I mean, there just ain’t a good place to go, no good place to meet someone, no good activity that will allow two mostly young people to get together and see if they can make some sparks to fly.  Continue reading
While 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 meditated this morning and realized there were few, if any, sounds coming from the street outside my home. Traffic usually provides noise from cars and trucks as motorists make their way along the suburban road in Conshohocken, PA, some 14 miles outside of Philadelphia.  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
Today is Vietnam Veterans Day, and the Year 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of my deployment in the war zone. I was a 21-year-old Second Lieutenant placed in charge of a platoon of some 25 men, many of them still in their teenage years and drafted like I had been.  Continue reading
It is hitting me more and more lately, particularly since I decided to do my own taxes for the first time in my life and not pay out nearly $300 to have a professional do the work.  Continue reading
I exercise daily and try to get enough steps each day to add up to two miles. That’s around 6,250 steps if anyone is counting.
Well, my iPhone is counting ‘em. The steps, that is. And the miles.
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
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.
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.
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.
I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant 50 years ago, and looking back, I see it as one of the greatest achievements of my life. Also, one of the luckiest ones, and I’m so glad to still be around to talk about it.
Yes, by an Act of Congress, I was made “An Officer & a Gentleman.” I don’t know where that title came from — Great Britain, I guess — but I tried to live up to its “ideal” while in the army, and later when discharged, which career paths I should follow in my life.  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 never realized I had anything in common with Abraham Lincoln until I re-watched a movie about the president’s early life as a trial attorney. Yes, Honest Abe served as a lawyer who once worked for the railroads as well as those charged with criminal offenses.
Henry Fondaplayed a young Abe Lincoln in a classic movie on Turner Classic Movies in which the Springfield, Illinois,former rail-splitter pulled a stunt in a courtroom convince a jury that his client not guilty of murder. A young man for whom Lincoln represented pro bono was charged with killing a man at night in a wooded area.
Continue readingThat’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
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.
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
If it wasn’t for an intervention by an Italian Crime Boss, I don’t believe I would be here today.  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
Father Koenig put the gloves on me when I was ten years old and directed me toward the kid who was my same size but some two years older. That kid – Billy McLaughlin – kicked my butt. But I never cried or gave up as I swung wildly at him in an effort to land my own punches.  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.
A steady drip from the faucet of my kitchen made my day today as I shouted “Halleluiah” during one of the worst snowstorms of my entire life.  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 display the pewter plaque prominently at my front door so that anyone leaving my house can see what has meant to me more than any awards I hang in my Feng Shui home. 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
I’d pretend that I was a soldier on a mission with a rifle in my hands as I made my way through enemy territory. I’d carry a tree limb most of the time and walk through pathways in a jungle we called Fairmount Park.  Continue reading
A “dead-dog-loser” is the name trial lawyers gave to cases no one expected you to win in court. I had a few of them and always tried my best to get a defendant to plead guilty before making a fool of myself and him by calling his case “ready” for trial. Continue reading
There is a message I receive every time I travel to the IKEA store and visit the “As Is” department. I get a feeling that the Universe is telling me to open myself to the message the Swedish furniture store wants to share with the rest of the world.
Accept life “As Is,” it softly calls out to me. Continue reading
– a student of Losang Samten. Tibetan Buddhist Monk
I am free. For once in my life, I can say to the Universe that I am a free man and will always be free as long as I remember not to put on the shackles that tie me to this material world.
Yes, I have had the chance at freedom all of my life, but I stupidly clung to so many things I thought would bring me happiness. All I needed to do, I realize now, was to go within and find true happiness by letting go of all the things I believed were so important to me before.
My Uncle Mike was a grizzly white haired Greek who spoke little to no English when my father invited him to stay in our house in North Philadelphia. I don’t know if he really was a blood relative, but he was one of the meanest mother-humpers I had ever come into contact with as a child. Continue reading
The word, “Contoveros” in Latin means “Singer of Truth.” I didn’t know that as a child, when I learned that it was my father’s real last name. Someone at Ellis Island shortened it to “Contos.” One of my wives once told me that the new word means “Short.” Continue reading
I felt a lot of healing when I read the following quote from the feminine deity: Moor Jani:
“We all have the capacity to heal ourselves as well as facilitate the healing of others. When we get in touch with that infinite place within us where we are Whole, then illness can’t remain in the body. And because we’re all connected, there’s no reason why one person’s state of wellness can’t touch others. Elevating them and triggering their recovery. And when we heal others, we also heal ourselves and our planet.
As I struggle to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, let me focus instead on what Deepak had quoted William Blake as saying in reference to wisdom. Wisdom is “organized innocence.” What a concept! In order to have or to cultivate wisdom, I know that I must be in awe of something; I must see that thing with wonder, with the eyes of an innocent child.
The one and only time I stood before an all-women jury, I ended up asking for a mistrial after the judge and prosecutor entered the jury deliberation room without my knowledge and in violation of the sequestration rule to safeguard against jury tampering.  Continue reading
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Contoveros 