Dotard or Rapist/Racist

 When I was a kid, politicians were all old people. 

Now I'm old, and the politicians are even older.
-bill kenny

Fixing a Hole

I've heard them referred to as 'brain farts' or 'out of body experiences.' In German it's called 'putting Sundays on the calendar.' Those moments when you're here and then you're gone, right before your own eyes it seems. 

In more recent years we've often misapplied terms like Attention Deficit Disorder for something we called 'daydreaming' when we were kids. Aside from being inaccurate, it's incredibly cruel, perhaps explaining its continued popularity in some circles.  

But what if we're more complex than we ever realized. Not complicated, complex. There's a difference because there's a distinction. Situations, with apologies to Firesign Theatre, where 'your brain may not be the boss.'  

Salience and default mode network. Hard at work, or hardly working? Can't really tell.
-bill kenny

Not Quite the State of the Union

 But to be very clear, MY state of the Union.

If you do not change direction, you may end up exactly where you're heading.
-bill kenny

(Almost) A Walk in the Woods

My timing was a little off. Either I was very late or very early in heading to Mohegan Park on our bonus day, February 29. I love to hike around Spaulding Pond regardless of the time of year though I will concede Thursday morning's cloudiness with something that felt a lot like snow and then some rain before finally some blue sky was a little more than I bargained for.

I wasn't alone. There were a couple of us strolling, although one of us was jogging at a pretty decent pace with headphones and mirror sunglasses on, looking a little like one of those "Greetings from Transverse City" posters I always imagine movie theaters of the future will be showing. 

I'm not good at guessing ages so I assume everyone I passed and with whom I did the nod and smile greet shuffle was about my age, plus or minus a decade. In my defense, we were all sort of bundled up against the wind, except for The Jogger who was in what seemed to be an electric blue Lycra running suit (probably visible from space). 

Souvenirs and memories

The great thing about Mohegan Park, even on a day in February we only have every four years, is you can inhale nature and exhale something a lot closer to tranquility than when you parked the car. 

Even a geezer like me, slightly shivering when on the shady side of the Spaulding Pond walk, can smile when I catch a glimpse of one of the turtles near the pavilion that's balanced on one of the branches floating in the water and is working on its tan even though it's all shell. 

I carry a handful of peanuts in my jacket pocket and am always on the lookout for chipmunks. We feed the squirrels at my house but I've yet to see a chipmunk in my neighborhood, so I make sure to pack provisions when headed to Mohegan Park. I love how you can hear them, and the squirrels and I have no idea what other small animals crashing around in the underbrush on the far side of the walk, where the flora and fauna reclaim the park. 

I wasn't the only one who stopped, looked, and listened as chipmunks, more a brown blur with a black and white stripe than anything else, rushed from one side of the walk to the other. The one I managed to interest in a peanut popped it in its cheek like it had been doing it professionally for years, causing me as I always do, to wonder how they know they can eat peanuts (perhaps the better question might be what can't they eat).

From a warmer walk

The playground was deserted-not that it should be surprising under overcast skies with temperatures hovering just above freezing. And when you go to Mohegan, off-season- so to speak, it's refreshing to see all the conifers that normally get overwhelmed by the leaves of all the other trees but on a crisp and cold day more winter than approaching-spring they stand out as their glistening green branches help remind me that the wheel of seasonal change is slowly turning in my favor. 

On Thursday, the birds outnumbered the people and were quite pleased with themselves as I walked the shore of the pond, looking, I suspect, like so many others for a sign however faint that better days are coming our way. I already know where I will spend them.
-bill kenny     

Not All Super Heroes Wear Capes

For a winter that hasn't been especially ferocious in these parts, it has been savage enough when I look at passing faces, or even at my own in the mirror. Every corner turned seems to present a new unhappiness a whole new 'thoughts and prayers aren't going to fix this shit' moment and all you can do is flounder on and hope for a respite somewhere in the cacophony of chaos that seems to be enveloping us at every level. 

I used to pray for God to send me a Big Gesture but I've given up on prayer and know I'll settle for an appreciative nod and a smile. I don't know about you but I'm nearing the end of my rope and already know there's not enough still left to tie a knot in it and hang on a little more.
-bill kenny 

Greetings from Selectric Ladyland

For very close to fifty years, at least five days a week every week (seemingly) my whole life to that point, I dressed up to go to work and traveled someplace where I joined with others who were doing the very same thing and we exchanged our time and talents for money to buy cars and houses and nice things for our families, and sometimes a variety of herbs and other botanicals to quiet the voices inside wondering why we were doing it at all.

We were grown-ups. The thing as kids we couldn't wait until we were old enough to be and it turned out it was all a con and some of the least fun I have ever had with my clothes on. It took the Contagion, COVID-19, to force us as a society to rethink 'work,' not the why we do it but the how. Good news if you were a shareholder in Zoom technology, that's for sure. 

And a windfall in terms of a research grant to every social scientist with a theory on how much farther we could go each all alone than collectively in an employment environment and now we've told ourselves the worst has passed (though I'm not so sure of that), You didn't know they had a play at home game, did you? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

And in much the same way as no one enters the same river twice because both they and the river have changed, the return to the office looked like some of the old ways in the old days but the instruments have changed if not the music itself. This is why stay-at-home never sounded as sweet.
-bill kenny

     

Auto Biography

We have subscriptions to Acorn TV and Brit Box so I spend a lot of time watching television from beyond our shores. I love the settings, the plots, the accents, and, of course, the cars.  But I've always idly wondered why we and they drive on opposite sides of the road. (I've also wondered why French cars seem to all have yellow headlights but I've decided eating snails may affected their vision. Truth to tell I have no idea.)

But the Brits and us and steering wheels that's an entirely different kettle of fish. We should, I have learned, be blaming Conestoga wagons. Seriously.  

So, here's my question: When driving through the Chunnel, connecting Folkstone, United Kingdom with Coquelles, France, at what point do drivers change sides? Okay, trick question. And speaking of imponderables, do penguins have knees?
-bill kenny