A Taxing Walk through New Britain

Ever do one of those illogical things and assume that there MUST be some meaning to it?

Today I finally did our taxes (federal and state).  The CT taxes must be filed on-line now -- alas, I miss the phone filing we used to be able to do -- while the federal ones can be done on-line or not.  When I clicked the button to begin the on-line process for the IRS, it said that we would be leaving the IRS website to go to one run by a private company that "may use the information differently than the IRS" (or something equally ominous sounding).  Well, THAT wasn't going to happen, so, instead, I completed the various forms in hard copy.

Now comes the illogical act.  I decided that, since I needed to mail them (to Missouri, really?), I'd walk to the post office, which, from the house, is well beyond Walnut Hill Park, the usual opposite endpoint to my walks.  In short, having rejected the easiest solution (on-line filing), now I was also rejecting putting the envelope in the mailbox right outside my front door, a mailbox down the street near Lincoln Elementary School, or even waiting until I went out with the car later on (or even tomorrow), since taxes aren't due until Monday, the 18th.

As I began my walk to the post office, with tax form under my arm, on this sunny, warm, mid-April day, I attempted to find some larger meaning to it.  After all, that's a pretty good picture right there, right?  But I wasn't walking in protest (against big or little government); I wasn't being ludditical (against e-filing); I was just walking.

But as I walked out of my neighborhood, through the park, past the hospital, down Arch Street, past some restaurants and matrkets, past the Friendship and Pathways/Senderos Centers, and some empty store fronts, past the Hole-in-the-Wall Theatre and Trinity-on-Main, and, on my return, past the courthouse, several small mom-and-pop businesses, and through the neighborhood that extends the full length of Monroe Street, I realized that all this is at least some of what our taxes go to support......well, that, and a huge military-industrial complex.

I'm pretty sure this won't become an annual walk to accompany the annual tax ritual (especially if it's not a pretty day), but, in the end, I'm quite glad that I took that walk.