Explains a Lot

According to Merriam Webster, the 2020 "Word of the Year" has been determined. It was pretty close when it came to choosing The One as this has been quite an unforgettable year though many of us will try as hard as we can. 

The Word of the Year for this year is pandemic. And if we keep behaving in the thoughtless, heedless 'my body, my decision' manner we are currently, it may well prove to be the word of the year for the next decade or so.

And if you wonder why or how pandemic was chosen, consider a decision by the Supreme Court just before the Thanksgiving holiday that determined public health officials and Governor of New York State in establishing pandemic mitigation preventative measures could NOT no longer bar religious group services despite evidence that such gatherings are super-spreader events. Proving, I suppose, The Lord does move in mysterious ways.

Which brings us to this, briefly offered on Twitter before being deleted by its poster.

The day will come when we have a vaccine for COVID-19 but will still be no closer to one curing ignorance and arrogance.
-bill kenny

We Need a Little Christmas

You can be forgiven for losing track of time this year. An argument can be made as to why anyone would want to pay any more attention to this year than we already have and that’s a fair point.

It can’t be just me but things have been going sideways in terms of the calendar starting somewhere in March. We’ve got Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror with the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” straight ahead of us whether we’re feeling holly-jolly or not.

But rather than mope and moan at how much unwelcome change we’ve had so far this year thanks to the pandemic (named ‘Word of the Year’ (WOTY) by Merriam-WebsterDictionary), how about, instead, being joyful for what we still have and hopeful about what we are looking forward to?

How does that song go? ‘For we need a little Christmas, right this very minute.’ Well no matter what you call it, or how you celebrate it, this is most certainly the time of the year for it and quite frankly not a moment too soon, say I.

You know how we used to all look forward to the Winterfest Parade with its floats, holiday-bedecked fire engines and marching bands, and then the pilgrimage to where Union Street and Broadway meet at Angelo Sanguedolce Square, for hot cider and cocoa from the United Congregational Church, hayrides around downtown, and holiday caroling until it was time to count down for Santa’s arrival and to Light Up City Hall?  This year, because of WOTY, things will be (more than) a little different.

From last year's lighting ceremony

The Winterfest Parade was canceled months ago but thanks to a large number of helping hands from across the city and within city government, if you head to Howard T. Brown Park after dark any evening, you’ll be treated to some gorgeous white lights on the gazebo, a fountain made of lights and tree branches throughout the park festooned with even more lights.

You can check them out from the comfort of your own home with or without chestnuts roasting by an open fire, on the city’s website. And I hiked down to the Harbor this past Sunday to grab some holiday spirit for myself.

Meanwhile, back at City Hall, the 29th Annual Light Up City Hall will happen this Friday at six but as a Virtual Event complete with a volunteer-produced video with holiday greetings from local fire departments, American Ambulance, and civic groups as well as videos of the tree and lighting setups we can all enjoy either at the city’s website, or on the City of Norwich Facebook page.

On Saturday from noon to four there’s a “Shop Local Fair” sponsored by the Greater Norwich Area Chamber of Commerce with dozens of vendors and artisans all along Broadway, Franklin and Bath streets. And before you ask, yes Virginia, there will be restaurants, shops and food trucks because some of us need more than just figgy pudding.

So, wear a mask, practice social distancing, and bring a friend or two. And plan on buying gift cards from your favorite places and spaces so all of us can have a happy holiday.
-bill kenny

Happy Birthday, Evan!

Today is my oldest younger sister's birthday. That sounds more complicated than it is unless of course, you grew up in a large, Irish Catholic family where none of how we track birthdays and refer to one another is the least bit unusual.

I'm quite pleased with remembering it as I have in the past often lost track of the date and offer apologies instead of congratulations but, as always I have an excuse for when that happens as I, myself, was so young when she was born. Of course, I must concede that she was even younger and has remembered it just fine, thank you.

When we were very small (heads at about the height that whacked dining room tables when you cut corners too closely as you ran around the house) I used to call her "Boss in charge of the Dog." I don't think I ever actually did that in front of the dog or better phrased, dogs, as, from the earliest age, she was an animal lover while I only liked them at mealtime.

I've wracked my brain trying to remember the name of the horse she had while we all lived in the house on Blackwell Mills Road. In all candor, I'm more than a little impressed I can remember the name of the road. Assuming I actually have or did, which may not be as true as I'd like it to be, I'm confident she knows the name of that horse as well as any and all of the names she had good reason to call me growing up.

She has a lot on her plate these days but more wishes than worries, hopefully, to allow her to sail through the holiday season and into the New Year. Where and I have my fingers crossed, even better days await. Happy Birthday, Evan!

-bill kenny

Brace for the Race to the Finish Line

Don't look now but 2020 is in full "Hello, I Must Be Going" mode as tomorrow is the first day of the final month of the year. Finally, say a large number of us and others like me say Yipes.

In January, I'd have stuck an ! on the end of that pes but no more. Why waste it now? And by March I'd have started using words that I use all the time privately but in my outside voice and it doesn't look like that temptation is going away anytime soon.

All the poems, prayers, and promises we hoped to enjoy are nearly all past tense and unlike Banquo's ghost, they didn't stick around long enough for us to savor or regret them. Hell, I don't know about you but I can't remember more than a handful of them without digging back through my daily journal and a lot of that reads like a travelogue from Bedlam.

We're into Advent which means Christmas will be here in a moment and the New Year, which we'll embrace with the same enthusiasm we did its predecessor, will follow in short order. We're so busy struggling to live we don't seem to be enjoying life and that's a tight trick because whatever comes next is more a matter of faith than a statement of fact and that part of the carnival ride seems to be dark and quiet. I hope it's not closed for repairs.
-bill kenny

The First Sunday after Black Friday

Somewhere on the way to here, 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 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.

Today marks the beginning of a season of preparation; for the devout, it is for the coming of the Saviour. I've never been quite sure what it is people like me are doing or supposed to do. 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 am to look to the future with anticipation or fear. 

I do understand I'll find out soon enough and sooner than planned.

-bill kenny

I Used All My Words to Fight

Someone much wiser than I once explained to me that freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to shout fire in a crowded theatre, nor does it afford you the privilege of sitting next to someone in that same theatre and whisper non-stop as the celluloid races through the projector gates. The danger, he said, each one of us face is that 'sometimes the things you do speak so loudly I cannot hear what you're saying.'

I thought about that yesterday as I watched people scurrying through the local mall for what we're still calling "Black Friday" although the COVID Pandemic hs seemingly changed its meaning beginning the search for low-cost holiday gifts for their mailmen and newspaper carrier, oil tank filling guy, coffee making person, etc-a dozen or a hundred jobs that no one notices until they're not done. 

The trick is to make sure to find something that doesn't like cheap and when you start the hunt early, you have a better chance. I've had this conversation with acquaintances in years previous who have a very complex and complicated mental math they do to compute just how much to spend on a gift for a person whose name more often than not they do not know or for one who, if the job is done right, they rarely see.

And in the case of the 'sandwich guy' or the 'coffee server' (and the like), it's a person with whom you would never speak, aside from 'please' and 'thank you', but if you crossed paths in a locale such as Borneo or even Boise, you'd chatter away like magpies who'd known one another your whole lives. The concept is called familiar strangers and many of us have a world populated with them and very few others.

I've gotten better as I've aged (I'm not bragging; I set the bar pretty low) and I no longer immediately say everything I'm thinking, which I did for decades and then wondered why I had tension-filled relationships with people. Turns out I had difficulties distinguishing between inside and outside voices, especially as I tend to hear both, and if you don't, it's your loss. Blurting is often hurting, a little tip from me to you about getting along here on the ant-farm.

There was a time I'd ask those shopping for the knick-knack thank you gifts, 'why don't you just give the person money?' After all, it's a holiday whose primary colors seem to be red and green and since most of us are in the former why not share some of the latter? I think we give each other seconds of pleasure that are put away and forgotten or lost by the end of the holiday season because we can't stand the insulted silences if we didn't.

It's not words, so much, that frighten us, it's the quiet between the words. That the words have, perhaps, sharp edges is all well and good as long as they keep coming, because that way we don't have to worry there might be time to think about their meaning and the last thing many of us want to do is find ourselves alone with our thoughts. 

I wonder if there's life on other planets and, like us, have giant parabolic microphones to pick up the sounds emanating from this septic orb if they've long since learned to turn the volume all the way down. We wouldn't mind, I fear.
-bill kenny

Sponsored by the Clayton Moore Foundation

Through a sad accident of birth, I have a face that has been only marginally improved by being covered in a mask for many decades (but still I persist) and a personality that has had me socially-distancing for longer than most people have been alive.  

Despite the wisdom of noted scientist and theologian (though neither in this case), Amy Coney Barett, most recently of The Supremes, staying safe during a murderous pandemic by wearing masks and maintaining distances from one another really isn't political in any light in which you choose to see it.

As Saint Ricky Gervais once offered, "When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid."

Thus endeth the lesson. 
-bill kenny