The Fourth of July is upon us, and I wanted to share some independent facts that many Americans may not have learned in history books or inside their classrooms.
The Declaration of Independence was first printed in a German-Speaking newspaper and not an English one. The Colony of Pennsylvania once had a large German population, and when people of what became the Keystone State voted on which language to use, German lost by only one vote.  Continue reading
An American hero has fallen to the Coronavirus, and the world may never see the likes of him ever again.
Ninety-eight-year-old George Shenkle, a card-carrying member of the “Greatest Generation,” took part in the invasion of Normandy more than 75 years ago, freeing our universe from the evil of the Nazis.
He served as a paratrooper with three combat jumps – including D-Day – and he also fought in the Battle of the Bulge – and got a Purple Heart in return for the wounds he received after hitting the ground and running into enemy fire and explosions.  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
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
The headline above could be something we’ll see in the not-too-distant future but actually occurred more than 200 years ago in the United States of America.
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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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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 worth in as a former news reporter.  Continue reading
Are there moments in our life when we can see God’s fingerprints or the Will of the Universe directing us along our path? I’m talking about seeing such a Divine Event as it is occurring or upon hindsight years later.
That’s the question raised by a group of my friends at the Spiritual Sharing Circle that meets once a month at the Center for Contemporary Mysticism in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia.  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.
Writing has opened me to a world above and beyond my five senses and I feel like an H.G. Wells whenever I revisit the past and recall what life was like when I was fortunate enough to stop the world for a few brief moments and write about something. 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
I typed this over and over again, hoping that one day I’d learn the fine skill of typing as I sat in a class with all girls. Young women, I should say. I was the only male in the Delaware County Community College course of study, and I never once felt out of place or unusual.
I wanted to be a journalist, you see. So, I figured I had to learn the fine art of typing to file my stories. Continue reading
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