Long Hairs. No Hairs. Everybody. Everywhere.

A memory of the season, and the Second Sunday of Advent for me at least.

Somewhere on the way to here and now, I lost my way. Not as in shuffled off the beaten path and got lost, but defiantly chose to not do as those who came before me had so chosen for generations. Too stiff-necked to this day to acknowledge my failings and weaknesses, I'm often in doubt but never in error. At least in my own mind.

Advent is a season of preparation; for the devout, it is for the coming of the Savior. The annual path to the birth of Christ began last Sunday, and I know the calendar and the ritual. But I've never been quite sure what it is people like me are doing or supposed to do as we flail about seeking land and trying to keep our heads above water theologically.

I envy those who bundle up and head out for early Mass, with confession beforehand, and who can then leave the church fortified for their week ahead. I miss the comfort of the ritual and the sense of shared belonging. I fill up my hollow days with noise to distract me from hearing the approaching roar. 

I've never been clear if I should look to the future with anticipation or fear. However, I do understand I'll find out soon enough and far sooner than planned.

-bill kenny

Immortal for Immoral Reasons

It was a Sunday morning on the East Coast, eighty-four years ago tomorrow, when the world as we had known it changed and became the world we know now. Our nation, which had struggled for over a decade to recover its economic equilibrium after a worldwide collapse on a now-distant Black Friday, was still righting itself while half a world away, in the early morning hours, war came to America.

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Most of the rest of the world had long been engaged and engorged in what historians now call World War II as German tanks roared across Europe and through Northern Africa, and the Japanese Co-Prosperity Hemisphere spread across Asia.

Shortly after eight o'clock that morning, the USS Arizona, taking a direct hit, sank in nine minutes, killing its entire crew of 1,177 Sailors. When the attack on Pearl Harbor ended, eight Navy battleships had been damaged, and four had been sunk. Also sunk or damaged were three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and a mine layer. Almost 200 (188 to be exact) U.S. aircraft were destroyed, and 2,459 Americans were killed. Another 1,282 had been wounded.

Some sailors were trapped in ships that had sunk. Two days after the attacks, rescuers found thirty-two sailors alive inside the USS Oklahoma, but it was far too late for those aboard her sister, USS West Virginia. Shipyard workers rebuilding the raised battleship discovered marks on bulkheads below decks to indicate some sailors survived for seventeen days after the attack.

All of those stories are part of the larger story of the United States of America, which, after its own War of Independence, strove and succeeded more often than not to be in Splendid Isolation in the world community. Our involvement in World War I, while intense and decisive, had been brief in comparison to so many other nations. That was to not be repeated in World War II.

As a result of the efforts of our grandparents and parents, after World War II, how the world looked at the United States changed as well. We emerged in the aftermath as a superpower and leader of what we called for decades the "Free World." What we are today is all part of a world that came to be as a result of Pearl Harbor.

And we learned again a lesson from throughout our history: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or as Frank Loesser wrote in 1942, "Down went the gunner-a bullet was his fate. Down went the gunner, then the gunner's mate. Up jumped the sky pilot, gave the boys a look, and manned the gun as he laid aside The Book, shouting Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!"

-bill kenny

Adding Some Merry

The skies are getting increasingly more slate-grey while the days get darker and shorter sooner, and the temperatures continue to drop while winter makes its presence felt, despite the calendar, across New England ahead of its official start way later this month. 

I'm not a fan of the snow and the cold, but I will point out that perhaps not so coincidentally, more light and brightness is coming from within and without each of us as the joy of the holiday season starts to unfold a little more and accelerate as each day passes. 

And, as Small Business Saturday last weekend showed, we're just getting started when it comes to celebrating the season. This week, we really get serious because again, as the kick-off to First Friday Norwich, this Friday, it's the 34th Annual Lighting of City Hall, starting at five with Santa flipping the switch, slated for six o'clock. 

If recent years are any indication, we may need a bigger downtown as hundreds and hundreds (and more) of us pour into every nook and cranny around City Hall for the carols, the singalongs and (of course) the countdown to and lighting of one of the most beautiful public buildings in all of New England (and when it gleams like a beacon, flanked by the two churches, throughout the holiday season it is, in my biased, even more lovely). 

And then afterward, instead of heading home, why not enjoy the ever-expanding attractions and activities across Chelsea as the artists and artisans of First Friday show off and share? 

Last Year's "Light up City Hall"

All that chatter you've been hearing and reading about of an ongoing revival and renaissance across downtown isn't wishful thinking, it's concrete and brick and truer now than it was this time a year ago (and the year before that, if you're keeping track) and continues rolling merrily along because so many new people, enthusiastic beginners I like to call them, are staking their claim and working as hard as they can to make their piece of Norwich something special and something worth coming home to and not just for the holidays, though that's certainly a good start.

Sponsored by the Greater Norwich Area Chamber of Commerce, First Friday is a convenient label to write on your monthly calendar, but the attractions and events are an ever-changing delight. It's a collaboration among the galleries, theatres, businesses, and civic organizations allying with local artists to include painters, sculptors, actors, musicians, culinary experts, authors, and photographers to bring each of us a night they hope we'll long remember and strive to equal on any and all of the other nights of the month that aren't First Friday.

If you tend to only go through downtown on your way to someplace elsewhere, you've got an evening awaiting you that won't have enough hours in it for all the exhibits you can check out, places to have a quick (or a leisurely) bite or perhaps to share a glass of cheer, or adult beverage of your choice, and you'll wonder, with good reason, why you haven't stopped in sooner, and more frequently, and longer and (see where this going?).

Gone but not forgotten, the Christmas Rose

And I haven't even mentioned the Winterfest Parade starting Saturday afternoon at four on Main Street near Otis Library, Well, except now I have, I guess, and after I promise to see you there if I don't see you at City Hall Friday night, I'll return you to your regularly scheduled holiday season already in progress.
-bill kenny 

So This Is Christmas....

...And what have you done?

Another year over

And a new one just begun.

 

And so this is Christmas (war is over)
For weak and for strong (if you want it)
For rich and the poor ones (war is over)
The world is so wrong (now).
-John Lennon

-bill kenny

 

When Someone Starts Talking in the Middle of the Song

It's a little weird. I've been retired for a little more than six and a half years, but this morning I have the most important interview of my life, so far. 

I've been battling and losing to chronic kidney disease for several years, with my neurologist using all of her skill and modern medicine to stave off the inevitable.

We (meaning me) have now reached the inevitable.

I met with a physician ten days ago to finalize the arrangements for surgery to place a catheter in my lower stomach, so that in the New Year, I can start peritoneal dialysis. This morning, I have interviews with two different doctors to screen me for placement on a transplant list.    

I have no idea what to wear to the interviews or even what's involved. Between my age and my comorbidities, I'm at a disadvantage in terms of consideration. I hope I can make it up in the talent contest and swimsuit competition (maybe not the latter).

Fingers crossed.
-bill kenny

 

Unaccustomed As I Am to Bragging

Aside from something coming in the mail (or shipped, I don't know which), as of 1600 (4 PM) yesterday afternoon, I have finished my Christmas shopping for this year. A feat I have never in my seventy-three years of life on earth previously accomplished.

I'll pause to let that achievement sink in. 

Thank you. 

My gift wrapping is nearly this good. Nearly.

Okay, I only shopped for our children, their spouses, and my wife. 

I should advise them all in advance that I wrapped their gifts myself. I've become quite adept at this gift-wrapping thing after a crash course at the North Pole under the tutelage of the Jolly Old Elf Hisself.

I'm bracing for an outpouring of gratitude later this month. Bruce is right; it's hard to be a saint in the city.
-bill kenny

Last Month of the Year

As a retiree, I have trouble keeping track of days of the week, time of day, and the minutaie of everyday life. Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I had a text wishing me a wonderful holiday and had to ask the person sending the well-wishes who it was. It was my oldest younger sister, Ouch.

Anyway. New month, new me, well, not really, but you know what I mean. 

I sprang out of bed this morning at not nearly the crack of dawn (I spent decades getting up in the wee small hours convinced that whoever it was I was working for at the time would collapse if mine wasn't the first car in the lot in the morning and the last one at night. Such a dope.), checked my blood sugar and my blood pressure, then took all my morning meds (it's a full handful in case you were curious). 

I then got ready to do nothing. Not close to nothing, Not nearly nothing, but absolutely nothing while waiting for lunch. Well, except for reading this. 

Don't know about you, but I never realized how arduous time wasting could be unless you practice. The trouble with doing nothing or close to nothing is figuring out when you're finished. 
-bill kenny