Equal Goes It Loose

Our two children, one of whom turned forty earlier this month (!), were both born in West Germany. I met and married their mother while I was stationed in Germany as a slick-sleeved member of the US Air Force and I remained in-country as we used to say for a number of years after leaving my uniform days behind me. 

We spoke, for the most part German, in the house when the kids were small. Except for me. I spoke German badly (practically a separate language I should point out) but I don't think the two of them actually noticed the difference between the way their dad spoke and how Oma and Opa or their mom spoke. I'm grateful for their indulgence and forgiveness on that count.

When you are astride two language horses (metaphorically) like that, you create your own space. After we relocated, somewhat abruptly, from Germany to Norwich, Connecticut, our children's German became more passive as the actual language was used less and less every day, especially outside the house. 

Our daughter often said 'dunkel night time' to describe the evening's darkness while our son slalomed between the two languages (being a full-time third-grade student at the time accelerated his progress). As they grew up, they outgrew their German but both still retain a better than the average grasp of the language to this day.

I was thinking about them and the vagaries and similarities of idiomatic paths of different languages such as the English expression 'watch and wait' which in German is 'abwarten und tee trinken' (wait and have some tea) while digesting a fascinating (to me) article on how our brains cope with speaking more than one language.  

I think, in my case, just speaking one is too often a bridge too far.
bill kenny

Some Days You Eat the Bear

Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. Other times, it's better to have been both. 

This is probably one of those times.  

I concluded that in some instances Rihanna may be more effective than Lyle.
-bill kenny

The Birds of Heaven

One of my favorite New Testament passages is where Jesus compares the chances of a rich man entering heaven to be about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. 

As children enrolled in a parochial grammar school we assumed and believed (and the misnamed Sisters of Charity allowed us to continue to persist in our mistake) that this meant (ha! ha!) God loved the poor and that no one of wealth was going to heaven. Or not. 

In a little more than two thousand years, we went from "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin" to Religions, Inc.

I, of so little faith, can't help but wonder what Jesus might make of a list like this, or how He'd react to His servant, (Bishop) Lamor Miller-Whitehead (together with his wife) who was a victim last weekend of a seven-figure armed robbery. Mysterious Ways, meet Render Unto Caesar.

There is no truth to reports that the Bishop smokes Camels. 
-bill kenny

Guessing He Caught It

Traveling earlier this week after the heat wave broke, I was heading from Norwich to Waterford via Route 32 (we can also go 395 but there's such a level and pace of traffic it wears me out trying to keep up with it).

It's not really the road less taken, though the volume of traffic pales in comparison to 395 which is just as well as it connects Norwich and Montville and New London as you travel around the not-so-glamorous back entrance to the Mohegan Sun casino.

The only tricky part is just as you're hitting Quaker Hill because 32 blends with an exit of 395 and I know from experience on both sides of the merge, that it's not a day at the beach. For a driver on 32, the merge involves a reasonably extreme over-your-right shoulder scan of your sector, so to speak, as cars entering far faster than your speed are (in theory) trying to slow down as they merge and before they hit the traffic signal (or you).

If you're coming off 395 at this exit, all the turtle drivers are to your left, and to make it interesting for both of you, at that traffic signal I just mentioned, there are always a lot of people making the right at the light which means they need to get into that lane, and if they cross in front of you, well, stuff can happen.

Which it did yesterday, but funny stuff. It was a guy in a dark Saab, the sedan model (I think that means four doors, right? Anyway, that's what I mean) and he's looking to go straight and get into the left lane on 32 coming off from 395. There wasn't a lot of traffic and it was a pretty easy maneuver.

So much so that I had more than enough opportunity to eyeball his shotgun partner, his dog, a big brown one, window rolled down, head out the window (I'd love to know what they are thinking about aside from 'here, kitty, c'mon Kitty') wearing wraparound sunglasses, just like his owner. 

For a moment, I was watching the SPCA version of the Blues Brothers movie, with the part of a trimmer, and far more hirsute, Jake, played by the dog. My turn was approaching and as I put on my blinker, I murmured a short prayer, "Our Lady of Acceleration, don't fail us now."
-bill kenny

Out Here in the Middle

Cynicism is pretty much part and parcel of our lives in nearly every interaction everywhere in this country (state, city), as you've probably noticed. (Quite frankly, how could you not?) and a couple of days ago, I’m thinking because of the sentiment if not the actual words used in this space last week, someone dropped me a note to tell me how ‘hard life must be for a Ted Lasso wannabe.’

Yeah. That introductory offer for Apple TV+ at a dollar a month has already paid for itself, as I appreciated immediately the rapier-like wit of that observation. Except, I suspect (and not just here in Norwich), we have more starry-eyed optimists than we know (but not as many as we need).

Let’s face it. Personally, professionally, and even politically, it’s perhaps better to be a pessimist; that way you can only be surprised and never be disappointed. Except, who would want to live like that, and why? That whole ‘a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ first expressed by Robert Browning wasn’t just words strung together but, if you will, a call to arms for each of us and all of us.

The thing about the Ted Lasso comparison that chafes I’ll admit is that I would describe myself philosophically as a relentless pragmatist and politically as Out Here in the Middle.

In terms of the former, I’m proud to say I can do anything but would concede I can’t do everything. And as for the prism of partisan politics through which so much is viewed, I appreciate both a left and a right wing, especially on an airplane, but while it’s never been accused of being sexy, working to find common ground for the greater good is very much how we’ve gotten as far as we have. At least until now.  

Too many, the Salt of the Earth, forget about how a prayer is said for us, 'the stay-at-home voter, dull-eyed though a strange beauty shows'--or how we endure a 'passing parade of grey-suited grafters, a choice of cancer or polio.' Instead, we wait for the perfect moment and for someone to rescue us and have forgotten we are all we have, but also all we need.

Isn’t it time we embrace the tools and techniques of the 21st Century, (admittedly late to the game, but still) and stop talking about improving Norwich and start doing it? You may be like me, whose last original idea died of loneliness, so perhaps together we two could assist private and public efforts striving to improve where we live and work, instead of standing around with our hands in our pockets, shaking our heads and waiting for things to end badly.

I've lived here for a shade over three decades and think we need to find out how much we can accomplish when no one is keeping score or claiming credit. I think dreams, voiced and shared aloud, can and should be what drives the public dialogue that’s essential to creating consensus that fuels transformation and change.

In the coming weeks, we’ll have a new platform and community outreach to help us help ourselves be the city we keep telling ourselves we want and can be. This is our chance and our time. Be ready.  
-bill kenny

Brave to the Grave

As kids, some grownup somewhere would always say to us as we were getting loud or somewhat unruly to 'act your age!' I'm still getting that which is sort of embarrassing and confusing as I've never been seventy before and have no idea how to act that age. 

It could be even more awkward, I suppose than being an elderly American.
I could be a British senior.

<Sigh>. I remember when I could pull all-nighters. Now I struggle to pull all-dayers.
-bill kenny

Sort of a Miniature Arbor Day

Not sure if I've told you, we have a new car. It's the first new car I've owned since my second car, ever, back in 1971, which was a Ford Pinto. Don't snicker. Mine didn't blow up or break down. Mine ran forever until I sold it and moved to Germany; what happened with them after that? Not my circus, not my monkeys. 

Anyway, we have a 2022 Subaru Forester (I offered the monkeys reference in the previous paragraph for my brother Kelly who has a deep and abiding unhappiness with monkeys that I'd like to think I helped start but that's a story for another time). We don't actually own the Forester, we're leasing it. I was 70 in April and in my prime, I had no mechanical so don't get me started with a state-of-the-art automobile in my advanced years. Better someone else worries about all the stuff that can go wrong especially when that someone else is not me.

I concentrate on the big picture stuff like keeping the car shiny and clean. I visit a car wash in Groton that offers those 'if it rains within' x amount of days afterward free rewash guarantees even though I will never use it (and I save all the receipts from the car wash). I'm just too embarrassed to even try to hustle someone in the business of washing cars out of a free one for something neither they nor I can control.

Instead, I collect the little tree air fresheners, in search, between you and me, of the perfect new car scent. I've never found it and I suspect it doesn't exist though I am always overwhelmed at the variety of choices confronting me when I turn and face the wall of 'free car scents,' that the wash folks have. I could probably try a different tree every week for I'm guessing close to a year and never repeat the scent.

And then very recently I had a Joyce Kilmer moment when it came to the origins of the little tree air fresheners, sort of like Saul on the road to Damascus but let's not speculate where he might have hung the little tree, shall we? 

I'd like to think somewhere Alex, Geddy, and Neil are smiling (or grimacing; from this distance, among all these little trees, it's hard to tell).
-bill kenny