or Eat' decision and I hope, neither have you. New England winters can be bone-numbingly cold in the best of times, but when you're choosing to pay your heating bill or to buy groceries, that’s a no-win decision that can freeze your heart and crush your hope. In a nation that prides itself on how we care for and about one another, Heat or Eat should be a turn of phrase none of us has ever heard or used.

Like you, I do what I can, when I can, for the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry but I have no illusions that our spur of the moment donations are anything more than trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon. 

Regular, planned contributions to agencies like the Connecticut Food Bank help get the tools such as mobile food banks to those on the front lines in the battle against hunger at a time when over four hundred thousand Connecticut residents every month need some form of assistance from agencies who are supported by the Food Bank. 

That number includes nearly a quarter of a million children who are "food insecure" (= a sociology term for no reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable and nutritious food). Hand-wringing and head-shaking solve nothing because even one child is one too many. The solution isn't in Washington or Hartford, it's in each of us. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent, a time of sacrifice. How about this year, instead of giving something up, we give something to those who are helping others? Time, talent, treasure, it's your choice. 

Together, we can change the world, one meal at a time. Become a sustaining donor today and make a difference starting tomorrow.

-bill kenny

Arm like a Cannon

Pitchers and catchers report for Major League Baseball spring training camp today for the Baltimore Orioles. As a life-long (so far) New York Yankees fan, I detest the Baltimore Orioles because I actively dislike their owner whom I've never met and who is probably a pretty decent guy but he doesn't own the Yankees so I don't like him. But I digress. 

Tomorrow, pitchers and catchers for both the Los Angeles (at Anaheim) Angels and the New York Mets report followed on Thursday by the Minnesota Twins, but the Orioles are, in this Year Two of COVID-19, my first Robin of Spring. 

While I'm hoping for a full and safe Major League Baseball season with players on their homefields in front of actual fans, I'll take what I can get. And before any of us fall in love with some of the high priced pitching talent acquired over the off-season for what might be the GNP of some Third World nation or a hard-throwing rookie coming out of nowhere and stepping off the bus from Kenosha, ask yourself this, no matter who we're talking about 'Is he faster than a Supersonic Baseball Cannon?' 

Yeah. I didn't think so.
-bill kenny

Blame Abe and George

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday showed up on my calendar for last Friday but it has had less meaning for decades, since Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act and we rolled it into the birthday celebrating the Father of Our Country, George Washington (normally 22 February) and then decided to honor everyone who's ever been President to include Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, and the guy who was the subject of a very recent Senate impeachment trial whose name I refuse to type. (Yeah, I'm that petty; my blog, my rules.)

That George spent more than half of his farewell address warning his countrymen about the dangers of political partisanship, I find, in light of where we are today, astounding. That Honest Abe used his Second Inaugural Address to offer "(w)ith malice toward none, with charity for all..." at a moment in our history where we most fervently hated one another (with a ferocity that would cost him his very life a little more than thirteen months later) causes me to wonder why we, you and me and all the lunatic loudmouths and bombastic blowhards on either side of the political fence, can't pipe down long enough to work together to get this cart we're all in out of the ditch we've maneuvered it into. 

To put it into perspective: when Washington and Lincoln were presidents, people disagreed to the point they fired weapons at one another--and you've seen 'em, it took work to shoot at somebody. None of this cap bustin' stuff; serious mayhem was on the agenda. All this pouting and posturing we are up to on Sunday morning talk shows and in the Halls of Congress makes my brain hurt, and when we get all through sorting out who's to blame for all the wrongs and shortcomings, real and/or imagined, maybe we can devote a scintilla of that energy to fixing things. We certainly have a target-rich environment to choose from, don't we? 

Washington, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Stephen Douglas, Lincoln, and hundreds and thousands of others if not millions and tens of millions were so busy building this nation and defending it from attacks from within and without they didn't have the luxury of ideology. 

Today shouldn't be an opportunity or excuse to shop, advertising to the contrary-it's a moment to look at the lives of those who have been President of the United States and whose efforts and sacrifices we honor today (in my case, with one exception).

And even though we don't get a day on the calendar for ourselves, this is when we use their day as a fulcrum to move each of us, and all of us, closer together in order to form a more perfect union. And to stop being so bitchy about it with one another while we're at it.
-bill kenny