Sweet Dreams

As I've aged (badly), I'm stunned at how my lifestyle changes are adding up. For decades, I got up at three in the morning and didn't go to bed until 'late' (the time varied). 

And now, I sleep most days until at least eight in the morning, and by half past nine at night, I'm climbing into (metaphorical) footie pajamas and calling it a day. 

Something I've started to spend a lot of time thinking about: 'where does sleep come from?'

Adenosine and volcanoes. Who knew it was such a powerful combination?
-bill kenny

20/20 Hindsight

In the warmth of the post-Election Day glow, if I may inject a short infusion of pragmatism: with all the money spent on campaign literature, signs, advertising, pony rides, campaign events, and--you caught that, didn't you? And I was trying to be so clever....so now what should I do with the saddle? 

Anyway, with all that money spent on the electoral equivalent of fireworks or party favors, how is it that there's never enough money budgeted by anyone's campaign to pay for the pick-up and clean-up the day after they burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away (and how come there's never room in the van for all the crazies that were howling at the moon throughout the campaign)?

Tale of two days near where I live in Norwich: a major intersection of two highways where traditionally, the Monday before the election candidates and their supporters cluster and hold up their campaign's lawn signs as commuting motorists whiz by in, and towards, every direction as the lawn signs are waved and horns get honked (or vice versa for all I know). 

In the thirty-four years of living here and speaking with all kinds of folks who've sought office and taken part in this ritual, I've yet to meet any candidates who've suggested they've gained even a single vote by so doing.

I've asked voters if they have ever changed their minds about a candidate because he/she was standing out on the intersection in the rain, fog, locusts, sleet, or chill (see pony rides, above, for inclusion of locusts), waving a lawn sign, and the answer is 'nope.'  And yet there was the whole gang on Monday waving signs. No one knows the reason, only the history.

Join me now on that same corner, same time of day-but yesterday when all the laughter had turned to sorrow. Solitude (and carbon monoxide) as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, the other lawn signs, the ones in front of houses that neighbors are losing to mortgage companies and banks and foreclosures, will wave in any breeze at anyone.....

-bill kenny

Time for the Prose

Disclaimer: I had no personal stake in the outcome of yesterday's elections here in Norwich. I wasn’t running for anything, or from anything (with my knees, always welcome news), and I had no bets riding on how the votes turned out.

I know for whom I voted and why (and hope you did the same) but I believe by this dawn's early light, whoever we chose for City Council and Board of Education will have a difficult job, as will almost all of those across this country, newcomer and incumbent, who serve in our millions of communities, townships and cities in a variety of offices. 

Sometimes the passions during election season can blur that perspective, and, speaking for myself, if they have in recent weeks, be it thought, word, or deed, my apologies.

I once read (and remember) someone telling me, ‘We campaign in poetry but must govern in prose.’ I’d like to think that means while we use words to excite and perhaps incite supporters during a campaign for office, once the morning after Election Day arrives, we must attempt to govern by summoning the best from within ourselves and hoping for the same from the other side of the aisle.

Offering me a bigger perspective on this idea earlier this week, though I suspect that was not necessarily their intention, were lawn signs on neighboring properties I passed on New London Turnpike, supporting candidates of both parties for a variety of offices..

I've driven past these houses for years with little to no thought and wouldn’t be surprised to learn that in all those years, the very same people have been living there, leading whatever lives they lead, together with their families. 

I can imagine the members of those households sharing flag football games in the fall that spill across each of their yards, enjoying summer barbecues and winter snowball fights, and going trick or treating together or organizing whiffle ball tournaments that begin on lazy summer afternoons shortly after mid-day and don’t conclude until the last of the light has faded from the sky in the evening.

What I saw in these houses were neighbors who had different views on who was best to assume leadership positions in the city each of them calls home. And not just here but all across this country, today in the aftermath of the ballots cast before polls closed yesterday evening, discussions and conversations on that topic will continue even as each of those neighbors starts their day by opening their front door this morning to retrieve the newspaper, for one of them, their candidate for office will have been less than successful.

And perhaps later in the morning or maybe tonight after putting the car in the garage and walking the dog, they will go out to where those lawn signs are, pull them out by the stakes, put the metal frame holder in the garage for another day, and fold the cardboard sign in half and place it in the recycling box.

And their world, and ours as well, will continue, as shall we. Because the sun also rises, learning to see it is both a skill and an art.
-bill kenny

Cast an Informed Ballot

Today is Election Day. If you haven't yet voted, STOP reading this and do that. There is nothing more important today than voting-save this dithering for dessert, and I hope I can deal with that pressure.

I’m not sure if I’m heartened that so much of what I see as drama this election season is the same movie with different actors, or depressed that we keep having the same discussions and arguments on the same issues all this time without ever resolving anything.

The distinctions between national and local politics, as events in recent weeks have shown, can be stark. While beneath the Capitol Dome of The District, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are visible from space, at Norwich City Hall in Council Chambers or in Kelly Middle School at a Board of Education meeting, it's more a matter of nuance than differences in ideology.

Again, this election season, we are blessed with choices and voices that many in neighboring towns wish they had, and yet, let’s face it, we’ll struggle as we always do to approach 35% of all registered voters going to the polls and casting a ballot. In 2023, of 19,312 voters. 5,564 actually voted. Pathetic. Fingers crossed, we do better today.  

By this time tomorrow, we will have selected a Mayor, six city council members, and nine members for the Board of Education. Here on earth, party labels don't mean as much as ideas and the personalities who espouse them. None of those seeking your vote is unknown to us or to one another.

Local government is always about neighbors who pitch in and help. We know many of those seeking office from block meetings, school outings, church groups, and other neighborhood activities. They are those who feel 'someone' needs to do something and are willing to be one of the someones who will do it. It's not easy, and with declining federal and state aid and regional economic challenges everywhere you look, it doesn't promise to get any easier anytime soon.

When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. But those whom we elect today have the beginnings of a better map of where we should be going next and how to get there. We need to make sure we choose wisely and well.

For those who see education as the fulcrum to leverage economic development, there are nearly as many challenges as there are opportunities ahead. What attracted me and my family over thirty years ago to settle here was the Environment of Excellence in Norwich Public Schools. We need people willing to make the hard choices to return us to that standard. The days of the old schoolyard are long gone. Turn the page and start a new chapter.

We are counting on one another today to look at the issues and at those seeking office and arrive at our decisions. Don't expect anyone to tell you how to vote, and don't let anyone try to. We owe it to our neighbors seeking office and to ourselves to make the best decisions we can. 
-bill kenny

Ventriloquist Dummy Sold Separately

I've read that we human beings are the crown of creation. We certainly have the egos of a species that thinks that it is. However, I stumbled across a feature online, "Six Animals That Can Regenerate Body Parts," and we're not on the list. Regrowing a finger or a new heart valve might come in pretty handy. 

We're continuing to make medical advances, Bobby Junior be damned, so I guess there's hope for a brighter tomorrow on the regenerative front. But I won't hold my breath.

Speaking of breath and medical research. "Human Trials Bring Us Closer to Breathing Through Our Butts."

All those politicians talking through their ass might actually be on to something.
-bill kenny

The Infinite Clock

This time today was yesterday when it was already yesterday. This morning in the wee, dark early hours, we fell back an hour. I've always liked how we keep that straight, 'spring ahead' and 'fall back' all across most, though not all of the country.

I've never been clear how much of the rest of the world does this time-travel-but-standing-very-still-stuff, although daylight saving is utilized across significant portions of the Earth's Northern Hemisphere. 

I've always wondered about hourly employees working overnight shifts when the clocks change directions....do they work seven and get paid for eight in the Spring and then work nine and get paid for eight in the fall? 

Is there a law or a workplace practice that covers this, and why on earth is a seventy-three-year-old guy, pecking away at a keyboard in Norwich, Connecticut, worrying about stuff like this? When you have no life, interest in the obscure becomes a crusade.

The reason why we move clocks forward and back is the part I will NEVER understand, no matter how erudite the explanation.  We share the planet with a nearly infinite number of other life forms from single-celled amino acids to a full scale of the abiogenesis catalog (now available for only three easy payments, and if use your credit card right now...), and none of them have watches much less the concern for time and its division and measurement that we, Homo sapiens, have.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day/Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. And then we look up in surprise and dismay at the time and wonder where it's gone when it hasn't gone anywhere. The end of a television program, a movie, a radio serial, or other entertainment, a relationship with another person, or a business relationship or political alliance.

You don't have to be Richard to have misgivings about time and what we do with it. Merely being human will qualify. 

-bill kenny

Thinking of the Faithfully Departed

When I was very young, and despite your snicker, I actually was young, going through the primary grades of St Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, tomorrow, aside from Good Friday, was the saddest day of the year. 

You may think today is the day after Halloween and you're right, but also you're kind of a pagan. Today is All Saints' Day, and in some circles, a day of solemn celebration, in the liturgical sense. Tomorrow is not so happy; it's All Souls' Day. 

When you're nine and have transferred to 'the Catholic School' from Pine Grove Manor in Franklin Township because there was finally room in the class near the start of the fall for you and Neil, your next door neighbor who is now suddenly promoted to best friend, the more you think about the implications of All Souls' Day, the sadder it gets.

As I've aged (badly) I've developed quarrels with the Catholic Church in which I was raised, but most of that churn is what I've taken to calling middle-level management. With all due respect to the priests, bishops, and even His Holiness, the Pope, I'm not sure how much of the edifice the one true church (as it calls itself when it finds/feels itself under attack) has created since Jesus Christ founded it, Petrus, would pass the 'R U Serious?' test with the Lord.

We're not grading on a curve, either, guys. Wanted to pass that along. But one of the things I still believe, regardless of my exact grid coordinates in the theological hemisphere, is that there can be nothing more tragic than to be forever forgotten. 

As a primary grader on All Souls night, I used to fall asleep trying to remember every single person I had met in my life-a tough enough job when you're nine but when you're seventy-three, it borders on the impossible.

But maybe that's what 'heaven' actually is-the memory of you and your life by another person. Look at history-much of it is a tale told by an---well, never mind who's doing the telling, but pay close attention to who's doing the remembering. 

Is forgotten the opposite of famous? And who prays for the souls of the faithfully departed when no one remains who recalls who they were? When facts fade, faith must suffice.  
-bill kenny