With a Fine Truth Comb

Since it gets bandied about in our civil and often less than civil discourse with one another and repeatedly invoked in our mass media of choice and choosing, here's something worth chewing on, the definition of truth according to Merriam-Webster. 

I am especially taken with the turn of phrase, 'the things that are true.' 

If you think I'm raining on your 'the vaccine activates the 5G nano-trackers in your blood so JFK Jr. can find you faster' or 'the November 2020 election was as crooked as the veracity-impaired now-former president insists' or in particular, 'waves of unvaccinated caravans of illegals are streaming across our southern borders to take our jobs,' then yeah, you probably need to put a raincoat on and do up those galoshes. After all, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. 

Somewhere at some point truth went from being an integral and essential part of our national dialogue to roadkill on the human highway. A fashion accessory sold only at the finest stores and for a limited time only. 

If we've learned nothing since the start of this century it should be that such a notion is bullshit. 

The big, beautiful lie will be the death of us yet. Just gimme some truth.
-bill kenny 

#MoreThanAHashtag

I am a flaming heterosexual, white man of nearly seventy years of age so my ability to be patient and allow folks to diddle around and get away with misrespecting and disrespecting one another is just about exhausted. 

I am well past the 'this is not my first rodeo' phase of life and I am continuing to gather medical documentation that the promise of infinite sunrises and sunsets is just another beautiful lie. 

I do know that we are a short time here and a long time gone so not seeing the best in one another or not being the best to one another is, at least the way I was raised, a sin. 

Five years on, the prayer remains the same.

Prayers are fine but actions speak louder, so start yelling.
-bill kenny   

From the (Song) Book of Paul

Think of butterfly wings beating and tidal waves halfway across the globe. 

There's a thin red line that connects all of us to each of us, whether we like it or not. The good thing about a belief like that is no matter how far away we are from one another, we share the air and the sky. 

As Paul Simon once warbled, "The answer is easy if you take it logically." 

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee, Art. 
-bill kenny

Leroy Anderson Has Some 'Splainin' To Do

I'm a child of rock and roll. I was the oldest of my parents' children so I didn't have an older sibling to walk me through hootenannies and folk music, or Belafonte-inspired calypso or any of those vocal white guy groups with identical haircuts, matching sweaters, and harmonies like the Four Freshmen. 

Growing up I don't recall a lot of radio in the house. I do recall a lot of Broadway musical soundtracks coming from the Fisher cabinet Dad bought from Liberty Music on Fifth Avenue in New York City; a piece of furniture whose whole function seemed to be to attract dust that became the bane of mom's existence. 

I mention all of this so that when I tell you my idea of classical music is early Beatles, you can appreciate my perspective if not actually accept it.  And I mention The Beatles and classical music in the same sentence (twice in a row if we're keeping track at home) because for quite a large number of years I was quite pleased with myself when I said I very much enjoyed Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter.  

I realize your reaction might be more of 'that's ninety seconds of my life I'll never get back,' but, as they say on those late-night TV infomercials, wait! There's more! 

I don't imagine the maintenance crew appreciated amateurs appropriating their tools but I think we'd all agree that great art takes sacrifice.

Proving again, your eyes and ears, and yours alone, determine what you consider art.
-bill kenny

The Seasons Shift

My wife and I celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Well, I celebrated. I think my wife put on a brave front and made the best of it all. We have shared the last thirty of our years together as residents of The Rose of New England, raising two children (she did most if not all of the heavy lifting), our son, Patrick, and daughter, Michelle, to adulthood. Both attended the now closed and gone Buckingham School, then Kelly Middle School, Norwich Free Academy, and then up and away into the big world.

I thought a lot about the years and the changes those years have brought that she and I have seen since arriving here while enjoying another glorious autumn New England weekend). Don't get me wrong. When it comes to winter and snow I am not nor have I ever been a fan since I spent thirteen months in Greenland back in the middle Seventies while wearing Air Force blue. Oddly enough, it doesn't keep you warm-trust me on that.

Autumn is a good time to pause and take stock of where we have been and where we are going as the days, already short, seem to grow more so as Daylight Savings Time ended earlier this month and the calendar fills with holidays. I was thinking about who we were when we first arrived here and some, and most certainly not all, the people we have been in the ensuing years.

We've lived on the same street for all this time, surrounded by friends and neighbors who raised their families here as well. Our part of the street had all, or most, of the children back in the day and everybody went to school together and after school, everyone played with everyone else to include a homegrown specialty, "Home Run Derby." It was, I believe, unique to our block and played almost all year round. It had more to do with being neighbors than it ever had to do with baseball. That was then and Home Run Derby is now a memory.

All of our children are grown now and almost all of them are gone, some near and others far, many with families of their own. Our part of the street was quiet for many years as most of the school-age children lived on the other end and their laughter and shouts rarely carried to where we sat in the quiet waiting for what might happen next. In more recent years, younger children have started to come back on our part of the street, like the tide kissing the shore and giving us all a more lived-in feeling

Intellectually, I think we accept the notion of change without ever really accepting that change is like the ripple from a pebble in a pond and begins at the center or, in the case of a community, with each of us and radiates outward. It's all well and good to talk about the importance of 'investing in education,' but if you will not concede that such an investment could mean your taxes will rise, all the talk is worthless. Our recent municipal elections will have consequences for years, and longer, to come but many of us who did vote (and it wasn't as many as should have) took less to decide on ballot choices than we would with a take-out menu.

We can spend as many hours as you'd like talking about the way things were in Norwich and play Pin the Blame on the Passing Years while dreaming and scheming of better days, but unless and until each of us can let go of hurt and hard feelings from decades of decisions whose intentions may have been laudable but whose outcomes were less than optimal we'll keep circling for a landing without ever arriving. There is no standing still. If we will not move forward we shall fall behind and once that happens we end up very close to where we are right now.

Look around. Accept the colorful leaves on the trees fall to the ground and turn brown but realize by so doing they permit the budding of the next spring and assure a new beginning.
-billl kenny

The Silent M in Masses

When/if your belief system doesn't encourage, allow. or accommodate new information or differing points of view, it's not actually a belief system. 

It's a superstition.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
-bill kenny 

Two at Eighteen

We've got her. "Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty promises." 

And we've got him. Blubbering.

Life on earth continues to be a dark ride.
-bill kenny