An Unhappy Recollection

I first offered this some time ago, and because I cannot think of anything better to say, I'll simply repeat myself. I've reached an age when that's becoming more frequent and not unexpected.

A Morose and Melancholy Memory

As I recall, we had already had lunch and recess on the closed-off portion of what I recall was Division Street. The grammar school had been built less than three years earlier in what had been a vacant lot near the high school on the city block in New Brunswick that St Peter's Parish owned. 

The church, flanked by the convent on the far side and the rectory on the near side, was actually two blocks away, down the street and up the hill from the railroad overpass across from Makaronis' Town House Restaurant and next door to Albany Wines and Liquors, at the train station where my father and hundreds like him congregated workday mornings (and for my father, Saturdays, too) and traveled first by Pennsylvania Railroad, later (after the merger of two failing lines), Penn Central and still later (when Uncle Sam 'rescued' rail travel in the Northeast Corridor) on Amtrak into "the city.' 

I was in the fifth grade of St. Peter's School.  I learned years later that, despite the name carved in marble on the front of the building, the possessive case was inaccurate and incorrect. But no one had yet invented industrial Wite-Out, and when I first returned to the USA, I drove through my old hometown one weekend while my family was still in Germany, looking perhaps, for myself and the person I was then in the hopes of better understanding the man I had become. The school name, in all its incorrectitudeness, was still there. There have to be some constants in the universe, I suppose.

Our classroom was in the basement, on the Division Street side of the building (as opposed to the courtyard side, facing the high school). We had been working on our penmanship. Our school was a firm practitioner of the A.N. Palmer method of cursive writing. 

Those of us in third through fifth grade loved the name of the writing style and found it incredibly funny for what it almost sounded like. We assumed the Sisters of Charity (a misnomer of some magnitude, I should note), our teachers, weren't in on the joke.

I can see the classroom. Sister Rosita's desk was in the front, centered and in front of the blackboard that took up the entire wall behind her, facing in the far corner, to her left, the entrance and exit door in the back of the classroom. Our desks faced her, arranged in academic order. 

That is, the student with the best report card was in the far upper left corner at the head of the column, with everyone through to those who failed lunch and recess at the far lower right-hand side of the room, as defined by Sister Rosita. Fifty-two students of varying abilities and enthusiasms--all blank slates waiting to be drawn upon. 

Everything in that classroom was defined and controlled by Sister Rosita with the occasional support and intervention of Sister Mary Immaculata, the principal, whose office was upstairs (no talking in the stairwells! no running in the halls!) who existed, aside from report card day, as a voice on the cloth-covered speaker in the upper left corner of the classroom, above the blackboard alongside the American flag to which we pledged Daily Allegiance. 

Earlier in the week, before lining up to board the buses that took us home (and there was always a snobbery of those who walked home, the townies from New Brunswick, towards those of us from the developments in Franklin Township, beyond the city's borders) we had all watched, again, the Civil Defense film on what to do in the event of an Atomic Attack.

I remember the sound of the film threading through the projector gate almost drowning out the assault music soundtrack laid down by the 101st Airborne String Quartet over the ominous narration of someone like Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (no one had ever heard of Sr.; which being a Junior, I had more than casual curiosity as to how that had happened. I still use the Jr. with my name even though my father died in 1981). 

Orchestra crescendo, vivid orange flash that filled the screen and turned it red and then black, and something about turning away from the windows and putting our heads under our desks. Most of us were ten and eleven and hadn't spent a lot of time confronting thoughts of our own mortality. We weren't thoughtless-we just hadn't thought about it. It made for a quiet bus ride that day.

All of that evaporated as the loudspeaker crackled as Sister Mary Immaculata activated the microphone at her desk. We waited and then waited some more as, instead of her usual imperious summoning of a hapless miscreant for a punishment of a real or sometimes imagined offense, there was the hum of an open microphone and the sound of a radio or television, whose volume was very low. Sister Mary Immaculata was, for the first time in my history at St Peter's, at a loss for words. We all leaned forward as if willing her to speak, and perhaps it was as long as thirty seconds later that our efforts were rewarded. 

She started slowly and softly in a tone of voice I had never heard from her, or I think, from anyone. As I was to learn later in my own life and to use myself, it's the voice we use to explain events and occurrences that defy explanation. 

She started by telling us the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (with whom every child of the Roman Catholic faith in the United States had an unspoken and unbreakable bond. He was our President; first Roman Catholic, the first President who didn't look like our grandfather, a President with a pretty wife whom our moms liked a lot, with small children (younger than us), had been shot in Dallas, Texas. 

All of us at St Peter's School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and (very probably) across the United States and (maybe) around the world, bowed our heads and clasped our hands as Sister Mary Immaculata led us through The Rosary--the entire Rosary, not just a decade. 

That was how I knew something more horrible than what she was telling us had happened, was really happening. I'm not clear if we had completely finished when she interrupted herself, struggling to remain composed, to tell us the President had died. We said another Rosary for the repose of his soul, but my heart wasn't in it. 

I don't think I'd ever wondered until then why God didn't answer every prayer the way a petitioner wanted (I'm pretty sure I didn't use the word 'petitioner') but as the afternoon abruptly ended and we all went home to participate in the national seance provided by the three TV networks (no cable news, no satellite, no video on demand, no Internet) almost all in black and white (color television was a luxury almost beyond measure), I knew without knowing the world as I had lived in it had ended, not changed. 

I looked at the calendar this morning with regret and incredulity in equal measure. I, and everyone who was born, lived, and perhaps died in the USA in the sixty-two years since President Kennedy's murder, will never know what we and our world would have looked like had we prayed harder or longer or louder. 

I'm not sure I ever prayed again, or in the hope of my prayer being answered. And after so many years and tears, I'm not sure I would still know how. I remember that kid, head bowed, at the front of the room, and I envy him for the strength his faith gave him in such a dark hour, knowing the darkness was not only beginning but had already won. 
-bill kenny

Elevate Your Holiday Spirit

I love offering comments about O'Tis a Festival, which is tomorrow, starting at 9:00 a.m. at Otis Library. For many years, I was a guest parker, although my health no longer allows me to do that. However, it will not stop me from resurrecting a previous entry about the magic of the Festival. 

Here Goes:

Celebrating the Coming Holiday Season and Ourselves

As we head towards Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, the year seems to feel like it's accelerating (so maybe I should have written 'as we careen towards the holidays'). 

Perhaps because the daylight has shifted, the days are all shorter and more jammed with activities. Personal calendars that were already pretty full are now loaded with holiday parties, travel, shopping outings and all kinds of other activities. 

So I can understand your momentary exasperation when here I am lobbying you to put yet another event into the mix, but trust me on this one, you'll thank me later. Tomorrow is the O'tis a Festival at the Otis Library, a self-proclaimed "Holiday Extravaganza" with many local area artisans offering beautiful handmade items absolutely perfect for gifting to others (and, since charity begins at home, also keeping for yourself).

I've regarded Otis Library on Main Street in Norwich for many years as the last man standing who is just now (finally) being rewarded for steadfastness. A decade ago, there was very nearly nothing in downtown, aside from, we assured one another, lots of potential. 

And now, after a lot of heavy lifting, risk-taking, and plain old-fashioned hard work from a lot of different folks, there are actual (and flourishing) businesses lining the streets leading to the library with the promise of even more on the way. 

There's a lot more happening in Down City than many of us once believed would be possible. And at just about the middle of the intersection between promise and performance is the Otis Library.

As urban planners and developers from across the country have repeatedly insisted, because it's completely true, Otis and countless libraries nationwide are not close to the same places we went to as kids, wherever that library was. Here in Norwich and elsewhere, city downtown districts look to the library the way the fingers on the hand look to the thumb.  

Saturday's O'tis a Festival is another instance of a library not staying in the box we may have mentally constructed for it. When the festival began over a decade ago, it was sort of a book fair with a smattering of 'other stuff.' 

But as the years have progressed, the local and community artists and artisans have turned just about all the free floor space in the library into an arts and crafts market (think Rose City Arts Festival, but indoors, because it's November and not June, and without the bouncy castle (I think)).

There will be over three dozen vendors, free take-home crafts for the kids (I'm not sure that means in exchange for your children or just something for them to do), displays of Native American artifacts, and eats. There's entertainment, raffles, and a visit from Santa throughout the day. 

We always talk about having a 'community center' and, at least for a day, tomorrow, we shall be in the Otis Library, bustling with more activities than either of us could otherwise imagine. And since nothing succeeds like success, the more of this we all support, the more of this we will all have to support (it's science, I think). 

Vibrant downtowns are all about feet on the street, and O'tis a Festival is another way of putting our best foot forward. So step out and step up. Celebrate the coming holiday season and yourself.

-bill kenny

John Kincade's in Mourning.

We in the United States recently said goodbye to the one-cent piece. I guess Honest Abe should be happy to no longer have a connection to the current leader of his Republican Party, 

I'm kinda excited as I'm hoping that jar of change I've had at close to full for years now might actually be a storage place for one-cent pieces, but more especially of valuable ones, that, like everyone else, I call 'penny.'

I'm glad I saved so many since I pass wishing wells all the time, having earned a lot of them for my thoughts.

I'd hope I'm financially well enough off to have nickels rather than pennies placed on my eyes at my final rest, but Venmo is looking pretty good right about now.
-bill kenny

Picture This

I used to take a lot of pictures with the camera on my cell phone. I would never call myself a 'photographer,' mainly because I'm lucky to have acquaintances who are actually photographers, and I wouldn't want to insult them with the comparison.

Two years ago, I bought a drone whose controls were supposedly an application I loaded onto my then-cellphone. I never got it to work. I still have that purchase sitting in a box on the mantel above the fireplace that isn't really a fireplace. 

About a year ago, I bought another drone, this time with a separate controller that has nothing to do with my cellphone. I still haven't worked up enough nerve to open the box it came in. I'm waiting, I suspect, for one of our technologically gifted children to visit us, and then I'll ask them to set it up.

Why? Because of pictures like these.
Not that I will ever capture images like them, but I can tell myself, I might.
-bill kenny

Even the Dog Can Shake Hands

I'm a Boomer and I like my universe to be well-ordered. I enjoy spontaneity, provided it's planned two weeks or so in advance.

I eat my peas with honey; I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, but it keeps them on my knife. 

That's my way of explaining I still have a landline phone (and a cell), and while we have an Amazon Fire TV Stick and subscribe to Prime Video, I also have a cable TV subscription with the same folks who handle my landline and my internet. 

Our children and their spouses long ago cut the cable and stream all manner of entertainment and other programming materials. My standard question is 'what channel is that on?' as I am not nearly so adventurous. There are demons and dragons out there if you wander too far from shore. 

Illinois' only shoreline is with a Great Lake, but it still has demons.
Hey, Bulldog!
-bill kenny

The Start of the Odyssey

I got ahead of myself late last week (doesn't happen that often; I'm tempted to savor the flavor). Last Friday marked the arrival, very late at night, thirty-four years ago, of my family from the only home they'd ever known, Germany. 

My wife and our children landed at/close to about eight at night in Philadelphia International Airport (I'm tempted to say in the W. C. Fields Arrival Terminal, but I usually resist. Until now). They were the last people to be able to leave the lounge.

I had learned the day before that they would be flying into Philly. Their first arrival had become ensnared in red tape as various people offered their unsolicited opinions on visas and other matters, and our reunion had been delayed by close to two weeks. It seemed to be a turbulent end to a chapter in our lives that I never really enjoyed as much as I should have.

The first year of the decade and a half plus I was to live in Germany seems mostly black and white to me. It was only after I met the woman I was to marry and started to make friends among those with whom I worked that color became part of the pattern. 

Thanks along the way to Lee, Chris and Moni, the other Bill, Roger and Rik, Darlene, Sara and Marge, Bob and Gisela (absent but always remembered) and to the too many others I've forgotten who join my wife's mom and dad, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and more neighbors than I could count even then, for opening their hearts and hearths.

I hadn't fully realized how much there had been home until I came here a month before my family arrived. My best achievements were as a husband and father-I just didn't know it, until I didn't have them on my resume anymore. My wife had successfully concluded the Deutsche Kapitel in our life story, perhaps to be continued at a later date, while her stumblebunny husband struggled to gain a toehold in New England.

I drove 95 South forever into Philly, where, true to form, I got lost twice coming off the interstate trying to find the airport (and yes, I know you can see the former from the latter and vice versa). Both times I asked for directions and the folks whom I hailed were as kind as could be, leading me to believe, if just for that night, it was true, 'you've got a friend in Pennsylvania.'

There was a glass wall in the arrival area so you could see everyone for an eternity (or so it felt) before you could touch them. I watched our son, who had turned nine that summer, two steps ahead of his mother, who carried our daughter, whose fourth birthday had been in May and whose eyes were as wide as saucers, clutching a mechanical pink pig as if it were her prized possession. Slowly, they made their way towards me as I rushed to locate a door and when we finally found one another, I nearly crushed my entire family as I embraced all of them.

Our daughter, peering out the lounge window, offered 'Amerika is sehr dunkel, ' which was more prophetic than I'm comfortable admitting most days since her arrival. We piled into a stunningly non-descript POS I'd bought a week before (the German specs BMW sold for a song to a relative of a neighbor) and we began the long drive back to Southern New England, stopping on the Jersey Turnpike for food, and lots of it, especially for a nine-year old boy with hollow bones and secret pockets (I always assumed) as slowly our American Adventure began.

All those years on. If  I could be here and now, I would be, I should be.Only with you. Always.
-bill kenny

You Are What You Eat

When I was a wee slip of a lad, I was an omnivore (and more). Food pyramids, suggested serving sizes...pish posh! 

In my prime, they couldn't make junk food fast enough; that's how quickly I consumed (more like inhaled) it. But here in the Air Age of the Twenty-First Century, with macros and glutens and biomes, as Dylan once rasped, 'the times they are a'changin'.' And then we wonder why so many of us need a forklift to get up the stairs.

For decades, the best part of eating Doritos was ending up with orange-colored fingers (how many would you have to eat to be totally orange? Send your best guesstimate to 'Donny the Fat Boy,' c/o The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C., 20500). That's why Gawd invented Wet Wipes, and if not, He should have because they work great. 

But, news headlines lead me to believe those days might be over. Cheetos and Doritos Go Naked with New Products Free of Artificial Colors and Flavors. You may have to hurry as I suspect the vending machines at the cannabis dispensaries are already sold out.
-bill kenny