"Let's Get Ready to Lindellllll!"

I'm not sure there's anyone on earth for whom I have less use at this moment than Minnesota's Very Own, Mike Lindell. 

Aside from proving to be a walking. talking punchline of my favorite Cheech and Chong routine, I don't 'get' him at all. And in light of the fight that he's picked with both Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, instead of a lucrative next act as the commissioner of this up-and-coming sport, he may need a cornerman as he runs out of corners to hide in.  

I will say that I believe the sport's organizer/founder is on to something when he describes his audience as "(T)hey want to see good competition, they just don't want to see the violence."

What he really means is 'they just don't want to get any of the violence on themselves.' Kinda like the way we prefer our news of the world.
-bill kenny

Ever Onwards

We live in a most amazing age.

As residents of a planet where around the world via the electric fire of television, we watched the murder of a President, a walk (actually more like a skip) on the moon, the tearing down of a Wall that divided a continent and a nation, and the destruction of buildings and thousands of lives in a flash of jet fuel, steel, and glass, it's sometimes easy to forget we are, each of us, skin covered miracles.

Helping underscore this assumption (actually for me, more like an article of faith) I can offer you only one item as 'proof', conceding I don't know that it proves anything but that every day we get up and amaze and amuse, often in unequal parts, the other seven-plus billion of us on this ant farm (with beepers) we call home.

Some days are so hard, it's almost impossible to celebrate yourself, no matter how important that is to do--it's okay, watch this, and celebrate someone else, and know we, too, can do this.
-bill kenny

I've Seen it Spelled with a Silent but Visible "C"

Tonight before the first candle of the menorah is lit:  

.ברוך אתה יי, אלוהינו מלך העולם, אשר קידשנו במצוותיו, וציוונו להדליק נר של חנוכה

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.

Blessed are You, Lord our G‑d, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.

Happy Festival of Lights to all who celebrate!
-bill kenny

The Same and Yet Different

I thought at my age I had a good idea what ballet was/is. Nope. 

Not surprisingly to anyone who's chanced across this space on the interwebz in the last dozen or so years, ballet is yet another subject about which I have no clue. 

Here's why.

I'm rarely at a loss for words so mark today on your calendar. Wow.
-bill kenny

 

Within You and Without You

This not-at-all-November-like-weather we've been having (so far) presented me with an opportunity the other morning to do a good deed that, except you already know I'm pathetic, I should be too embarrassed to recount.

I wound up with a hitchhiker in the front seat with me-barely visible. A gnat I guess or maybe a tiny fly, who didn't appreciate the grasp of tools we humans have that enable us to form glass and make windshields for our cars. The little bug(ger) kept bouncing off the inside of the windshield, regrouping on the dashboard and attempting to fly off again, into the window.

I don't consider myself to be anything vaguely like a 'one with the universe' kind of guy. As a matter of fact, I'm very much the person most of the rest of the planet cites on surveys as to why they don't want to be from 'here' anymore. Despite what others say, I believe we should all take turns-it's just that I think the line forms behind me if you follow my drift and I know you do because deep down, you're the same way.

This weather right now is remarkable (and if you wanted a sled for Christmas, please don't hate me if I hope you are keenly disappointed) in terms of temperature and temperament and yeah, I know fall and winter will arrive with a vengeance and probably on the same day, but today would be the best day ever if I could wear cutoffs (long enough to cover the scars on my knees) and a short-sleeve shirt.

That's probably why, to NOT jinx anything or anger Anyone, I decided to roll down the front windows and coax the bug to escape. I'll be honest, it was about as mild outside as it was inside and who among us doesn't love doing favors that cost them absolutely nothing in the first place. You doubt me? Try this: ask me if it's okay to borrow your neighbor's car this weekend. Sure, go right ahead! See? That was easy and trust me, in five minutes I won't even remember giving you the green light.

It took the bug more time than I'd have liked to make his way out. Perhaps I was the first car it was ever in (glad I'd just had it cleaned inside and out; you never get a second chance to make a good first impression) and after the bug was gone, it occurred to me I had no idea where it was from. 

Perhaps it was a Norwich gnat and now was wandering around in Ledyard (or Preston, I sort of lost track). I'm not sure how territorial bugs are (or need to be) or how well they interact with strangers. I may have provided safe passage for a colonist or an innovator.

Of course, driving home I heard and then saw a splatter on the outside of my windshield and wondered if I had just witnessed another Circle of Life moment. Hakuna Matata, indeed.
-bill kenny

From Far and Near We Travel Home

In honor of the warmed-up and recycled succulent side-dishes we'll enjoy during odd moments for the next couple of days after the dining table is finally cleared today, here's some Thanksgiving notes I offered a few years back. 

And for the record, that's real stuffing, not Stovetop. Just sayin'.

Maybe where you live the preparations are already underway. We're borrowing chairs from neighbors who were planning on borrowing them from us. A search party to locate card tables has been formed, a place has been cleared for the kids' tables and the aromas already emanating from the kitchen are causing mouths to water.

Thanksgiving may be the only holiday in America where many of us become, if just for the day, math majors as we try to compute how many hours how large a turkey needs to be in the oven at how many degrees so that it can feed a houseful of family and friends we've invited to join us for dinner. And let's not forget how many side dishes and who's bringing what--all important elements on our national Day of Thankfulness.

No matter how rough times have been leading up to this week, and for a lot of us they sure have been tough in what has been yet another difficult year, we still make that extra effort as we put a smile on a care-worn face and enjoy the warmth of home and hearth.

Let's face it, the smiles have been in short supply as times turned bad and then stayed that way. Many of us have seen local businesses fade and then close and neighbors move on and away in search of something more than we have right here, right now. And in those households that are still here, a lot of us are doing a little more with a little less than we did last year.

Despite what you may think, we're the fortunate ones. When you talk to those who help out at food pantries and kitchens such as Saint Vincent de Paul Place, they'll tell you how the need is again greater this year than it was last year and we all remember how last year too many were in need of too much.

We already knew that. The army is stretched thin-in this case, I mean the Salvation Army, which has been deployed with its red kettle and ringing bell for more than a few days, and who'll use anything you can spare and share. So thanks in advance for your generosity.

And while the big headlines on newspaper front pages in recent weeks scream about the legislative Armageddon in Washington DC, closer to home, many of us whisper and worry about the cost of heating oil and a winter that has yet to arrive.

On a brighter note, Saturday at one is the Winterfest Parade which kicks off at Chelsea Parade and concludes in what, for decades, was the heart of downtown Norwich, Franklin Square.

Ready or not, the holidays are here, and as we gather family and friends closer to celebrate, and hopefully in the rush and crush of events we can remember strangers are friends we haven't yet met and give one another hope when we celebrate Thanksgiving.

-bill kenny

Thanksgiving 2021

As someone who likes to think of himself as being slightly ahead of his time, in this case, admittedly, cutting it a little finer than usual, let me be among the first (few hundred thousand/million) to welcome all of us to the threshold of the holiday season which more or less begins with Thanksgiving tomorrow (followed on Monday by the first first day of Hannukah) with Christmas cheer for all, ready or not, closely on its heels. 

Maybe just me, or perhaps because of yet another more shadows-than-light year that's nearing its end, it might feel a little out of place and presumptuous to extend good wishes to you and yours from me and mine as the holiday season, such as it is, begins in earnest. But as my mom used to say (and yours, too, I bet), gratitude is what makes what we have all that we need. So here we are

It's easy to lose sight of our blessings and the gratitude we should have for them as social and work obligations and community events collide, collude, and accelerate as they approach even as the still-fall days darken earlier and the temperatures drop (and our reasons to be cheerful seem to grow fewer and farther in between) and the race to the start of winter nears its conclusion.

Instead of enjoying a moment to appreciate the gifts of hearth and home that we have, we sometimes look to the lives of the famous and fortunate and yearn for that which we don't have. The ringing of the kettle collection bell one of the ways that I know the holiday season (however you define it) has arrived, doesn't cause us to count our change along with our blessings so much as to worry about for whom the bell tolls and when it might be ringing for us. And in truth, we should be cautious, but not fearful.

We have much to be thankful for as a city. We have hundreds of volunteers and neighbors involved in nearly every aspect of any activity throughout our community, each with a passion or a project that not only brightens their lives but ours as well. 

We have professional emergency medical services and own and operate our own public utility. We have teachers and schools the envy of cities ten times our size, a community college that calls Norwich home, a spectacular public park and a location between Boston and New York, straddling two popular casinos in the middle of Mystic Coast and Country here in the Northeast Corridor like few other places.

We're not yet a city that's turned the corner, but we're getting there with every new participant in a neighborhood watch, every new small business that opens, and every time someone new moves into one of our neighborhoods. Norwich in years past waited for the world-now we are preparing to meet the world, to be more active and engaged with it and one another than we have in decades. Yeah, I know I keep saying that but I'm gonna keep saying that until it comes true, so you may as well join me.

There are challenges ahead and not the easiest of times awaiting us. But we should be thankful we have one another and are developing the confidence to live out loud. Don't mourn what we've missed, celebrate what's yet to be. To those to whom much is given, much is expected and we should expect much more from our city and from ourselves, not just this Thanksgiving holiday but every day.
-bill kenny