"Time" is a loose concept of measurement that most people utilize chiefly as a convenient mechanism by which they can figure out how to be routinely tardy.

I am a bit more sophisticated with respect to "Time" and can with folksy ease discuss such variables as gravitational time dilation or even apocryphal faster-than-light time-travelling particles like neutrenos and tachyons. Yet ... I cannot explain the following simple time:

As this list goes to print on Oct. 5, 2019, it's been 5,117 days since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Kelo v. New London. Just a few hundred yards away, a project to improve drainage on Pequot Avenue near Greens Harbor Beach started early this year — but it somehow took 6,027 days, and only this week is Operation Drainage finished!

I was going to write a column of congratulations, but since I wrote one column a month back complaining, it would seem sorta disingenous. What I'd like to do instead is write a commendatory letter to The Day but, as a staffer, I'm not allowed to, Besides, all the "Letters to the Editor" space is taken by missives from ordinary folks endorsing one or another local political candidates.

The problem with these letters is they all read as though the author is only repeating the candidates' bullet point qualifications you'd find in the campaign pamphlets left on your porch by the very door-to-door volunteers we all hide from.

Letters that include stuff like: "First Selectman Horace Wuzby has devoted his entire life to his community and has compiled a record us service unparalleled in the annals of city government. He gets along with business leaders, fellow politicians and residents and ..."

What might be fun is if a computer prankster — China? Russia? — hacked into The Day system and buried some fun tidbits deep in the body of these letters.

1. "Mayor McWhortner is also proud that he hands out blankets and coats at area homeless shelters — albeit ones that have been soaked in smallpox."

2. "Ralston would make a fine judge and vows not to replicate on the bench his quaint habit of chewing his own toenails till his feet are bloody."

3. "Tax Assessor Yannster was the Green River Killer."

4. "You didn't know the Councilwoman Puggums's hobby is to stay up all night doing biochemical research hoping to find a cure for epilepsy. No success in that regard yet, but she does knock off a mean batch of absinthe."

5. "School Board member Hopper Kwook single-handedly fixed the drainage problem along New London's Pequot Avenue. It only took him 6,027 days. Next? He's gonna revitalize Fort Trumbull." 

6. "State Senator Orky may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but she promises to never use banal metaphors like 'brightest bulb on the tree' and also IS smart enough to know Koster misspelled 'neutrinos' above. It's not 'neutrenos.'"