A Serviceable Villain

Watched someone in sweats the other day walking towards the end of the shopping center that has a fitness center smoking a cigarette, which she finished and flicked onto the parking lot in front of the entrance before going inside. 

I smoked two/three packs of cigarettes a day for twenty-two (plus) years and have my own definitions of insanity and dependence, as does each of us with a vice, but for Kafkaesque humor, you'd have to go some to top that. I'm thinking perhaps of trying to wolf down a Haagen-Dazs giant ice cream cone before crossing the threshold into the fitness center, assuming the H-D guys are still in business and make such an item.

We like the routine, the reassurance of the rote drill (I think), and maybe that's where we believe the benefit accrues. It's like small children learning the Pledge of Allegiance long before they have any idea what allegiance even means (for some of us that's still true through old age). A whole generation now hits the fitness centers in the same way previous ones frequented the bars and clubs on Saturday nights or the churches on the Sunday mornings that followed.

But for what purpose, and to what end? Behaviorists refer to an Obesity epidemic in the United States and it surfaces for its fifteen minutes on the electronic vapor and vapid box in the corner of the living room and then we have another double cholesterol-and-bacon burger from the neighborhood drive-in and don't forget to supersize the fries and, what?-oh yeah, the drink? Gimme a diet cola, no ice.

Instead of studying and attempting to learn the lessons behind research like this, we watch talk shows where panelists discuss it without resolving the issue and dream of the day we can be in the studio audience, and under our theater seat is a special thank you gift ......pair of Nike Running shoes(?) I think not. There may not be a free lunch like the teachers in school told us, but everyone knows someone with healthy eating tips, and the napkins are recyclable.

I'm wondering if we're not better off just eliminating the middleman and cutting out the white space. Put a cigar bar in the fitness center--or set up one of those luxurious dessert places in the lobby; call it "Cool Whip and Curls", and no one will snicker. Those who wish to indulge can, and the rest of us can pretend to not see any of it as it'll all be out of sight. 

Look at how often we've used that trick to handle world events that should and could have numbed us. Besides, it keeps us from walking around with our eyes closed-people can get hurt going through life like that.
-bill kenny

If There's a God in the the Sky

Walking into the Stop and Shop the other afternoon just in time to catch a sentence fragment of a dad and his young lad on their way out--Little Guy (LG): "Which would you rather be? Eaten by a shark or a pack of coyotes?"--Bewildered Dad (BD): "What?!? Where's your brother? (spies smaller child over by the bottled water exchange rack) David! Let's go, now!"

So, it turns out there are folks who do watch Shark Week and take it to heart. Wish they'd have come up with someone in addition to a fish taco sponsor, at least online. It's like having lunch in the aquarium cafeteria and discovering they have fish on the menu, as has happened to me. You start mentally reviewing the exhibits you passed through before lunch just in case there was one 'closed for renovation' and it turns out you've now stumbled upon the real reason.

I didn't get to hear which choice Dad opted for though I was impressed with the question his child had posed. Thanks to technology conversions including the Internet and nearly unlimited channels of cable TV, our children now have access to untold volumes of information, probably more before they start school than you or I had by the time we graduated from college. 

In theory, this is a good thing, though maybe I'm getting crotchety in my antiquity, but we're not making better choices as we age because we treat all information as knowledge when a lot of it may be just noise. And at the rate of expansion for the world's cumulative knowledge, the good news is NOT that it's not only going to get a lot worse, but, rather, it's never going to get better.
-bill kenny

Distinction With Difference

Have you ever heard the phrase, 'six of one and a half dozen of the other'? (HINT: This goes a lot faster if you nod your head yes) 

How about 'difference without distinction'? That one is a bit more nuanced, I'd agree. That however cannot be said for its converse. 

Wow. Things you never knew, right?
-bill kenny

Armchair Vacations

The summer vacation season is winding down unless you're one of the millions to tens of millions who had neither the time nor the dollars to take a vacation. 

I have a suggestion that will not get you out of the house, but it will also not get you into debt and it will allow you to take a break and it's courtesy of the National Park Service. 

You can go where you want when you want. You don't have to keep your hands inside the car or worry about feeding or not feeding the bears.
Just a mouse click and you're gone.
-bill kenny

And Then There Was One

I grew up in New Jersey (Exit 9 before you ask) and it never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about having a service station attendant pump my gasoline, and (because I am so old it's almost prehistoric) they would also check under the hood and look at your oil and other fluid levels AND clean your windshield. Yepper. No lie. 

I'm not sure why New Jersey required a service station attendant, but they did and still do. In most other states I've driven, you pump your own gas. For the longest time, only Oregon and New Jersey were the hold-outs and now, it's just Jersey.   

And Jersey guys ain't too wild about it either

Now that I'm a geezer, I think I'd like to be coddled a little bit at a gas station so maybe there could be a movement to bring back 'gas jockeys' as I think they were called, or was it 'pump pimps'? No, probably not that one, because everyone deserves to be pampered if not always then at least just a little bit.
-bill kenny

Define Your Terms

You might think it's early to mention the November elections for six seats on the City Council and nine on the Board of Education. Maybe. 

Usually, I spend much of my time considering choices for City Council but as the son of a lifelong schoolteacher, I want to write about the importance of choosing wisely for the next Board of Education. 

The buzzword this election in these post-pandemic times is “parental rights” in relation to schools, children, and education, The phrase is on everyone's lips, even here as Matt Grahn reported recently in The Bulletin. The trouble is, I can’t seem to find a definition of exactly what are “parental rights.”

Nevertheless, one of the two parties' slates for the Norwich Board of Education makes it a prominent plank in their election platform. Their Town Committee Chairman says, "Parental rights is a strong concern, even for people who aren’t parents yet or won’t have children, as they recognize the impact “hands-on” boards of education can have on children locally and all over the country.' (My emphasis added.)

That's as may be, but an article in Chalkbeat which calls itself, 'essential education reporting across America' reports 'Most Americans aren't satisfied with public schools-but most parents like their child's school.' It would seem the difference in evaluations by an adult with children in a public school (a parent) and an adult with no children is startling, to say the least.

Let me offer some personal perspective: Our two children were products of the Norwich Public Schools, attending Buckingham (now a grassy knoll), Kelly (then Middle) School, before enrolling in and graduating from Norwich Free Academy.

Our daughter, the younger of the two, graduated from Kelly in 2001 so my frame of reference is more than a bit dated, but my memories are still fresh about our involvement at parent-teacher conferences, as well as participation in the TPO (or was it PTO?) meetings for one or the other and I or my wife spent many, many evenings enjoying coffee and conversation at Board of Education meetings in the Kelly library (all before the renovations and expansion).

What I do NOT remember is swarms of grown-ups exercising their “parental rights” by attending parent-teacher conferences, participating in PTO meetings, or getting engaged in many, to say nothing of any, classroom activities their child's schools and teachers organized throughout the school year.

I can also recall Board of Ed meetings with fewer than six parents in attendance for a school system with thousands of children enrolled. I'm assuming the meetings too often conflicted with nights Seinfeld was on TV, or a Massachusetts sports team was playing.

Sorry for the snark. Not.

“Parental rights” must be inseparable from concomitant obligations and responsibilities which in our house meant making sure homework was completed (looking at you, Patrick), the next day's assignments were prepared (Michelle), and accomplishing everything my wife and I could do to help our children succeed. 

Between us, I fear that definition of “parental rights” went the way of the dodo and clean air, but I strongly urge everyone who is a parent, or anyone thinking of becoming a parent, to demand of every candidate seeking a seat on the Board of Education a definition of “parental rights” and how they would foster and further involvement and engagement of all parents which is critical to the success of every child in Norwich Schools. 

Do not let them offer you a cliché-make them define their terms.
-bill kenny

Old Rivers Grow Wilder Everyday

When I was a kid I didn't know anyone at the age I am now. Seriously. We were around my mom's parents a lot and I couldn't tell you how old they were (except 'really old') without grasping the concept of age. 

I once asked our mom if she was around for the Battles of the Blues and Greys (Civil War) because I was really interested in the Civil War but the time-space continuum concept hadn't fully seated itself in my noggin, seemingly.  

I mention any and all of that because despite the ugly mug that stares back at me every morning in the mirror with a combination of dismay and despair I can't improve or alter in any way, I don't see myself as an old person even though I am.

And I'm not alone. 

The Red, White, and Blue are going gray and where my parents, and yours, wed for a lifetime, the new media buzzword is gray divorce. Having spent many years convinced I was unloveable, and then (miraculously) having found the love of my life I read and re-read the article because let's face it, life is hard and even harder when you're by yourself. 

Yes, I understand how everything that's put together can fall apart, but matters of the heart are always best when viewed as pairs and in perpetuity.
Loneliness isn't the same as being alone, but it is worse. Far worse.
-bill kenny