We're Born Again

I don't think I can make this today, but I may try anyway and I hope you do, too. We're still a while away from the start of the Single A minor league baseball season at Dodd Stadium but this afternoon at 3:30 Sacred Heart University's Pioneers take on the UConn Huskies. As if sitting in Dodd "not a bad seat in the house" Stadium weren't already a good deal, how's this for a price: zip, zero, nichts. So much for Free Willy. Praise the free baseball and pass the tartar sauce.

I don't know how the Connecticut Tigers made this happen (I sure hope it didn't involve science because I'm terrible in science) but my thanks to them and appreciation to both colleges for working together to get this to happen even if I can't probably make it to the game (dumb old work, whose paycheck makes my dumb old lifestyle possible so maybe not so dumb after all. Just white out everything between the parentheses. Kidding!)

Here's the irony for me, for most of the years the Norwich Navigators, then the Connecticut Defenders then 'We're in a Van and Gone' plied their trade as a Double A franchise, first of the New York Yankees and then, later, the San Francisco Giants, the early season games played to very small (miniscule) crowds. As for why that happened so often, it was like listening to the three bears: 'it's too cold', 'it's too far' and 'I only root for (someone else)'. Crap, Sap, and Pap.

While we whined about weather, more folks would turn out in Portland's Haddock Field for one game of the Sea Dogs than came to the Defenders' entire home stand. As for too far, I always heard this from the folks who organized outings to Fenway and Yankee Stadium because, I guess, both are convenient to Norwich and also so inexpensive you can take not only the whole family but strangers living under highway abutments you meet on your way there. And do not get me started on the wankers who couldn't root for the team which called Dodd home because they were fans of someone else, except when that team's farm club came here to play, they didn't show up then either. Crap, Sap and Pap.

The 'kids' this afternoon are college athletes playing more for the love of the game than a ticket to the show (but a boy can dream, right?). I realize this time of year you take the field with one eye looking at the heavens wondering if the clouds will let you get the game in. Let's hope so because it was worse than a lousy winter, it sucked. A lot. So I don't know about you, but I think we need a little baseball, right this very minute (though I suppose we could wait until this afternoon and not make a spectacle of ourselves).

I'm wondering what happens if I call in "well?" Hypothetically, if you were see me this afternoon at Dodd, I'd appreciate it greatly if you didn't blow it for me. Just nod and then keep walking. I'd owe you one. But only if you bring an extra glove, for the foul balls, okay?

-bill kenny

Hold Us at the Center While the Spiral Unwinds

Now we've got a whole extra hour of daylight, eh? Let's think about spending it indoors at a municipal meeting. No-actually, I'm not kidding but thanks for the thought.....and there's enough variety in this week's schedule to provoke as much thought as any brain, or group of brains can stand.

This afternoon at five in Room 210 of City Hall, it's a regular meeting of the Ethics Commission; I can't find their February meeting minutes but here's a draft of their January minutes. At six, there's a special meeting of the Golf Course Authority on what, reading the agenda, sounds like an employee relations issue in search of a happy ending.

Tuesday at five-thirty, we have a triple offering, a double-dip plus one-actually what we have is more than any one person can possibly attend. I'm listing them in the order they're on the city's website so I don't get accused of playing favorites (I know 'Playing favorites, you? Pshaw!' Thanks.).

The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees meets in Room 6109 of the Latham Science Center on the campus of NFA. The Public Parking Commission meets in the Buckingham Memorial and for those who claim 'they' never listen to 'us' (whomever those two groups are, please notice the alterations to downtown parking signs and tell me again about the nobody listens thing). What? Your lips are moving, I cannot hear. Here are the January draft minutes.

And there's a joint meeting of the Board of Education and the City Council in the Kelly Middle School cafeteria (remember, bus your trays) but this is NOT a meeting on the proposed 2011-2012 school budget but rather on the Norwich Education EXcellence for Today and Tomorrow's Schools (NEXTT). If the next budget is future, this meeting is future pluperfect and necessary since our children are the ones who will live all of their tomorrows bounded by decisions we make today.

At six, in Room 319 of City Hall it's a regular meeting of the Personnel and Pension Board. All of their members' appointments have expired which, considering the alternative, is an easier fix and hopefully the City Council will get to the repairs soon enough.

And at seven, in the basement conference room of the Planning Department at 23 Union Street, it's a regular meeting of the Commission on the City Plan.

Wednesday morning at nine, in the community room of the Dime Bank on Route 82, it's a regular meeting of the Norwich School Readiness Council (Children First) and I've actually run out of things, caustic and otherwise, to say about their website.

At six, in Room 210 of City Hall it's a special meeting (because last week's meeting was cancelled) of the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority and at six thirty, upstairs in City Hall, in Room 335, it's a regular meeting of the Sachem Fund Board and while there are some intriguing stories circulating as to what might be on the agenda, you can assume among other items will be approving the minutes of their last meeting in May of last year. I'm looking forward to an entertaining and informative meeting, even if I have to go elsewhere, perhaps to another town, to find one (kidding, I think).

Thursday evening at six it's a regular meeting of the Ice Arena Authority at The Rink. We're now three months into the new year and the most recent meeting minutes are from December of last year.

Friday morning at nine in Room 319, it's a regular meeting of the Chelsea Gardens Foundation which has no other listing on the city's website to suggest who is in it, what they do or what they have done or hope to do. Considering we had the start of Daylight Savings Time yesterday and this is Sunshine Week, maybe we could take a giant step into the present and update large sections of the city's website in need of maintenance. I don't really care in what language the repairs are affected as long as they start.

Saturday morning at nine, in the Central Fire House, it's the next meeting of Team Norwich and if you're in the sound of my voice (remember that from the radio?), consider yourself invited. Instead of wishing that 'someone would step up' try being the person who does. Four out of five doctors recommend it (or would). A heart just can't contain all of that empty space. And we can always do better together than we can alone or on our own.

-bill kenny

My Only Friend through Teenage Nights

I got a little too organized getting out of my car the other evening when I came home from work. I was a little weary of the music I had in the CD player so I ejected all of the discs in the reverse alphabetical order in which I loaded them (all of my music be it CD, long player, cassette, single or extended play, is organized alphabetically by artist, and then arranged chronologically by release. Anal, moi? Please!).

I brought all the discs into the house and returned them to the larger collection that takes up most of the walls in our living room. The collection and the equipment to play it drives my wife crazy because of its amount, size and the degree of sprawl that comes with it. She regards it, I fear, as entertainment kudzu and the day may come where I return home and she's going at my collection of Beatles' pictures discs with a weed whacker. Remember, you read it here first.

The plan was, after dinner, I'd pick out a new favorite bunch of discs. I mentioned I was a satellite radio fan and might still be if, after the two separate services merged after promising Congress they wouldn't jack the prices on subscriptions, they did exactly that. Despite a slogan that began as 'you can't put a price on being able to hear exactly what you want...' it turns out somebody sure could, and they most certainly did.

I added Slacker to my smartphone and used one of those hands free things that talks to an unassigned FM frequency on your radio so I could listen to the programming over my car stereo.

That arrangement seemed to work fine--okay, it's not as easy as satellite radio because it has more buttons to push, knobs to twiddle and requires more patience on my part (never a good idea). Quite frankly, the whole thing is way more attractive in theory than in practice (the marketing phrase 'you'll have lots more musical choices' is the equivalent of the dating set-up 'and has a great sense of humor').

Long story short-or in this case, still long-I forgot to pull CDs. Of course I remembered when I was behind the wheel the following morning on my way to work and had no time to recover from my brain cramp and decided to live with the FM radio (not sure why there is still AM radio and why anyone listens to it. Just me or are all the talk radio stations on AM all the way over on the right side of the dial?).

We live in the largest city in the region, and yet, as friends used to suggest, 'it's not the end of the world, but you can see it from your house.' (those Palins make my hair hurt, especially Michael). When you turn on the FM radio around here, it's not that you're spoiled for choice. We have guys who think they're a Mike Joseph station (epic fail) we have folks offering sweet hits and soft rock that cause me, as a diabetic, to risk coma after listening for more than ten minutes, and we have a Classic Rock station owned by one of the casinos that's too painful to listen to.

I am a bigot (I know that surprises you)-I hate classic rock stations. Not the music, the idea of a decrepit juke box that cranks this crap out 24/7. Seriously, how often do I need to hear Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive? Or Journey or Loverboy or any of the stadium rock dinosaurs that I still dearly enjoy and regard as a guilty pleasure. My problem with them on the radio is they leave no place for new music to get heard which means in ten years where's the next wave of classic rock supposed to come from? Katy Perry? I rest my case.

What a singular experience and I'm not being complimentary--listening was an audio assault akin to a scrotum kick; actually the kick might have been preferable. They program music the way old people fu--dance, let's leave it at that. Suffice it to say, I won't be caught without CDs in the car ever again. My brain refused to believe what my ears were telling it as after a cluster (stop set) of ten commercials ('spots'), to include a 'propellant' (tech word for jingle) that took us from a sixty second to a thirty second spot for competing automobiles, Kevin, 'your DJ,' shotgun-sequed from U2's New Year's Day directly into Grand Funk Railroad's Some Kind of Wonderful. Not hardly, Kev.

With enough super glue I'm pretty sure I can get the on/off knob I snapped off in my had to go back on the radio and stay there. Just not sure I should take that chance.

-bill kenny

I Went Lookin' for a Fire

Today I'll keep my words to a minimum, though that's not true of their meaning. Today the woman I love beyond anyone else in my life is celebrating her birthday. Our lives have been part of one another's for so many years, I cannot begin to imagine what mine would be like without her. I'm too clever to ask her to imagine the same thing.

I know that it hasn't been a picnic living with me-no basket, no blanket, way too many ants. She's never complained, making something out of nothing more days in the week, weeks in the year, and years in our lifetime together than I can count. And as a reward, she can look forward to more of the same. Yeah, gotta work on that part, that's for sure. Starting today.

The best of all birthdays to the person I think of when I awake every morning and of whom I dream every night. We've had more laughter than our tears "and a whole lotta light."

Herlizchen Gluckwunsche, Angel Eyes.

-me

Two Out of Three

Now that I'm convinced spring is arriving (soon), I'm trying to get back into my 'I Want to Live Forever Or Die Trying' regimen which consists of going into a nearby gymnasium around the corner from where I work on a daily basis. Attention Fitness Buffs: going past the gym does NOTHING for you, you have to go in; trust me.

It's not that I'm training for an Iron Man competition or to run with my brother Adam on one of his escape attempts (yeah, like no one noticed that's what all this is about. Bust. Ed. Kidding aside, good luck Sunday in AP.). I'm trying to not be (quite so) visible from space--the NSA guys actually use me to calibrate one of their satellite spy cameras when I'm out on weekends (all I wanted was a couple of lousy wallet size prints but no....).

Between the health issues and replacement joints I have, I've long since conceded the best I can do is stage an organized retreat in the face of old age (hell, I am the face of old age). I have surrendered gracefully those things of youth like much of my hair, my teeth, relatively clear skin, tuna, clean air as well hair-free ears while I await history's final judgement.

I'm not at my sharpest when I get up in the morning. Or before I turn in at night ('turn into what?' asks my daughter-the child I haven't (yet) told we purchased from the gypsies. Oh dear, that just slipped out). Or, now that I think about it, during daylight and night hours.

Anyway, my point is I have a routine for 'doing the gym stuff' that involves wearing the gym clothes and carrying (on hangers) the very nicely pressed trousers and shirt (and belt and tie) my wife lays out the night before for me. I get into the car and go to work. So simple a child can do it, you say. Why don't you send that kid over to my house because I need all the help I can get.

Again one morning this week, I got to work, parked and exited the vehicle, opened the back door while reaching for the work clothes' hangers above the passenger window. Of course, the clothes weren't there. That was my visual to remmebr I'd left them on a hook in the house.The good news was of course I hadn't lost them, I knew were they were; we just weren't in anywhere near the same place.

For reasons that make it genetically impossible for me to spend an entire week NOT forgetting my change of clothes, once or more, I have in my office a surfeit of work-out togs, just in case. Like maybe the problem is gym clothes. As a result of the problem NOT being gym clothes, my offcie looks a little like a locker threw up, except neater. People who wander the hall just assume, I guess, I'm having another casual Friday even if the calendar says otherwise. I am grateful they don't ask and suspect they're grateful I don't tell.

So I spend (I'm rounding down) at least one day a work week looking like a high school Phys Ed teacher which is far funnier than you will ever know. I'm in my sweat clothes, all clean and neat but never to be confused with my Geoffrey Beane button down or Van Heusen oxford shirts with complementary ties and dress slacks. I have access to showers with more hot water than the common sense to use it wisely or well, and have started lobbying to get a silver whistle on a lanyard for my birthday so I can grab a few extra bucks reffing pick-up games at the gym during lunch.

As long as I don't start forgetting the gym clothes on days other than (or even the same as) the ones when I forget the work clothes, I won't have to hide behind my desk all day. Even then, as long as nobody plays the National Anthem, the day should be like butter though it could get tricky when I frown at the crumbs of the crust of bread....
-bill kenny

The New AA

And by "A Squared" I'm talking about Absolutely Awesome. I know, you were thinking I meant something else and it sure would explain a lot, wouldn't it? Except no such luck, at least in this life; but lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun. I just found those--I may have last heard 'the old philosopher' a half century ago (I think it was something my dad listened to on the car radio though I could not tell you where or in what context).

The Old Philosopher was somebody named Eddie Lawrence, not that I knew that at the time or remembered it if I knew it. Actually, all I remembered was 'never give up, never give up....the ship' and in the course of many monologues, he called people 'bunky' (which always reminds me of John Irving's The World According to Garp, "Bonkie bit Garp" which, in turn, reminds me of Charlie C who was my dad's boss who called his youngest son, John, 'Bon-Bon" and no one who wanted to keep working for the Chuckmeister ever asked what that was all about).

Phew! Should've eaten your Wheaties, eh? I'm not sure where any of that came from. What I started out to pass along is today is the International Day of Awesomeness about which, truth be told, I would normally care about less than a fried rat's hindquarters on toast except life imitating art, months ago, someone with whom I Facebook (not sure I like FB as a verb) had a status update of "making awesome happen" which resonated with me for reasons I still cannot explain (or understand).

The notion of being an exclamation instead of an explanation makes perfect sense for some, though maybe not for all of us, except as a goal. You don't have to get to awesome everyday (who among us has that kind of strength, not even SF Sorrow), but you should have to want to get there or why else be here at all?

The FB page about today leaves your manner of celebration and observation pretty wide open, unless you're Chuck Norris, of course (I know Chuck Norris, not the, but rather, a) and that's good since I suspect awesomeness comes in a variety of shades and shapes. And we need to act decisively and with dispatch as this moment doesn't happen every night, though, I suppose, there's no reason why it couldn't and shouldn't. The moment is about to arrive, be in it.
-bill kenny

Men Go Crazy in Congregations

I decided Saturday morning, in a private celebration of what I hoped was the end of the winter weather to walk to Down City and the NCDC building at 77 Main Street to attend a Team Norwich meeting that had been cancelled the afternoon before. I didn't know that starting out but it wasn't the only thing I learned along the way.

I set out from where we live on Lincoln Avenue first to buy a newspaper (the other New London daily; the one that hasn't recently changed its name (my version of the name of the one that has includes a seven letter gerund between "The" and "Bulletin"), walking past the house that's been completely and beautifully rehabbed but still sits empty, and not alone in that predicament.

Then where Lincoln intersects with Oneco is yet another empty house, this one with plywood covering the ground floor windows. My family and I knew one of the families who lived there, years ago who have since passed away. They died and then their house died-I don't remember that happening in the neighborhood in which I grew up but now my city and state are on life support and lots of us think pinning the blame on the donkey (or elephant) is part of finding the solution

Walking up Oneco to where it intersects with Washington at Chelsea Parade, I studied the damages on the rock wall on the far side. The debris from the vehicle that hit the wall is still scattered on the sidewalk and the provisional repair to the wall looks like it will probably stay that way for years or until that part of the wall collapses. The walk/don't walk light on that side doesn't work and, as I found out on my way back home, the pedestrian activation button for the signal is broken as well.

Almost two years ago, as part of a Saturday outreach, some working to elect a sitting alderman as Mayor (not the current Mayor, a different alderman (just how different we were to find out on Election Night when he lost)) cleaned a Norwich Gateway, in this case from just above Sweeney Bridge to Howard Brown Park, filling scores of large trash bags and clearing all manner of detritus. It was difficult to see any trace of that effort in the hard light of Saturday morning.

Walking down Washington towards the harbor, I passed the house across from the synagogue where on a Saturday morning shortly before Thanksgiving, walking to a different meeting at the fire house, I watched the family who lived there, having placed in their van whatever items would fit, to include a very small child with big eyes and a shy smile who was working overtime with both of them, slide the door closed and pull away.

The house has been empty since that day and I sometimes wonder had the parents known how many people were working very hard to turn Norwich around if they might have chosen to stay. Another path left unexplored and more refugees forced to vote with their feet. Did I mention that when I got to the NCDC building there was a sign on the door telling me that the meeting had been cancelled? I'm wondering if there was a meeting for illiterates and alliterates. Another mystery without a clue.

The most disquieting thing about my walk has been that I've passed no one on the sidewalk at all. There's a few cars, heading through downtown on their way to other places but there's no one looking for anything or anyone anywhere I am in Norwich. If I'm all the feet on the street at nine on a Saturday morning, unless I'm reincarnated as a millipede, we have a long way to go before downtown is a destination.

Heading up Broadway where it intersects with Main Street, I notice the corner restaurant boasts Wi-Fi which, for Norwich, is literally a sign of the times and the road ahead. When choosing a place to enjoy a sandwich, beverage and some conversation, Wi-Fi will always carry the day. Hopefully the visionary entrepreneur is seeing his reward in this life as making a business go around here is hard work in good times and these, as we know, aren't.

Walking towards City Hall, I pass the mural, completed in 1978, on the back of the old Otis Library-there's still a vitality and vibrancy that three plus decades of grit and a word that rhymes with grit can't obliterate.

The mural enlivens the parking lot abutting the Donald Oat Theater which, if news accounts are to be believed, could use a double dose of vitality as well as a cash infusion. Maybe just me, but when some of us talk about public support and sacrifice, I reach for my wallet because I've learned 'what's mine is mine but what's yours is negotiable' makes me angry beyond words.

Continuing up Union Street, where Crossways and Union meet, there's a murder of crows waging a polite war with a scurry of squirrels for edible items revealed by the retreat of the melting snow cap. Both sides jockey for control of the Memorial to the 26th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, oblivious to the Battle of Port Hudson or the regiment's sacrifice to which the memorial bears witness.

Union and Broadway become one near St. Patrick's. I always smile as I walk past Monsignor King Park, facing the cathedral, because I know I'm less than eight minutes from my house and because I'm making good on a vow to absent friends from long ago to make it to Broadway. I'm pretty sure we'd all agree this isn't what I meant (nor is this, for that matter), but the temperatures are quite nice for the first Saturday of March and the snow is on the run.

I make a left at the Chelsea Parade South and Broadway and watch a man and one of the largest German Shepherd dogs I have ever seen playing fetch with what looks to be a tree branch rather than a stick at Chelsea Parade. Passing coffee cups and an empty drink container discarded by the occupants of cars that park on Lincoln Avenue on days when a nearby Blue Ribbon School of Excellence is in session, I marvel at how these items, when empty, are too heavy to hold on to which must be how they end up in my street.

I was back home shortly before half-past ten-and while I didn't attend the meeting, I learned a lot about the city I've called home for nearly two decades. Fine words will not cover bare wood like a coat of paint and there are a lot of targets of opportunity around here. Good intentions will not replace hard work. Meaning well and doing well are two very different things and talking about making changes is far easier than being part of the change. It all starts with each of us, alone and together.

-bill kenny