I was thinking about a story I once wrote for a newspaper about the Philadelhia-born singer Jim Croce and I discovered so many stepping stones that guided me from one career choice to another with an almost mystical maneuvering.
Majoring in journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia, I got a part-time job in 1976 at a weekly newspaper created a little more than a year earlier in the suburb of Downingtown. It was called the East Branch Citizen, named after a river-way that streamed nearby.
I learned that Croce, who wrote and sang one of my all-time favorite Rock & Roll songs “Bad, bad Leroy Brown,” had lived in the paper’s coverage area. Not only that, but a former English teacher of mine from the neighboring county’s community college (Delaware County Community College) had lived in an apartment dwelling with Jim, who died in a plane crash on the nearly 50th anniversary of his death on September 20, 1973.
He pointed out the white brick outhouse at the Lyndell property was what Jim used for his first album cover.
There he is standing in the opening of the outhouse!
Anyway, The newspaper was printed by a printer from Phoenixville, where two former reporters for the Pottstown Mercury newspaper used to work. I got to know them and also did some part-time work there until I graduated from school with a master’s degree in American History and, with the urging of the former newspaper journalists, applied for a job in Pottstown.
The only thing the paper needed was a history of Pottstown and the surrounding towns in both Chester and Montgomery counties. It was the year 1976, the Bicentennial Year, and I ended up writing a history for the paper that was eventually published in book form. The editor liked my writing style and guess what? He hired me to become a full-time newspaper reporter whose work years later would be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
I owe it all to a series or coincidences or as Carl G. Jung called it “Synchronicity!”
As Jim Croce might have said: “You don’t mess around with ’em!”
Contoveros 
The following comments were shared on Facebook:
Cliff Cutler
“Meaner than a junkyard dog” is one of my favorite lyrics 😎.”
Michael J Contos
Jim Croce drove old vehicles that broke down often. One day he traveled to Thornton, PA, less than a mile from where my old community college sometimes used old trailers to teach us, and he tried to find a spare part in a junkyard.
Just as he was leaving, a dog chased after him and luckily, did not catch him because of the chain on the mongrel.
That’s when Jim told his partner those famous words: “Ain’t nothing meaner than a junkyard dog!”
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This was a fun one to write and think about some 50 years after Jim Croce passed away in 1973.
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You are a great addition to the paper, especially since it meant that we the other Mercury staff members would not have to write the book on that monstrous historical project. Even better you stayed on as a reporter and did a lot of great work. I miss you buddy. Mike
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Just saw your response to Nicholas wedding picture along with me. Yes, it’s been more than 30 years since we adopted him from your adopted homeland of Cleveland and spent the night at your house.
I’ll never forget it or the times we had at the Pottstown Mercury filing crime stories as well as a few features for the newspaper.
Good to hear from your Mike!
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What a hire you were! We reporters at the mercury were dreading the upcoming historical insanity that was upon us. Then we were told you were going to handle most of it. Fantastic work and i still have a copy of the collected stories. Even better, you stayed on and became one of our brightest lights. I miss you buddy..
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Great to hear from you. You just made my day. No, you made my week. Hell, you actually made my month since there is only a few days left anyway.
It was fun working at the old Mercury sitting next to you and Nancy March. Learned a lot about crime reporting as well as feature writing which has kinda stayed with me these past year. (Feature-writing, not criminal activity.)
Take care in good old Cleveland.
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Proof that when the universe calls … answer the d*mn phone !
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I’ll answer the next time it rings on either the land-line or the wrist-watch phone, thank you my good friend!
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