I began a major endeavor this month to re-edit all of the Blog posts that I had written over the years, and it has re-opened many of the hopes and dreams that I once shared while writing and sharing messages at Contoveros.Wordpress.com.
It all started with a dream I had about Socrates and Plato which connected with my “active imagination” that the eminent psychologist Carl G. Yung had wrote about in hisPsychology of the Unconscious.
Continue readingIt’s been six months since I entered the hospital and got transferred from one rehabilitation center to another, but I think I may have finally licked the worst of my ailments and am ready to join my old household. I still have trouble walking from one room to another, and I need assistance from someone walking behind me while climbing up the stairs.
Continue readingWhat a joy grandkids provide us, particularly when they share their daily lives with you as a family. I’m talking about my 6-year-old grandchild, Denalia, and my rambunctious 8-year-old grandson, Jameson Contos.
Continue readingFor the first time in my life, a bird greeted me outside my bedroom window as I contemplated whether to get out of bed earlier today.
It was 6 a.m. in the morning! A little too early for my taste, so I just rolled over and rested my head against the two pillows I had piled up on one side of the bed. (They help prop me up when I watch television many hours later.)
Continue readingI will be off to Washington DC next month on an excursion strictly for veterans to participate in what has been designated as an “Honor Flight” for those who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
The program was created some years ago and even provided airfare for those living on the West Coast and living too far to make a trip to the nation’s capital by vehicle. That is where it got its name “Honor Flight” and in my bailiwick, that would be “Honor Flight Philadelphia.”
Continue readingI was escorted from my home by a Uber driver for the first time in my life when I learned the Veterans Administration provides the service free for disabled veterans.
Continue readingI believe that I am finally cured of pneumonia, rhino virus bacterial pneumonia that is, which I believe I got after Covid struck me for the second time in October and stayed with me through what I thought was nothing more than a persistent cough and excess phlegm problem.
It tired me out so much that I stopped walking my daily 10,000 steps and was lucky to step 3,000 times a day, according to my Fitbit, needing tissue paper and a makeshift handkerchief for the congestion that had developed. I live with my son Nicholas and his family which includes four children which I had to take extra care while in their presence. I always wore a mask and and covered my mouth when I felt a cough coming while in the kitchen or dining room.
And then it hit me. Getting out of bed around 10 pm on January 21st I got dizzy, fell toward the floor near my bathroom, and my son me ordered an ambulance to rush me to the hospital. I had suffered no bodily injury, thank God, but the intake personnel at Bryn Mawr Hospital discovered that I had pneumonia.
Spent five days with feeding tubes of antibiotics being pumped into my body and a bunch of pesky little attachments to my chest and stomach. The food wasn’t bad but it often got stuck in my teeth and I had no toothpicks to remove the pieces. No one offered to help me with any floss and I had to use a broke-off piece of a plastic fork to get a little relieve.
And then the indigestion kicked in. I suffer from acid reflux and my daily medicine from the VA hospital was stopped by the doctors because it would interfere with their antibiotics. Ah man, how I suffered. And not just for the five days in the hospital but a whopping nine more days upon arriving home and being directed to take antibiotic pills twice a day.
(I couldn’t believe the nurses at the hospital had to get the doctors to officially prescribe Tums to help me while I was in their hospital bed. They were not authorized and only the doctors could do it! Order Tums, man Tums.)
And where does that leave us upon this viewing? Well, I ate pepperoni pizza with extra cheese in preparation for the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl game Sunday night and had no negative aftereffects. A sausage, egg and cheese sandwich from a nearby ALDI store was easily digested the next morning and today I can gleefully shout from my Conshohocken home “Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God Almighty I am Free at Last.”
The month of January will always bring a sad feeling when I recall what happened on the first day of the year in 1953 to one of the greatest Country and Western singers of all time.
Hank Williams died of a heart attack while traveling in the back seat of a vehicle enroute to a performance he never was given by Fate to accomplish. He was only 29 years old, but had provided more than many lifetimes to the wonderful world of music.
I’m a city-boy from the Philadelphia region but was exposed to his unique sound by my mother who was raised on a New Jersey farm and introduced her children to Hank through what were called “33 and 1.3” or LP albums. (Long Playing – 33 and 1/3 revolutions per minute.) The music made me happy and a little sad particularly when I listening to a song “Kaw-Liga.” Give a listen to the lyrics:
“Kaw-Liga was a wooden Indian, standin’ in the door
He fell in love with an Indian maid, over at the antique store
Kaw-Liga, ooh
Just stood there, and never let it show
So, she could never answer yes or no”
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Poor ol’ Kaw-Liga, he never got a kiss
Poor ol’ Kaw-Liga, he don’t know what he missed
Is it any wonder, that his face is red?
Kaw-Liga, you poor ol’ wooden head.
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Of course, he is remembered more readily by songs such as “Cold Cold Heart,” “Hey Good Lookin,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “I Can’t Help It, If I’m Still in Love with You.,” “You Win Again,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “You Win Again” and “Jambalya (On the Bayou.)”
My favorite singer of all time, Bobby Darin, sang a Hank Wiliams song during the last showing of his television variety show in 1973. It was called “Lonesome Whistle.”
Here’s a list of some of the other artists who sang his songs: Frankie Laine, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Bill Haley and his Comets, Tony Bennett, Jimmie Rodgers, Del Shannon, Johnny Burnette, Andy Williams, Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson, Jack Scott, Guy Mitchell, Rosemary Clooney, Dinah Washington, Fats Domino and the Rolling Stones.
Next time you’re in Cleveland, Ohio, check out the Rock & Roll Hall Fame. Hank Williams was inducted into the group in 1987 and there is a colorful picture of him just as you enter. He was also inducted into the Rockabily Hall of Fame in 2023, the 100th anniversary of his death.
(Click on the blue-colored songs for Kaw-Liga and Lonesome Whistle to hear them offered on You-Tube.)
SLOW DOWN!
I believe that is what the Universe is telling me as I have gotten older and time has caught up with this aging body that – for the life of me – can’t physically handle everyday chores and activities I routinely completed some six months ago.
Slow down. Yes, you are getting tired when you ascend the steps to get into your Conshohocken home and then many more steps to get to your second-floor bathroom and/or main bedroom. So, take a break. You have nothing to prove or to “carry-on” as us veterans used to say while serving in the military.
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Continue readingWas the 2024 presidential election rigged somehow by some unsavory characters with a history of such actions from the last presidential election?
I don’t know. But I wouldn’t put it pass some Republicans who tried to steal the election away from Biden and Harris in 2020. They may have perfected some of their dastardly ways and avoided media coverage but possible further investigation by my former journalism buddies who – like me – may sense that something just doesn’t seem right about this election.
Continue readingI cast my ballot today for the 2024 election in the United States in the hopes and joyful expectations that Kamala Harris will win and be declared president.
Continue reading I never thought that words I wrote on a slip of paper and dropped into a suggestion box would somehow enlighten me.!
The senior center I’ve attended for the past two years has agreed to hire a teacher, or what I would call a “guru,“ to show seniors how to meditate at the Upper Merion Senior Citizen Center.
Five or six people had signed up for further information at the facility and a librarian from the local library who teaches meditation has contacted someone to come to the center near King of Prussia, PA, and guide us. It will start on the third Wednesday of September, according to the Center’s president who arranged it all.
The Pottstown Mercury Newspaper – where I served as cub reporter during the Bicentennial Year – will have a reunion as one of my mentors and great news reporters has scheduled a meeting this weekend.
Michael Sangiacomo, who worked the last 30 odd years at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is returning to his native home in Norristown, PA, and has invited fellow Mercury staffers who were present when the Montgomery County paper won its first and second Pulitzer Prizes. It’s the only small newspaper in the United States that has won more than one of journalism’s grandest awards.
Continue reading I got a kick out of introducing my grandson to one of the most enduring and well-liked comedians of all time.
Six-year-old Jameson came out swinging at the television characters in my master bedroom after I called him from adjoining room and watched him view an outragiously funny scene from one of my all-time favorite Charlie Chaplin movies “City Lights.”
Chaplin, also known in silent motion pictures as the “Tramp,” fell in love with a blind girl who sold him flowers and wanted to get money to help her. He ends up in a boxing ring where he dodges one blow after another by hiding and running behind the much larger referee who blocked his opponent from landing any punches.
It is hilarious to see both fighters box each other around and then get “saved by the bell” before one of them is eventually knocked down in the old-time boxing ring and cannot get up by the count of 10. Jameson wanted the bell to ring each time he swung with what I considered to be a roundhouse punch with both arms flaring and a bright little smile arising out of the corner of his mouth.
Relieved.
Grateful.
Joyful.
Those are the words that sprung from my heart and soul as I took in what the jury provided the entire world with their unanimous decision to convict a former USA president.
They say that “bad things happen in threes.” But I’m here to tell you that good things can happen in threes if you but open yourself to ’em.
Take today for example. I stopped at Lowe’s to get some of my walking steps in and felt proud to have parked in the spot designated with a sign that said “Veterans Parking.” I figured I might as well get some bird seed to feed my fine feathered friends who accumulate near the statues of both the standing St. Francis of Assissi and the seated Buddha.
Continue readingThe Defender Association of Philadelphia, of which I worked for 20 years as a public defender, is celebrating its 90th year of representing poor defendants today!
Continue reading“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
That is what Mark Twain wrote in a cablegram he sent from Europe to a newspaper publisher in the United States that had published an obituary with false details of his death in a widely circulated newspaper one day more than a hundred years ago.
I am saying the same thing right now in the year 2024!
Continue readingA Trivia game I played with senior citizens recently focused on musical songs that contained numbers in their titles. The experience stayed with me and later woke me at 3 am while I laid in bed unable to dismiss the songs not mentioned some 12 to 13 hours earlier at the Upper Merion Senior Service Center in King of Prussia, PA.
The songs we played included “One, Two Three” by Len Barry, “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Nine to Five” by Dolly Parton, “One is the Loneliest Number” by Three Dog Night, “December ‘63 (Oh What a Night” by the Four Seasons, and “When I’m 64” and “Eight Days a Week” by the Beatles. I began to add more songs in my awakened state of mind and knew I’d get no further sleep until I get the songs out of my system and onto paper.
Continue readingWhile getting together all taxable income documents for 2023 to file with the IRS, I came across something that is quite amazing. The Social Security System keeps a list of all earnings you ever made starting with the first time you ever worked.
Continue readingThere are certain words and phrases in the English language that I just can’t relate to or understand and bug me whenever I am asked to respond to them.
“Heterosexual” is at the top of my list. I guess it is in cahoots so to speak with “homosexual” but I never heard it used until I was grown up and dating for a couple of years. The dictionary definition for heterosexual is someone who is “sexually or romantically attracted exclusively to people of the other sex.”
Continue readingI am about to get one of those RSV shots at the VA Hospital of Philadelphia to prevent any lung infection, and I wanted to share my enthusiasm for all the work the Veterans Administration has provided me with most of my adult life.
It started a month after exiting the Vietnam War alive and receiving a GI Bill stipend to become a “first-generation” college student, and a few years later, to buy my first home. But it wasn’t until I got caregiver burnout in 2008 while taking care of my wife, who suffered a traumatic brain injury from a fall, as well as a “PTSD-suffering uprising” from my combat experience, that I first got life support help from a VA hospital.
Continue reading
You never know when an action from your past may catch up to you and remind you of what you once did in your previous life.
Take, for instance, my attendance last week at a Veterans Ceremony in Plymouth Township, which borders my hometown of Conshohocken, PA. They honored veterans who served in the municipality by placing their names in a brochure while a full-fledged US Navy Captain spoke at a memorial.
Continue readingWhile attending the 10th anniversary of the Center for Contemporary Mysticism, a mystical experience opened my eyes to so many spiritual possibilities.
Continue readingI 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.
Continue readingThe name change has finally occurred, and I am happy to report that every US Army base where I was stationed has had its Confederate Army soldier’s name removed and replaced with more admirable names.
Continue readingToday is the birthday of my favorite singer of all time.
If he lived, Bobby Darin would have turned 87, but a rheumatic heart condition caused a premature death at age 37.
That was exactly 50 years ago this year on Dec. 20, 1973.
Continue readingI’m getting therapy once again for my well-being!
Physical therapy, that is. Although I could probably use a little for my mental well-being. (Just kidding.)
Continue readingThis month marks the 50th anniversary of when the Vietnam War finally ended. A Peace Accord was reached on January 27, 1973, making way for the complete removal of all troops by March 29th of the same year.
Many of us remember the chaotic pictures of persons trying to flee Saigon on the last day reminding me of the chaos that erupted when the United States ended The Afghanistan War on August 2021. The Vietnam War was America’s longest war ever until Afghanistan overtook it. Both wars became highly unpopular and some believe that politics had a lot to do with both battlefronts.
Fifty years ago the Vietnam War finally ended, but for many like myself, it feels like it was only yesterday.
Continue readingThis has been the coldest winter I have ever experienced. Weather forecasters on news stations are calling it the “Once in a Generation Winter Storm.” They reported that more than 800,000 households lost power nationwide. And the frigid conditions continue as I write this the day before Xmas.
The worst of the freeze occurred after I parked my car at the Conshohocken PA train station yesterday en route to the VA Hospital of Philadelphia for a scheduled MRI. I thought things couldn’t get any worse after completing the medical procedure that was highly uncomfortable, but when I got back to the train station lot I faced another painful circumstance. I could not open the driver’s side door of my Toyota Corolla.
Continue readingVoting has been made easier for many of us in Pennsylvania and the state provides links for checking on your voting status as well as any request seeking a mail-in ballot. I took part in a Zoom connection entitled “MontCoVotes” and learned how to maneuver through the government channels and wanted to share them here.
Continue readingThe world is celebrating the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi today! Francesco di Bernadone, whose real name was actually Giovanni (John), was born some 800 years ago. He came from a wealthy family. But turned his back on his mercantile father and gave up all worldly goods to help the poor as well as the animals.
Continue reading(See Part I “My Delaware County Community College!”)
Before I ever went to a community college, I had to make up several deficits in my learning. I had to take remedial math as well as remedial English. I passed both and was then permitted to take regular classes which include journalism studies and just as important, the school’s extra-curricular activity of working on the college newspaper.
I began as a reporter for The Communitarian. The paper used my by-line on every story I wrote, and by my second year at DCCC, I was named editor. Well, I believe my military training must have kicked in because I started to publish an edition on a weekly basis. You were lucky to have it published once a month until I took over.
I’ve been “Framed.”
And the person who framed me was none other than my son, Nicholas.
He framed all my medals from my enlistment in the US Army more than 50 years ago, including my service in the Vietnam War.
Continue readingI got a new pair of hearing aids, and a new world of sounds has opened for me!
I wore ‘em outdoors during a walk on my 10,000-steps-a-day journey, and the first thing I noticed was the sound of birds chirping merrily in the trees I walked under. They had to have been communicating with each other because as soon as one stopped chirping, another one seemed to follow up in response.
Continue readingWhat do a missing swimsuit and a 50-year-old photo of a newly-minted lieutenant have in common?
Both got lost and then recovered on a friendly trip to the library and the treasured gift of hoping for an uplifting outcome.
Continue readingContinue readingPerfectly, Unadulteratedly Human
The authentic human voice is a thing many writers strive to capture. Few can claim to have succeeded. Contos, however, very much has earned that badge of honor. The text is home to an authentic and powerful narration that still, in its honest humanity, grounds itself in the humble approach to one man’s life and what that life means.
I don’t often cry over books. It’s not that I can’t, it’s just something that very rarely happens.
I cried reading about the Kid of Brewerytown.
Take that as you will.Katherine D. 5.0 out of 5 stars
– Jan 22, 2022
“Potential Spam” is the innocuous term that Verizon classifies as one of several phone calls I get each day on my cell phone.
I immediately delete them, but have had an accident or two when I’d click the wrong button and end up dialing that number. I quickly stop any further progress at that number and click on delete. I got a feeling, however, that some “son-of-a-b” got a recording of my mistake and will log it into their account, but I really don’t know.
Continue readingSixty years to the day of the most memorable kiss of my life, the girl who bestowed that kiss had contacted me for the first time since way back then.
Sixty years!
Continue readingI have been honored this Veterans Day through a recorded interview about my book on the Vietnam War for a program called “Good Morning Conshy,” where I share the broadcast with two companion pet managers for what is known as PACT. Many of the animals had assisted veterans who could no longer care for their pets and needed help for animals they viewed as their children.
We all had contacts with Conshohocken, a small borough just outside of Philadelphia, and learned that the interview would be recorded and made available on YouTube. Watching it, I noticed how white-faced I look after recovering from a stomach illness. I am glad I wore my “boonie hat” that I had saved from the Vietnam War. It shows one silver bar that was subdued to prevent the enemy from spotting an officer. I wore it only once before, and that was at Omega Institute at a five-day meditation retreat for veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Continue readingOne of my favorite jobs was serving as an intern for the Defender Association of Philadelphia. I went to the jails, the Courtrooms, and the training rooms to learn how to properly defend persons charged with various crimes.
The prison was tough. You never knew if the defendant was telling the truth or not. You simply interviewed him for the basic information and wrote up his story for a trial lawyer to review before speaking to the suspect and going to trial. You never saw the person again, and you had no idea how he may have fared.
Continue readingI felt like a Boy Scout as I found a young woman’s lost wallet and marched it to the police station while another person walking outdoors helped to notify the owner.
By the time I got to the borough hall building and spoke to a police spokesperson, the woman had called the station and was on the phone the moment I walked into the headquarters’ dispatch center.
Continue readingDumb schmuck to be exact.
I got a call from my doctor at the VA Hospital of Philadelphia after having blood drawn earlier in the day. He was concerned about an increase in some bad things involving my prostate.
Whatever those things were, I knew they weren’t any good, and he advised me to have a test done to ensure that I was not developing prostate cancer.
Continue readingMy reality took a major hit when I learned of a book that reveals the famous battle at the Alamo in Texas was not what Walt Disney had broadcast on TV but was a nefarious cover-up of an expansion of slavery in the Lone Star State.
Santa Anna’s Mexican troops were trying to stamp out slavery in its territory, and the 180 persons fighting at the old Spanish mission in San Antonio were trying not only to retain slavery, but to make it grow for the production of cotton.
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General Mark Miley, who incidentally was a Trump appointee, recently expressed his support for “critical race theory” at a congressional hearing.
“I do think it is important for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and well-read,” he told the House Armed Services Committee. “I want to understand white rage . . . and I’m white. . . I want to understand it. So, what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this (the Capital) and try to overturn the Constitution?”
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I salute this military leader, a four-star general who is also “airborne infantry,” and cannot for the life of me understand how someone who never put on a uniform or faced a single day in combat could say such drivel about such a soldier.
Nor can I understand how USAA could continue spending advertising dollars on the Fox program. I know they want to reach veterans and our families, but the money is also propping up a mouthpiece for white supremacy and anti-democratic conspiracy theories.
(Click here for a look at the actual Fox newscast.)
Please USAA. Cut all ties with Tucker Carlson and continue your support of veterans who care about America’s values!
This former combat infantry platoon leader besieges you to do the right thing.
Now!
Continue readingI experienced one of those “holy shit” moments the other day.
You know the type of experience you get from something you see, hear, or read, and you just have to say to yourself, out of earshot of everybody else, something like: “holy shitoli!”
Continue readingSynchronicity is a term I have come to cherish since being introduced to it by my favorite psychologist, Carl G Jung. It refers to deeply meaningful coincidences that mysteriously occur in one’s life. Jung proved by the law of probability that they were not mere coincidences but insights into our rich and worthwhile lives.
Continue readingWalter Mondale, the Minnesota resident and former candidate for president of the United States, was a staunch advocate for providing legal services to poor people charged with crimes, and I firmly believe that his legacy will live on.
I remember Mondale through my wife, who took a leave of absence from her work as a copy editor at The Inquirer Newspaper of Philadelphia to work for Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman endorsed by a political party to run for vice president. Wendy, who passed away three years ago this month, drove in a cavalcade of volunteers assisting celebrities who met and supported the congresswoman from New York.
She met Mary Travers – of Peter, Paul and Mary – who asked for a side trip to eat a cheese steak at Pat’s Steaks in South Philadelphia, which Mary claimed she had heard so much about!
Even though Mondale served as vice president under Jimmy Carter and ran against and lost to Ronald Reagan for president, he also served as the Attorney General for the state of Minnesota. It was in 1962 that he encouraged more than 20 attorney generals throughout the country to join in an amicus brief in support of a poor man from Florida who asked for but was denied the assistance of a lawyer for his criminal trial.
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Clarence Earl Gideon was found guilty when he went to trial and was sentenced to five years in jail. The pool hall owner claimed the defendant stole $5 in change, along with some beer and soda, and $50 from a jukebox.
While in prison, he used prison stationery and a prison-approved pencil to write an appeal to the US Supreme Court. (The actual hand-written appeal is on display at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia!)
Mondale convinced 22 other attorneys general throughout the United States to join in the amicus brief in support of Gideon. Some believe it helped to sway the court, which decided unanimously to grant relief to the poor Gideon, who was in his early 50s and considered to be a drifter when convicted in 1961. (He had no more than an 8th-grade education and ran away from home when he was in middle school.)
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The landmark decision – in a case cited as Gideon v Wainwright – led to the creation of the vast public defender system in the United States. I served as a criminal defense lawyer for 20 years in Philadelphia and owe the creation of my job to Gideon.
Well, what happened after the court case? Gideon – such an unlikely hero – was appointed a lawyer to represent him at another trial, and he was found Not Guilty! In 1980, Henry Fonda played the part of Gideon in a made-for-television movie called “Gideon’s Trumpet.”
Thank you, Walter Mondale, for your support of the underdog and your compassion for the poor in our society.
I got hacked.
Again!
Some sombitch broke into my Internet connection and must have sent dozens of messages to who knows how many people I have gotten to know through Facebook and possibly Messenger.
Continue readingFirst Lieutenant Victor Lee Ellinger was no ‘loser’, Mister Trump.
He was shot and killed by an enemy sniper during the Vietnam War, and I forced marched my platoon to come to his aid, only to find out we got to him too late to help.
He was no “sucker,” having enlisted the same year that you miraculously developed bone spurs on one of your feet, getting your fifth deferment to keep you out of the military and any chance of being in harm’s way. It was the same year I was drafted and later commissioned to lead a bunch of other young men into battle.
Continue readingWhile I am still able to recall in some detail highlights of my early life before true adulthood, I decided to write them down for future generations and others who may want to commiserate with my adventures and misadventures.  Continue reading
I voted at home today, and I can’t wait to put the written ballot in the slot opening at my local Post Office.  Continue reading
I once worked in the Pennsylvania State Government, meeting and writing a speech for the governor, and broadcasting a news story about a new group of buses being introduced to the Keystone State. Continue reading
I was kicked out of a Courtroom when I raised my voice to a judge who seemed to be favoring an assistant district attorney who wanted my client removed from hospice because he hadn’t died soon enough after I got him out of jail.  Continue reading
“It’s snowing!” is what Phoenyx happily announced to the household as the nine-year-old made her way up to the third floor at 6:58 am this morning.  Continue reading
I started the Blog shortly after attending the funeral for my last surviving blood relative, Uncle Dominic Hagel, my mother’s brother, who, together with his wife, Aunt Frances, helped to raise me when sent from Philadelphia to Egg Harbor, NJ. My mother had postpartum depression after the birth, and I was sent to my grandmother, who shared her house with Uncle Dom.
Something clicked inside of me. I had just gotten help for PTSD from the Vietnam War and learned to meditate from a VA psychologist who taught veterans mindfulness meditation. I also finished a 6-week course of dream-journaling after reading about Psychologist Carl G Jung.
After meditating, I rose from the pew and stepped out as if I were going for Holy Communion. I walked backward and studied the various statues. Each had a story to tell, and I internalized that understanding and wanted to share my own story.
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On my return home, I began to write about what I was taught in second grade as the “purpose of life.” That is “To Know, Love and Serve God,” according to the Baltimore Catechism. I wrote about all three.
In between, I had a dream about Socrates and coupled it with what Jung called an “active imagination.” I saw people in my life as Angels or Guides who directed me in my path to include my teenage mentor who taught me to sing Doo Wop harmony, my oldest brother who guided me into Officer Candidate School and eventual service in the Vietnam War, and a Scottish neighbor of my parents who suggested I study journalism when he heard I took printing courses in the high school trade school I attended.
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I wrote about the war and PTSD, securing a not guilty verdict on my first jury trial and serving as a newspaper reporter covering Three Mile Island.
I shared my understanding of the Kabbalah and my journey to Jerusalem, my studies of WON Buddhism, and my trip to South Korea, and how I learned to dance a mean dervish whirl while learning about the Sufi and the Muslim faith.
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My total count is now 881 posts, something I never imagined I would reach way back then. I made so many good friends from all over the world to include Russia, Great Britain, Iceland, Greece, and Canada, not to mention my fellow countrymen and women.
It has been very therapeutic and enlightening, particularly when receiving comments from readers who shared my view and added to the discussion.
Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?
I mean directly or indirectly. And I don’t mean being in an audience with hundreds or thousands of others at a concert or rally. Continue reading
Put another way, the Universe will conspire to bring about what you really want and need in life, even though you may not know it when the Divine Intervention takes place.
Or even like it. The intervention that is. And on first blush, it may even seem bad, but you realize on reflection that it had to have happened for you to progress in life.  Continue reading
I would not have gone to college had it not been for the GI Bill, which is marking its 75th anniversary on June 22, 2019.
My father, who was born on a small Greek Island, never went beyond sixth grade. My mother, daughter of Hungarian refugees, was the first in her family to graduate from a high school in New Jersey.
And I had barely made it through Dobbin’s Tech, a trade school, having transferred from a Catholic high school after I got caught playing hooky and was ordered to go to summer school for religion. No one – including myself — saw college in my lifetime.
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That’s the jury instruction I’d request a judge to provide when a witness at a trial said one thing one time and another thing at another time. Also, when one or more witnesses said something different than what the first witness had sworn to tell the truth about while sitting on the witness stand. Continue reading
I will never forget my old wooden desk in grade school and the drills we held in order to protect us from a nuclear blast.
The nuns from St. Ludwig’s Catholic School ordered us to get out of our seats and to curl up beneath the desks where we practiced the silence of Benedictine monks. Someone had pulled down the shades over the wide windows of the second-floor room, and we sat for long minutes that felt like hours.  Continue reading
“Surf Green” was the color of my 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. I paid a whopping $300 for it when my barber offered it to me in 1967. I was working as a printer and had saved up enough money to pay him cash. Continue reading
While editorials from dozens of newspapers throughout the country are expected to be offered about the attacks on the First Amendment on August 16, I figured I’d get my two cents in as a former news reporter.  Continue reading
Joy filled my soul as I read that the 12 boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand were thinking of entering a monastery in honor of the former Navy SEAL who gave his life in an effort to save them.  Continue reading
That is the message gracefully displayed at the gravesite of my favorite Founding Father in the City of Philadelphia. He was an ambassador to both England and France, as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence and contributor to the US Constitution. He was also an inventor, a philosopher, and the creator of the first library, the first zoo, and the first fire company in the New World.
Padre Pio has a close connection with Philadelphia because of a woman who called in a prayer to bring her sick child to see him in 1968, and the blessing he granted that led to her miracle cure just a few weeks before he died.  Continue reading
Songs have a way of taking me back to a time of my life that provided milestones for the path leading me to where I am today.
We all have them, those cherished ones that we hold dear. Some of which may cause a tear to flow, a shit-eaten grin to form. I recently thought of five of ‘em and simply wanted to share them with “Old Folks at Home” who might also remember them.  Continue reading
The best example of PTSD ever portrayed in a movie was offered by John Goodman in “The Big Lebowski” when the character, a Vietnam veteran, pulls a gun on a fellow bowler and threatens to shoot him for crossing a line and attempting to enter a score in a book.  Continue reading
She stared at me as I walked from the courtroom, and I felt her hate bore into me. Her whole posture seemed to drip with contempt, and what I could only feel at that moment was a curse from her whole being.  Continue reading
That was the title of my first job when I was 15 years old. Somebody from the old neighborhood got me hired in downtown Philadelphia, and I took the bus to get to work on weekends and after school days.
I remember . . . cutting the back of my hand while running beneath the boardwalk in Atlantic City. It is the earliest memory I can recall. I couldn’t have been any more than three or four and cannot for the life of me remember anything else I had done at that moment in time. Continue reading
My mother hit me upside the head when she caught me drinking beer in the Big Moose Bar up the street from where we lived.
I was 16 years old at the time and sipping a Ballantine beer with a friend from Dobbins Technical High School. Someone must have ratted me out, as my good friend Joe Walsh and I — both young white guys — drank in the African American bar in a section of Philadelphia called Brewerytown. Continue reading
I was born Out of Wedlock.
That kind of makes me a Bastard!
Some have called me that, and I guess they knew more about my life than I ever did.  Continue reading
Laughter. It’s good to hear in most life situations. It can be contagious and cause people to drop their serious attitudes and see a lighter side of things.
You need it, particularly when times get tough. And if you hang out with the type of people who laugh a lot, you might even hear some gallows humor. You’ll find it among soldiers, cops, and nurses as well as ditch diggers, new priests, and first-aid workers.  Continue reading
I took a leave of absence from my work as a newspaper reporter to serve as a union organizer years ago. I had helped to negotiate several contracts at the Pottstown Mercury and only took the job when I was overlooked for a copy editor position at the paper.  Continue reading
John Facenda was Philadelphia’s favorite newscaster when I was growing up. He was suave and debonair, kind of like a Cary Grant with a voice that captured your immediate attention, whether it be about shenanigans going on in city government or sports actions through NFL replays. Continue reading
With that phrase starting one of most memorable country songs in the 196os, I began my life as a man, a soldier, and a leader of an infantry platoon in the Vietnam War.  Continue reading
For a brief moment, I thought of praying that he would immediately die for cutting in front of me as I was doing 60-miles-an-hour on the expressway behind a car just five lengths in front of me. I beeped my horn and flashed my high beams at the driver. I relished in the hatred I felt burning inside of me. I loathed him from the bottom of my heart and wanted a bloody accident to befall ‘em. Continue reading
A fellow I worked with got a luke-warm endorsement for a man running to be the next district attorney of Philadelphia, and I believe it will go a long way in ensuring justice is served in my old hometown. Continue reading
I heard the word “Satsang” yesterday, and it reminded me of a journey I started a half a lifetime ago when I had hit rock bottom and sought answers to the meaning of life.
Satsang is a Sanskrit word that means “gathering together for the truth” or, more simply, “being with the truth.” According to sources from India, Truth is what is real, what truly exists. Continue reading
Today we have the Dollar Store but when I was growing up, we kids enjoyed the old Five and Dime Store. Continue reading
To me, it’s a big deal for it is something I haven’t done in quite a while. You see, I have prostate problems. I got diagnosed with it while at the VA hospital, and I take medication every night, but no matter what I do, I still have to get up in the middle of the night and take a pee.  Continue reading
My criminal law professor just died, and I cried like a baby this past week. I couldn’t help but look at the photograph taken of him presenting me with a trial advocacy award upon graduation in 1988. The framed picture rests on the mantel of an old wood—burning stove in my dining room. It is one of my prized possessions.  Continue reading
Someone from 100 different countries has viewed this site and my flag counter can attest to the number of nations represented here.
I started to write a Blog some seven years ago and hooked up with a link that not only counted the number of persons viewing Contoveros, but determined which country that person was from. I placed the flag counter at the top of my Blog so that anyone — including myself — could readily see it on linking into Contoveros. It’s at my home site.
(See Flag Counter for the latest count. Trinidad is the latest country added to my list!)  Continue reading
I learned to meditate more easily while riding on a train.
I had tried sitting mediation alone and with others, but was successful only once, and I really don’t know what I was doing. I was following a guru – a 15-year-old teacher from India — before I had turned 30, and I mingled with aspirants in an ashram in Philadelphia. I never touched Nirvana or reached the level that others seemed to rise to. Continue reading
My greatest concern when I placed the political signs on my lawn was whether they would offend someone in my neighborhood. I live in a working class section of Pennsylvania, some 15 miles outside of Philadelphia. It was dependent on steel and manufacturing for many years, but eventually saw a decline as jobs left the little borough of Conshohocken for elsewhere. Continue reading
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just thought you needed to know, that’s all.”
Peaches said nothing as we sat on the floor of her vestibule. I saw her eyes water up a little and I wanted to cry myself.
“I still love her” I continued without looking at the young girl I had shared such an intimate moment with at the young age of 19.
“I guess I never stopped loving her, if you want to know the truth.”
“You were her best friend in high school and you knew her as much as anybody did” I said, asserting a belief that neither one of us could deny. “I would break up with her, but we’d always got back together every time. You knew that when we first dated.”
“I should have been honest with you. But I liked you, I still like you. And wouldn’t hurt you for anything. But I don’t love you. I love Peggy, and I guess I always will.” Continue reading
“You can’t replace Trouble, no matter what you say,” I said to my wife Wendy. “He was my favorite cat, the only one that could not only catch those dirty squirrels, but also behead them and leave their carcasses behind, sans their squirrely little heads. There’ll never be another one like him.”
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‘No, I’m not trying to replace Trouble,” my wife answered me. “It’s just that our son Nicholas could use another pet, and the one we found at the Kitty Cottage is so adorable, I thought that any pet lover would welcome her into their home. Give her a chance. I know you’ll warm up to her and treat her as a member of the family in no time.”
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Sundance the cat looks out for me and for you
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Sundance is now this cat-lovers’ most lovable feline ever!
(For more, please see: Unconditional Love from a Cat.)
“Don’t do it Michael,” my ex-wife told me when I began planning for a debate between the candidates running for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 1978. I didn’t listen to her, and I spent too much time and money on an effort that failed miserably, and kept my dreams of entering politics a nightmare that I never again wanted to materialize. Continue reading
“My grandfather lied to my grandmother. I guess it runs in the family. *
But I never got married while I still had a family. That’s what I’m talking about. He lied about being married at the time he married the only grandmother I ever knew Continue reading
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Peggy’s mother, Mary, answered and said “Hello, Michael.” She didn’t invite me in, but smiled, and I kind of smiled back.  Continue reading
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