The View from Sugar Mountain

It's been sneaking up on us for weeks, technically for a little more than a month. The hours of daylight have already started to shrink and we're just starting August. The little boy in me (okay, very, very deep inside of me. Happy now?) always feels sad when I realize the getting dark after dinner part is starting earlier and earlier. 

It's not like I'm hurrying to clean my plate so I can be excused to go over to Neil's house and then down the street to Bobby's and call them to come out and play catch. Heck, if those two are in half the shape I'm in, by the time we get to the sandlot, it'll be pitch black. Life called on account of darkness. There's one for the record books.

Remember all the plans we had 'for the summer,' back around Memorial Day? This was the summer we were going to work on all those projects around the house we were putting off waiting for good weather. And how we studied the calendar to figure out when we were going on vacation because this summer would be the Road Trip to End All Road Trips. 

And what happened? Life, I guess. And talk about a seamless transition to rival the decrease in daylight: we went from planning that Fourth of July blowout to checking out the ads in the newspaper for back-to-school clothing sales for the kids. 

You know how there's that disclaimer on your vehicle's passenger mirror, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"? The same is true for calendars. Three weeks from tomorrow children will return to their schools all across our city. Ready or not, here they come. 

Quick tip of the hat to every single business on earth, or so it seems, whose been advertising for what feels like forever that 'Back to School' is just around the corner. And now it is. Talk about 'be careful what you wish for.'

As hot and humid as it's been here in Southeast Connecticut (I really hate when I break a sweat early in the morning not doing anything but standing in one place, inhaling and exhaling), I'll whine just as piteously (actually more so) in February when the snow's crisp and even and the temperature is hovering somewhere south of freezing. But the seasonal dying of the light saddens me, especially as I age, because I see life as a measured commodity and don't appreciate reminders that it flows within and without me, especially the latter aspect.

One of the Facebook friends I have (an acquaintance, as are most of them, at best) was observing the other day how grey the skies were where they are right now-which I think is probably a kinder idea in the spring and summer than in the autumn and fall since during the latter many of us peer at the heavens warily and observe 'if it gets any colder, with this sky, it'll snow.' 

Because they are considerably younger than I am, as are most people on earth, I didn't comment on the slightly disappointed tone of unhappiness they had about the weather and its impact on their family working vacation. You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain, but when you are, you should be kinder than when twenty isn't visible in the mirror anymore.  

'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' If you think Robert Herrick is encouraging you to visit the Rose Garden at Mohegan Park, that's fine; if you haven't you should while you can. 

But my larger point, visible even when I'm wearing a ballcap, is Carpe Diem, seize the day, every day because you don't get any of them back. And ruing and regretting what would have/could have/should have been, benefits no one and time spent doing so is wasted. Make each minute memorable.
-bill kenny

Well, the Good Days May Not Return

At some point today, and we're hoping to be present, my youngest brother, Adam, becomes a Superior Court Justice in the State of New Jersey. Unlike being my youngest brother, he had to earn that honor, Your Honor, and it suits him well. 

I'm smiling thinking of how our parents must be smiling as they look down on him. Yes indeed! 'Up and at 'em, Adam Ant!'

Two different and (maybe) related events happened yesterday. I am perhaps their only point of intersection.  

I was out walking briefly and encountered a bandy-legged toddler, not much more than a week into solo walking (I'd guess). He moved as much side to side as forward, all the while with a smile so wide I imagine you could see it from space. And how he laughed! I can remember our two children being about his size (I don't guess ages on anybody, much less miniature people) and giggling as they slowly walked until they were grown and gone.

The toddler's mother was close at hand, far enough away he felt that he was on his own, but still near enough to quickly intervene should she need to (knowing the difference between those two states is an art). As we passed one another he stopped and looked me up and down (he came to just above my knees) long enough for one of us to relish the journey ahead and the other to regret the trail sometimes taken, and then, as unsteady as ever, he moved on. 

Later in the day, I fell across an old feature I'd bookmarked a decade earlier on Ray Bradbury. I have read, or owned, nearly everything he has ever written, so keep your 'I didn't even know he was still alive' remarks to yourself. Titles such as Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451, and unending short stories to include And There Will Come Soft Rains, are as fresh to me now as when I first read them six decades ago.

The article noted Bradbury describes himself as a 'delicatessen religionist', inspired by Eastern and Western religions, who believes that "Joy is the grace we say to God." I am not good at arithmetic so I don't how many incidents and accidents in a particular sequence had to occur for me to have found this in the vastness of the Internet after an encounter with an advance scout from the Next Century.

His observation that "I jump off the cliff, and build my wings on the way down" takes my breath away. I've been watching the days draw down without ever understanding what happens After This Song Is Over, but I'm thinking, maybe, now I can fashion a truce with myself to get farther down the road. I've had as much trouble with the journey as with the destination and I may never get that sorted out but I guess I'll know when I get there.
-bill kenny

Friends, Romans, and Countrymen!

The face that confronts me every morning in the mirror is all the proof I thought I ever needed that even rock and roll kids do age. Last week, I got an additional not-especially-subtle reminder, hearing aids.

Too many decades of rock music at MAX VOL at the concert mixing board combined with one too many news stories on US Army tank ranges and small-arms training innovations had reduced me to making 'WHAT?!?' the most frequently used word in my vocabulary.

The hearing loss is/was very slow-I didn't actually think I had a problem until last fall when I first realized I was missing out and missing out badly. Two sets of visits to professionals who specialize in audiometry confirmed my wife's theory that I wasn't so much ignoring her as not hearing her. 

I'm not sure I want to know what the consequences for the former would have been; for the latter, it's my still-have-that-new-hearing-aids-smell hearing aids. It's like going from black and white to color. I thought I was joking when I told the technician I expected to be able to hear a mosquito fart but still getting used to them at 80% efficiency, I think I might have been correct. 

Thank you, Jose and Heidi at Beltone. I can finally hear myself think.
Now I understand what everyone else is always so upset about.  
-bill kenny

How About Best of Three?

I am a lousy guesser and always have been.  

I mention that because of the title of an article I encountered, "The One Good Reason You Should Never Take Your Shoes Off On an Airplane (besides the obvious, that is)"

I guessed that 'the obvious' had something to do with Samuel L. Jackson and the movie, "Snakes on a Plane." Resounding 'nope.' 

I will admit the actual reason is even scarier than snakes. 
-bill kenny

Following Newman's Advice

I like to think of myself as a 'getting along by going along' kind of guy, except I'm actually not. 

I more closely resemble an unreconstructed butthead on any manner of topics from music (what I like is great but what you like may not be), religion (my God can beat up your God), to politics (I just don't think a thirty-four time convicted felon who has also been found guilty of sexual assault and defamation of character, should be wandering around free, much less as a presidential candidate of a major political party, at least NOT in the US).   

My heart beats on the left side of my body and my politics follows my heart. As the bald spot on the top of my head gets larger (I like to think of it as a solar panel, powering a sex machine but who am I kidding, right?) I've taken to wearing ball caps. I have quite a collection of bands, and sports teams as well as more than a few espousing causes I feel strongly about including Vote Vets, Legalize Voting, and Make America Not Embarrassing Again. 

Not that long ago, I added another statement cap that I've been slightly reticent to wear out and about at the risk of injuring the easily bruised feelings of MAGATs and Evangenitals. 

Funny thing about those feelings. 

Coming out of our local supermarket last Friday morning I passed an older-than-me gentleman (they do exist) on his way in with a cap that pretty much resolved any ambiguity I might have had about upsetting people.

Thanks for clearing that up. 

As for all the hoodless Klansmen who think DEI as the New Orange Is the New Black, as we both know, DJT is 100% DEI, Didn't Earn It. And, let me give you a pronunciation tip for her first name: it's President (prez-i-duhnt) Harris.

Order yours

And FWIW, it's Randy Newman's advice I'm following.
-bill kenny

 

Drive-By Endorsements

Advertising has evolved in my lifetime, and yours, and we may not be as aware of it as we could be. At one point, there were TV commercials for Preparation H that had a white male seated at what looked like a library table talking in terms so nebulous I grew up thinking hemorrhoids had something to do with book bindings. 

Today every product that's worth its weight on the NASDAQ has a celebrity spokesperson, none more prominently or frequently, than automobiles. Until I came across this, I hadn't appreciated just how pervasive the celebrity celebration of auto-erotica actually is. 

One small step for man. One obscenely large paycheck for someone who doesn't really need the money. Somewhere the Ghost of Ted Kennedy sighs.
-bill kenny

Dick the Butcher May Have Had a Point

We live in a society governed by laws with a justice system intended to assure fairness (even if sometimes the results miss the mark) yet many of us regard the word 'lawyer' as some kind of an insult. 

Unless and except when we need an attorney and then, of course, the one we choose is a prince among men, a Solon without peer (the other guy's attorney, not so much). 

For those who take a dim view of lawyers and the law, a story like this seems (to me) to leave more questions than it answers. Bear in mind as you go back over that article, that the lawsuit was discontinued (with prejudice), and not dismissed so Allison the plaintiff cannot reinitiate the suit. I love the cryptic line, "More information about why the lawsuit was discontinued was not available." 

And if you are what you eat, do not dine at Wings On Hamilton, especially if you are lunching with a lawyer (I'm guessing). Although, I still don't understand 'boneless wings.' Are they from chickens that are just a blob of feathers and white meat on the coop floor?   

Too much nuance can ruin a meal or a lawsuit I suspect. And how did those fan blades get so dirty?
-bill kenny