Acetylene Freak the Bares

I had a visit with my endocrinologist yesterday as I've had a cantankerous pancreas for a decade or so. Keeping track of it has, at times, been a bit like herding cats without the cats but he's been around for most of it and helped keep my A1C between 5.9 and 6.3 which is where it was again yesterday. There are no gold stars for a good visit, just another stay from a life sentence of injecting insulin. I'm so impressed I check under the bed and in the closet before going to sleep.

As a diabetic, I spend a lot of time on this stuff, not as much as I should as it turns out but more than I ever envisioned back in the days when Mom and Dad would get me those science kits for Christmas from A. C. Gilbert. I often wonder how many current meth lab owners got their start and inspiration from 'back in the day.' Maybe DEA should add that question to the intake interview during processing.

I take the entire day off from work, not that anyone notices (except for the silence which is so seldom when I'm there I'm not sure people know what it is when I'm not), because sometimes the visits get a little intense and I'm not able to be at work if I go to work. Loudly slamming doors repeatedly, shouting in the hallway at the top of my voice (as someone I know is fond of saying) and being generally disagreeable is all well and good for a three year old, but we've filled that position and the ageist bastards didn't hire me.

Which meant I got to be home for a day that began with so much fog that stayed and stayed and stayed I thought it would never leave but that set us up, when it did, for one of the most glorious days of the year (so far). Temperatures reached the lower Sixties, with a light breeze and a cloudless cerulean blue sky that you could lose yourself in. If this is November in New England, bring on Christmas (but it isn't and no one did).

After my escape from Endocrine Island, the day stretched before me like a Roy Drusky lyric in a Carolyn Wonderland world (see, Chris? I still pay attention-just a lot more leisurely...). I headed toward Broadway (and you though you needed talent? HA!), okay our Broadway. Coming at me a little unsteadily on this beat-up bicycle, pedaling into coming traffic (= the wrong way), and clutching a thirty-six can suitcase of a domestic beer that when I drank I would've used to wash my car's tire rims, was one of the most ragged men I have ever seen with a grin so big I feared the whole top of his head would fall off.

When he attempted to smile, I saw he had no teeth at all and he winked at me as he ignored the red light to make a left onto Sachem Street from Washington, which should have been easy as he was on the side closest to the turn in the first place, but he took it very wide and tried to correct too quickly and the back tire slid out from under him at the corner and he went down, and down hard, sending cans of beer in all directions.

I gave him a hand rounding the loose containers up; the Lord gives us each whatever kind of cats we can best shepherd I suppose, but the cardboard suitcase was wrecked. He seemed lost, but only for a moment and then reached into a pocket I'd have never put my hand into, and pulled out a cell phone (!) and called someone to come pick him up, assuring the worried soon-to-be driver, "I got the beer, but the bike is wrecked," adding "and the bell is broke." If that's the worst thing that happened in these parts yesterday all I can do is bless the weather and pray for more.

-bill kenny

A Moment to Reflect

Not everyone will make it to Taftville's Memorial Park Friday morning at 11 for the Veterans Day observances sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2122 and the American Legion Post 104. It's probably just as well since it's more of a pocket park located at the intersection of South B and Norwich Avenues, but we'll miss you as we pause, if not exactly stop, and thank all of those who wear and have ever worn the uniform of any branch of our armed forces.

Some folks I know roll their eyes at some of the things I write or say, and all I can do is smile, shake my head and suggest they attempt something anatomically difficult (though if successful, it would be the most productive endeavor some have been engaged in for years). I spent eight years in an Air Force uniform attempting to defend freedom of speech and I like to exercise it for myself, as well.

Friday is not Memorial Day-we honor everyone in uniform, living and dead, past and present, today. When I was a kid, today was called Armistice Day, because it began as a commemoration of the end of The World War, which was later known as World War I for the sadly obvious reason that we had a World War Two. There was always a moment of silence to mark the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

We are a nation now at war for over a decade. Don't get confused when Kim, Lindsay and the other useless mouths make daily headlines. Heroes and heroines in uniform are making a difference everyday and allowing all of us to somnambulate with our eyes open as we don't see the lives we could have led because of the incessant assault we endure.

It's a new world and a new way of war but those making the sacrifice are the old souls who have always borne the burden--not just those at Forward Operating Bases marked with dots on the map of countries we cannot name but all those who whet the blade of the sword they wield in our name and in defense of everything we are and will ever be.

We are more filled with self doubt as a nation than at anytime in the last four decades. There will always be light and dark, but we shall prevail because we must. For anyone, anywhere, now, or then, in uniform who placed service over self, whenever and where that is and was, thank you.

Sometimes we forget the very words we meant to say-as long as we don't forget those who earned that gratitude we will always be worthy of their sacrifice.

-bill kenny

Vox Around the Clocks

Pax Romana and The American Century have so much in common I can spend weeks writing about it (and you, mere seconds in reading it) but I won't, at least not today. The beginnings were very different but the ends may not be.

Here's some thoughts on just that topic from a while back and if you think I'm hoping to give you a little something for 'on the way' as you head to your local polling place, you know me too well.

If you choose to read it, instead of vote, we all lose. So save it for later; and in the now, get thee to a ballot box and make intelligent choices, voting as if your country depends on your decision because, in many ways, my friend, it does.
-bill kenny

Humming Along to the Calamity Song

Went to a couple of meetings on Saturday morning where many in the room have lived here far less time than I. When I become a fossil and a fixture it's probably time for me to move and should we ever be in a meeting together where I start to sound like the sanest guy in the room, you should leave immediately.

The topic of diversity came up at one of the meetings I was at and it means different things to different people. That said, if I tell you there's a diverse assortment of public meetings this week and you take offense at my use of the word, stop reading this and go away, please. Thanks.

This morning at 8:30 in their offices in the Norwich Business Park it's a regular meeting of the Executive Committee of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, celebrating their 50th anniversary (Hallmark is working on a card; we'll have to check back).

There's a listing on the Norwich municipal calendar for a second meeting involving SCCOG, but it's been cancelled. Between us, and you will keep this between us, right?, the SCCOG meetings and minutes page could use some work, actually a LOT of work to comply with state law, but that's what tomorrow and the day after are for .

Tuesday, is Election Day not 'the dog ate my bus pass' (weak) or 'a Tasmanian Devil buried my car' (weird) 'so I couldn't go vote' excuse day. Hours may vary where you live, here it's from six in the morning until eight at night, but not by much; the locations definitely. Know where you're going, not just in terms of your polling place but for whom you are voting.

Meanwhile, at 8:30 in Room 335 of City Hall, there's a regular meeting of the Youth and Family Service Advisory Board; here are their September meeting minutes. I'm thinking there may not have been an October meeting, but that could just be the root beer talking.

Wednesday, if you are so inclined, you can spend the day in meetings (or cleaning lawn signs off of people's property now that Election Day is done), beginning with a regular meeting of the Rehabilitation Review Committee at a quarter of nine in the basement conference room of the Planning Department at 23 Union Street. It seems their last meeting was in July so there may be a backlog of rehabilitating or reviewing. We'll just have to find out.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, in their offices at 10 Westwood Park, it's a regular meeting of the Housing Authority, whose meeting last month was cancelled, but here's their draft minutes of their September meeting.

At five, again NOT on the city's calendar (something to be said for consistency, I suppose), in Room 319 of City Hall, it's a(nother) meeting of the Emancipation Proclamation Committee.

The regular meeting of the Reid and Hughes Committee at six, as I read the note on line at the City's website, has been postponed until next week. Here are all the minutes of all their meetings I can find.

Which works out well, as instead you can attend the Greeneville Neighborhood Revitalization Committee (might want to fix the spelling of the name on the page) meeting, also at six, in the Wunderbar at 715 Bowell Avenue. I'd say 'bring the whole family' but Sofee gives me such a look but that may have something to do with the meeting minutes which are a skosh sparse unless they really haven't met since April.

But wait! Also at six, it's a regular meeting of the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority, and despite what you've heard, the meeting is indoors, in Room 210 of City Hall. Here are their October meeting minutes.

At seven, the Public Safety Committee, very carefully, holds a regular meeting in the East Great Plains Volunteer Fire Department (this may be the firemen's first inkling that this is happening; inside joke). The last minutes I can find posted are from August.

Thursday afternoon at 5:15, on the Norwich Free Academy campus, in the conference room of the Sidney Frank Building, it's the annual meeting of the NFA Board of Trustees. As much as I appreciate, "(y)ou can find meeting dates on the Board of Trustees calendar" I'm unable to locate the calendar on the website. Did find Waldo-didn't realize he was a Wildcat. Should have guessed from the colors of his ski cap.

At 5:30 in Kelly Middle School, it's a special meeting of the Board of Education, pretty much a (re)organizational meeting after the election to reallocate assignments and responsibilities (CABE is Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, a resource for school boards similar to SCCOG for municipal government). Meanwhile, at the same time, the (Kelly Middle School) Building Committee will also meet, seemingly, also in Kelly, according to this note. It's a good thing no Board members are on the building committee or we'd be having a track meet in the hallways.

At six, this time in Room 210 of City Hall, it's a regular meeting of the Mohegan Park Improvement and Development Committee, who seem to have not met since July, making this meeting both 'regular' and way overdue.

At seven, and not technically a city meeting though it certainly should impact our city, is a forum, "Issues in Education" at the Universal Congregational Church at 87 Broadway, pulling together Norwich Board of Education members, teachers' union representatives as well as parents and family of those in schools for topics to include family & community involvement, charter schools and school choice and the achievement gap between white and non-white students.

Friday is Veterans Day and if you should have the day off from work, perhaps you can find the time to join us at Taftville's Memorial Park, at the intersection of South B and Norwich Avenues, for a quiet moment organized by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2212 and American Legion Post 104.

If you have the chance, I'd hope to see you there rather than setting the lay of Nebraska alight, 'till all that remains is the arms of the angels.

-bill kenny

Dawn, not Don

Not that you may have noticed it when this gets posted, but it's earlier than you think even though it's later. At some point in the wee, small hours of this morning (Saturday night for many of us) the clocks went back an hour and Eastern Standard Time, EST, returned.

I learned as a child, 'spring ahead and fall back.' Would that I'd learned everything else as easily or well. Would that I'd learned anything else at all, say some. I've learned not to pay those people any mind, if that helps (it works wonders for me).

I find Eastern Standard Time another reason to dislike fall and winter. I get up in the dark and come home in the dark-based on my observable performance my colleagues contend there's no difference once I reach work. Tee-hee. I'll bet we're not going to feel quite so witty when that large aluminum bat makes its way from the boot of my car to the office.

For a lot of us, today means an hour of extra sleep and, not judging you, if that's what you use it for, that's fine (of course). How about, however, if only today, we take that 'extra' hour and invest it in, I don't know, cleaning up that orphaned piece of lawn between our sidewalk and the roadside curb? I have no idea who 'owns it;' I'll tell you I am tired of stepping in dog turds that get deposited there despite pooper scooper ordinances.

Maybe we could trim back some of the hedges that are blocking a view from a window or creating a blindside pulling into or out of a driveway. We might not have Ingrid Bergman or Paris but we'll always, or almost always, have fast food wrappers littering the landscape along a favorite and favored, walking path. How about today you and me become the clean-up committee who take trash bags and make that junk history as we're already out and about.

I know all of these things are tasks 'someone should be doing' and by someone we mean some local municipal department or the like, but my point is each of us is a someone, so we'll do. All we needed to take on this nit-noy noise was to get a small break from the busy and find the time. Good news, buckaroos! Time has come, today.

-bill kenny

For the Other Roy

I visited with an acquaintance yesterday I've known for all the years since returning to the Land of the Round Door Knobs. We're not friends and we don't work together. We move in shared circles with each of us knowing about a half dozen people who know the other. I hold him in genuine affection, perhaps because I see him on such an infrequent basis. In my case, if absence makes the heart grow fonder it would help explain why people want me to leave; so they can start to miss me.

Roy offered a story yesterday that I hope you've never heard, or you'll need to find something else to read for the next two minutes, though it is so wonderful that even if you have heard it, you might enjoy it again. A college professor placed a large glass jar on a work bench and as his entire class watched, filled the jar with two pound rocks, filling the jar to the top. He then asked them if the jar was full and the class agreed it was. He opened a bag of pebbles and poured them down over the rocks in the jar and watched as they worked their way into all the spaces between the rocks and then he asked his class again if the jar was full. Again, they said 'yes'.

He reached under his table and pulled out a large chest, filled with sand and poured the sand atop the pebbles and the large rocks at a steady rate of speed and slowly the sand covered all the pebbles and rocks, finding and filling the smallest openings all the way to the top of the jar. He asked his students if they believed the jar was really full this time and after some hesitation they decided that it was.

He turned his back to them long enough to reach into his knapsack and pull out two cans of beer and opening both, he poured them over the sand that covered the pebbles and the rocks that filled the jar and waited until the foam had settled. Looking up he asked the students what it all meant, and the room was silent.

He quietly explained the glass jar was a person's life. The large rocks were the most important things in your life such as your family, your friends, your loved ones. They were the 'quality' in your quality of life without which there would be no point in living. He added the pebbles were important, but NOT the most important, things in your life, such as your car, your home, your job or where you shopped. And the sand, he added was the useless but pretty filler that so many of us confuse with the truly important things we most need.

The trick, said the Professor was not to fill up your jar but to know with what to fill it, noting that the jar could be completely filled with sand, leaving no room for anything else, and certainly none of what was really important. The same, he noted, could be said about filling your life with nice to have pebbles instead of need to have rocks. After you've filled the jar with pebbles you'll never have enough room for all the rocks you treasure. Always, he said, fill your life with that which is most important to you, enjoying as much of it as you have and never regret the absence of what you do not.

And the beer, asked one of the students. What is the purpose of the beer? That, smiled the professor is to illustrate that no matter how large or small your life is, there's always room for beer. And with that, the class bell rang and the students were dismissed.

Great story, Roy-one I'll never tell you as well as you, but I hope someone with a jar they're starting to fill happens by today and reads these words and remembers to leave room for the rocks and the beer. This is from my second favorite Roy, and that rhymes with joy.

-bill kenny

Greetings from # 2,617,275,345

If you thought things were getting a little tight around here, in terms of personal space, you may have been right. The seven billionth person was born in recent days. The story was a quick flash on the news cycle horizon and then sank like a stone. Its effect, however, will be felt throughout every corner here on the Big Blue Marble at least until we reach the next milestone that could prove to be a millstone. If not already where you are, then soon, we'll be stacked like cord wood.

I found someplace online that helped me figure out my place in the world, if not figuratively, than literally. And more than that, it made me smile when I tried it out. I hope you do, as well (try and smile).

Here on our ant farm with beepers, there are two events we cannot control: when we're born and when we die. And the most important time of our lives are all the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years between them. So, count to ten and then decide today's the day you start to count for everything and for always.
-bill kenny