Feature

A major motion picture will soon be playing in theaters nationwide called First Man. It is a biopic about Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon. Teenage heart throb Ryan Gosling plays the role of Neil, and early movie critic evaluations indicate he did a reasonably good job of it.

For those of us who were alive in 1969, the name Neil Armstrong has a particularly poignant cache. We’d gone through the turmoil of 1968 with its political assassinations, race riots, a huge federal debt, and a nation divided about the war in Vietnam. But, we were winning the great “space race to the moon” against the Soviet Union! It was a truly bright light in an otherwise bleak environment. Americans had a great sense of pride in watching NASA send humans on space missions longer and farther than ever before.

In January, 1969, Richard Nixon became president of the United States. Whether his legacy will eventually transcend the Watergate debacle is unknown, but one image from a single moment in his life will always be indelibly etched in human consciousness. He was the Commander in Chief when the United States fulfilled President John Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to “land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth.” That man was Neil Armstrong.

President Nixon was onboard the recovery ship USS Hornet when the Apollo 11 spacecraft (Columbia) splashed down in the central Pacific Ocean early in the morning of July 24, 1969 and bent the arc of human history. The President’s banter with the astronauts in their quarantine facility was broadcast worldwide on live TV and eagerly watched by 500 million earthlings.

I was once told by Admiral Charles B. Larson, Nixon’s White House Naval Attaché at that time, that it was the happiest hour of Nixon’s entire presidency. The President, a naval officer who served in the South Pacific during WWII, was ecstatic at being onboard a Navy ship at sea, smelling the salt air, chatting with the sailors, and participating in one of the greatest scientific achievements in history.

But, let’s get back to Neil Armstrong. I was writing a book in 2008 about the splashdown and recovery of Apollo 11 entitled Hornet Plus Three. This was a motto created by the Hornet’s commanding officer, Captain Carl Seiberlich. He wanted the entire ship’s complement, plus three astronauts, to return safely to Pearl Harbor, echoing JFK’s 1961 challenge.

Now, media critics claim Neil was “aloof” and “unresponsive” to their inquiries. But I emailed him anyway about a technical flight issue. NASA had always said the rocket (S-IVB for those who care) that placed the Apollo 11 command module into lunar orbit was fired over Australia. I was able to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it was fired over the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific.

Neil was enthralled at this discovery. At heart, he was true mid-westerner who loved the challenge of solving problems and coming up with new solutions. He emailed me back, said my information was a true revelation and asked if I needed any help with my book. He felt the Navy’s side of the Apollo 11 recovery program had never been adequately told and wanted the record set straight.

Whether flying US Navy jets in combat missions from the USS Essex over Korea (78 times), or being a test pilot for the X-15 flying at Mach 3 in Southern California, or trying to salvage the Gemini 8 flight after a sudden and dangerous spacecraft malfunction, Neil always lived “in the moment” when flying, solving complex problems in just seconds. The USAF calls this decision making process an OODA loop – observe, orient, decide and act. Danville’s own Sully Sullenberger and Neil Armstrong share some common DNA when it comes to OODA!

Neil and I had several candid conversations and email exchanges over a six year period before he passed away. Once, I asked him about the moment when the guidance computer in the lunar module Eagle became overloaded shortly before they would have landed on the moon. The LM was running very low on fuel, with less than a minute left until mission abort. Worse, Neil could see boulders and craters dotting the area where the LM was headed. Neil decisively took manual control of the spacecraft, which he had never piloted before, extended the “runway” beyond the boulder field and set it down gently. He told me it was no big deal; that landing a Navy fighter jet at 125mph on an aircraft carrier at sea was far more intense!

Beginning with his walk on the moon, the world media elevated him to super hero status. He had to cope with the curse of worldwide fame for the rest of his life. He could have cashed in and made a fortune from it, but didn’t. In reality, he was a salt-of-the-earth human, with strong mid-western values, who was passionate about flying. He never failed to mention that 400,000 NASA employees and contractors made it possible for him to take that “one small step for a man” onto the moon’s surface.

I have been privileged to see this humility up close. Because of the Apollo 11 exhibit at the USS Hornet Museum, and my book Hornet Plus Three, Neil requested my wife and I to join members of the Apollo 11 recovery team at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in November of 2011 at our nations’ Capitol in Washington, DC.

I have not seen the movie First Man. But if it comes close to reflecting the true character of Neil Armstrong, it should be an Academy Award winner.

This year will be the 62nd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolt of 1956, so, I thought that I should share with everyone, what happens when Socialism goes awry. Hungary has had her share of invaders and tyrants but had somehow, always managed to survive—but not without bloodshed and death.

In 1956, the people rose up to again try to shed the chokehold of a very powerful and suffocating totalitarian dictatorship, the Soviet Socialist regime. This brief moment of bravado by a small, upstart nation, lasted only for a couple weeks, from about October 23 until about November 10, 1956. But for that brief moment in time, the people, everyday folks, students, the elite, and even the military, slapped the big red bear in the snout and told him, they’d had enough. Before I can get into my story, I have to explain what and who started the whole concept of Socialism being good for the people and where it went wrong.

“Religion is the opium of the people” declared German philosopher Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) on his way to founding Marxism, along with his pal Friedrich Engels. Frequently, people have misinterpreted the saying as “Religion is the opiate of the masses” which is incorrect. In German, the statement goes as follows “Die Religion… ist das Opium des Volkes.” The point that I’m making here is that Marx sympathetically analyzed religion as a relief-giving drug to people in distress—mostly workers and the lower classes—just as opium-based drugs would give relief to injured or physically distressed people. Marx was not necessarily criticizing religion but was actually explaining the need for having “Opium” for the people; something to relieve the pains of the drudgery of the everyday workaday world.

His proposed social transformational ideology would eventually become the ideology of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as well as all international communist parties. After Lenin put his two-kopek’s worth into the philosophical mix, it became known as Marxism-Leninism. Why Engels’ name was omitted from the mix, I haven’t a clue.

While the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism may sound great on paper, it never got translated into a workable system in real life. What Marx and later on, his comrades proposed was to abolish Capitalism and transform it into Socialism, where members of the working class became the ruling class, under the tutelage of professional socialist revolutionaries, like Stalin. Once this process was realized, the dictatorship of the proletariat determined the direction of the socialist state. However, there was always to be a big dog (or bear) running the show. The one individual who had ultimate power over all the little, revolutionary, proletariat dictators-in-waiting—the Biggest of the Big comrades—was Joseph Stalin. He did appear to have supreme power, however, even he was terminated by a secret cabal or supreme council of nameless, faceless comrades that pulled the strings of the big Socialist puppets.

Just for your information, here is the succession of Supreme Comrades, or Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: Lenin was the first in 1922 and lasted only two years before he died in office in 1924 and Comrade Stalin took over the very next day. Stalin, the mass-murderer, lasted from 1924 until his death in 1953, under suspicious circumstances. Next in line was Georgy Malenkov who only lasted about six months and was deposed by Nikita Khrushchev who was in charge from 1953 to 1964 when he was forcibly removed from office and was sent to the funny farm where he died in 1971—all the while being persona-non-grata to the Soviet people with his name being removed from the list of Soviet heroes. Khrushchev was followed by Leonid Brezhnev who ruled from 1964 to his death in 1982. The next one was Yuri Andropov who ran the USSR from 1982 until his death in 1984. He was followed by Konstantin Chernenko who was in charge from 1984 to his death in 1985. Mikhail Gorbachev ran the Soviet Socialist Empire from 1985 to 1991, when he resigned, and the Soviet Union was, for all intents and purposes, dissolved. Some guy name Gennady Yanayev tried to engineer a coup-d’état on August 19, 1991 but lasted only until August 21, 1991. Nobody’s heard from him since.

One interesting bit of information coming out of this is, all the Supreme leaders of the Soviet Union apparently died in office—some under unexplainable circumstances—except for Khrushchev who went cuckoo, and Gorbachev, who knew when to pull out.

I lived through these successions, in Europe until 1956, when we immigrated to the US. In Europe, we had to study all this in our World History class. Here in the USA, we all followed, very closely, the expansion of the USSR, through the media.

As my main theme is the 1956 Hungarian Revolt or Revolution, Nikita Khrushchev was the designated Soviet Socialist mass-murderer because, although not all the evil done to the Hungarian people was done on his watch and with his approval, he happened to be in charge. Stalin, the evil bastard, was long dead, but his elimination of millions (28 – 60 million) of Soviet and Eastern Bloc citizens including Hungarians, from the face of the earth, was not forgotten.

Let me go back to the beginning, for a moment. Old Karl Marx was sort of right, when he declared that people needed an opium, except, all he was doing was replacing Religion with Socialism as the new Opiate. Either can be considered habit forming.
One last point: Marx, Engels and Adolph Hitler were all German philosophers dabbling in defining Socialism. Marx and Engels branched out into Communism and Hitler chose Nazism; two different forms of Socialism for sure; but both just as deadly!

•••

Hungary was on the losing side of the war, having been unable to shed the link to Adolph Hitler and the mass-murderer of over 7 million innocents. To reward my country for her failure, we were forced under the oversight of Soviet Socialist dictator supreme, Joseph Stalin, or Büdös KurvaJóska (yo-sh-ka the damned stinking whore) was about as civil a nickname that I could repeat. To make certain that no one could breach the boundaries of the Soviet Bloc countries, Stalin’s invading forces and their minions surrounded them with an Iron Curtain, made up of twenty-foot-high barbed wire fences, with strategically placed machine gun turrets and patrolled by sub-machine gun toting Soviet military patrols accompanied by killer dogs. There were grumblings in the Eastern Bloc for years, but it all came to head for Hungarians in the 1950s.

On October 23, 1956, Budapest, was again being brutalized by the Marxist-Leninist government, under directions from Moscow. Having had enough, people took to the streets and demanded that their voices be heard. Hungarian students had compiled a list of sixteen policy demands to be presented to the Soviet-backed, Hungarian Communist government.

The document containing these sixteen demands was a de facto declaration of independence from the Soviet Union and covered the following issues:

1) The removal of all Soviet troops from Hungary.
2) Party elections via secret ballots.
3) Creation of a new government under the direction of Imre Nagy.
4) A people’s tribunal to try all those individuals responsible for Hungary’s political and economic ruins.
5) That secret ballot general elections be held.
6) That political equivalence with other Eastern bloc countries and a non-interference agreement with them would be negotiated.
7) The Economic planning and reorganization of Hungary by specialists in Economics and Finance.
8) Fair foreign trade agreements must be reached, including the inventory and sale of Hungarian Uranium deposits to be returned under the nation’s control.
9) Revision of industry norms and adjustment of salaries according to job classification.
10) Equal treatment of farms and rational distribution of farm products.
11) Return and repatriation of all WWII prisoners from the Soviet Union and other foreign countries.
12) Freedom of speech and expression and a free press.
13) Removal of Stalin’s statue and replacement by heroes of the 1848-49 Revolution. 14) New uniforms for the military as well as return to the old Hungarian national emblems and traditions.
15) Declaration of solidarity by the Hungarian students for the students of Warsaw, Poland in their fight for their nation’s independence.
16) A national youth parliament to be held on October 27, in Budapest, representing the entire nation’s youth.

Over 100,000 unarmed demonstrators marched through the streets to Radio Budapest. There, they were hoping to present their grievances on the air. Instead, the group carrying the petition was surrounded by government security forces known as AVO (State Protection Forces), basically communist thugs, and dragged inside the radio station. Eventually, the crowd that had gathered outside, had grown to over 200,000 and demanded the release of the detained students. Instead of negotiating, the security forces opened fire on the unarmed protestors.

Close to a hundred protestors were killed and many more wounded according to some of the people that I have spoken to over the years. This act of savagery so enraged the crowd that they vowed to return, this time, armed and ready to fight back.

Thus, began the 1956 Hungarian Uprising (Sometimes called the Hungarian Revolution or Revolt of 1956).
Imre Nagy, the Prime Minister and puppet of Moscow, though a devout Communist party acolyte, actually agreed with the rebels in regard to somewhat more autonomy for his country. Unfortunately, his vacillation caused him to be deposed by the Soviet hierarchy and whisked away to Moscow.

For just about two weeks, the rebels meted out some well-deserved punishment on the AVO which was closely associated with the KGB and the Soviet occupying forces. Factions of the Hungarian Military which ran somewhat independently of the Soviets, sided with the rebels, turning over loads of weapons and ammunitions, and even tanks. When it all started, most rebels had to rely on old WWII weapons, hunting rifles and even BB-guns; mainly because, the first thing the Nazis did, was disarm the populace. Then came the commies and they confiscated all the WWII weapons they could find. Hungary could have used an NRA to fight for gun rights! Then again, the Communist government would probably have made them disappear.

For a brief moment, newly armed by the Hungarian Military, it looked like the revolution might just succeed. Many in the Hungarian military joined the fight on the side of the rebels while the rest stood down and refused to engage. The Soviets Socialist masters however, would not have any of that; letting these upstarts succeed might embolden the rest of the Soviet bloc countries and what a mess that would cause for the mighty Red Bear! So, they called in several hundred tanks from their Mongolian divisions who ruthlessly mowed down the rebels and eventually put an end to the uprising that might just have succeeded.
By around November 10, it was all but over. Retribution would have to wait.

•••

Cardinal Mindszenty who had been the leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary since October 1945 had been imprisoned by the Communists since 1949. He had been imprisoned by the pro-Nazi regime during World War II for his opposition to fascism. After WWII, he was again prosecuted, this time for his opposition to Communism. He was tortured and sentenced to life in prison by the Hungarian Socialist government. The whole world condemned his treatment. The United Nations even passed a resolution, however ineffective; just a lot of words. He languished in prison until the 1956 uprising when he was freed by the rebels and granted asylum in the United States embassy in Budapest. In 1971, the Hungarian Socialist government relented and finally and formally allowed him to leave.

I had the honor of meeting the man when he came to San Francisco to visit a large Hungarian gathering in his honor, in the summer of 1972 and was able to take a couple of photographs of the brave Cardinal.

We all loved and respected this man for the valiant way he had withstood his horrific treatment at the hands of the Communists and his own countrymen during WWII, and his choice of staying at US Embassy in Budapest until his country would be free.
He died in exile in Vienna Austria, in 1975.

•••

The final tally for the revolt was about twenty-eight hundred freedom fighters killed. An estimated thirteen thousand were wounded. Interim Prime Minister Imre Nagy, Defense Minister Pál (Paul) Maléter were among the 230-350 participants in the uprising, who were put on trial and summarily executed. By the time it was all over, an estimated 200,000 had fled across the border into Austria. A number of the refugees ended up in the United States and many made it all the way to the San Francisco Bay Area which already had a sizeable Hungarian immigrant population who had been coming here since the turn of the century; that would be the twentieth century.
I was not in Budapest in 1956.

I cannot even imagine how I would have felt had I been living in my city of birth, at the time. I had just turned fourteen in April of 1956, but I already understood what had become of my country. I wouldn’t have hesitated to throw in with the rebels and tossed a few Molotov Cocktails at the Soviet T34 and T85 tanks. I would probably even have helped the rebels hang a few AVO officers. With any luck at all, I might have made it out alive and escaped to the West with those 200,000 and crossed into Austria over the Bridge at Andau. But it’s very possible that I might have been one of those 2800 brave souls who died for freedom in the streets of my Budapest.

There was no organized effort to go over there and fight with the rebels, because it was all over before anything could have been done. However, we went about collecting money and clothing, even at Trinity Methodist Church in Berkeley, where my parents worked. I even chipped in helping as an interpreter, since no one at the church spoke Hungarian and the newcomers didn’t speak a lick of English. That’s the best I could do since at the time, I didn’t have a lot of money myself.

This is truly an all-too-brief synopsis of the events that took place between October 23 and November 10, 1956. People in the Free world watched in horror and agonized over the events that flickered daily in 56 shades of grey on all the available Bay Area TV channels. There wasn’t much that the free world was willing to do but analyze, sympathize and summarize. There wasn’t much that we, as Hungarian Refugees ourselves, could do. We all knew too well that the inevitable was going to happen again: that Budapest was again bloodied and battered and soon the mighty Soviet Socialist Empire would be in charge, just like before.

The 1956 uprising did unintentionally, start a movement to put an end to the chokehold a totalitarian socialist dictatorship like the Soviet Union had over Eastern Europe. That’s the beauty of a movement, once it gets started, it keeps going forward, however slowly at times until it reaches its goal. It took a while for this movement to get to that point and succeed. But as the United States, in the person of Ronald Reagan, finally got behind the movement with his now famous declaration of June 12, 1987 in Berlin, when he boldly shouted “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” which brought about the beginning of the end of the Soviet Socialist Empire. Unfortunately, it took several more years for the Red Bear to finally remove its bloody claws from Eastern Europe.

I had to choke back tears just thinking about the brave populace that had dared to stand up against their unelected Soviet Socialist masters backed by several hundred Mongolian tanks, with the equivalent of bb-guns and Molotov-cocktails, with the rest of the world watching it all unfold on TV while stuffing their faces with Chee-tos and ding-dongs.

On a personal note: my aunt and uncle, as well their five children, were all stripped of their property, their jobs and their homes, with no compensation from the Hungarian Socialist state. They eventually moved away to different environs, where they basically lived as paupers, with occasional help from my mother in form of postal money orders. Some of the relatives were actually tossed into some dingy socialist jail, from where, some never returned. If you don’t believe me, talk to some eastern European emigrants; they’ll tell you.

And let’s not forget, as long as there are dictators like Vladimir Putin and the Brothers Castro, Socialism in one form or another will rear its ugly head, and that’s not a safe thing for Russians, Cubans, Ukrainians, Hungarians, or even Americans.

I wrote the following verses a few years ago, to memorialize the brave 1956 Freedom Fighters. Please note, in case you didn’t know: Magyar stands for Hungarian and Himnusz is what the Hungarian national anthem is called.

FREEDOM WAS WITHIN THEIR GRASP
A Ballad of the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighters

As I was lounging in my favorite chair
Checking out the happenings on the air
When suddenly the babbling talking head
Was handed a piece of paper that he read

The murky black and white TV displayed
Destroyed buildings as people escaped
Tanks were blasting with flashes and booms
Sending peaceful marchers to their doom

A hundred thousand Magyar faces
Singing the Himnusz of the ages
Were trudging forward to the radio station
To present the demands for their nation

Like thunderbolts from an angry God,
Mowed the protestors as they forward pawed
Many were killed, and more were maimed
As the red masters’ stooges reloaded and aimed

The number of demands was but sixteen
The reply of the red stooges was obscene
The stooges’ eyes and ears must have been closed
The heart within their chest was frozen cold

It all started as a peaceful protest
But soon it turned to bloodshed in Budapest
Marchers came unarmed to the confrontation
They’d now have to cook-up a revolution

For a dozen glorious days, they fought and bled
The red star from the Magyar flags was ripped
Soldiers and generals joined their ranks
The red masters responded with Mongolian tanks

The end came very swiftly, so they retreated
No mercy was given to the freedom fighters
As alone stood the Magyar, again defeated
The world applauded it as good theater

Wiping away angry tears, they pleaded
Can you please help us, they repeated?
Is anybody listening, help US, they cried
And just like before, the Magyar died

But for those glorious dozen days
The Russians and AVOs were made to pay
A clear message to the red masters was delivered
Nineteen fifty-six, will always be remembered

Hopelessly wiping angry tears away
In desperation they had tried to change
The world’s opinion to their way
But when the radio went silent, nobody came

Freedom had been within their grasp
Always so elusive as in the past
The Freedom Fighters could almost taste it
With help from the West, they would have made it

Just as it began, so quickly it ended
Thousands had died, and hundreds executed
Hundreds of thousands emigrated
There won’t be freedom till the Reds are defeated

High up in the sky by the Warriors’ trail
God of the Magyar, please do not fail
To remove the yokes and rip away the chains
Do not ever let us be slaves again.

AFTERTHOUGHT
The following may explain why Socialism/Communism is not thriving all over the globe and is on its last leg in Cuba; one can only hope.
There has been a lot of talk lately all over TV and radio, as well as print media about the horrors of bullying. You may think it silly, but the ultimate way of bullying people is to force them to live under Socialism/Communism, because once they have promised to give everyone, everything for free and they can’t deliver, they are forced to bully you into submission or make you disappear from the face of the planet, whether you like it or not.

So, to fight bullying, make certain that no socialist ever gets a foothold on US soil.

Halloween is about so much more than just one night of dress up and trick-or-treating. This traditional fall holiday is about costumes and candy, decorations and scary movies, parties and pageantry. It’s so much fun to see this haunting holiday through the eyes of a child or you can even choose to be a kid again by participating in the festivities. What a load of PC gibberish that was. Who do I think I am, some octogenarian 60 Minutes reporter like Mike Wallace or Morley Schaffer?

“Tonight, on 60 Minutes we’ll investigate why Linus spends every Halloween in a deserted pumpkin patch in Peanutsville awaiting the arrival of a Santa-like gourd character known only as The Great Pumpkin.” This mythical being is likely the marketing tool of some nameless diabeties drug company sent to specific suburban markets with the sole intention of getting kids hooked on sugar treats for a lifelong adult dependency on Metformin.

Humor aside, assuming any of that first paragraph was remotely humorous, I’m part of a silent minority that believes Halloween should actually be a national holiday celebrated for an entire week. At this very moment, there’s an independent grassroots movement to convert one day/night into 7 days and 6 nights of ghoulish fun every year and call it Halloweek. As it is, American’s spend over $8 billion dollars annually on candy, decorations, costumes, cards and dental-related bills. Actually, its $8,000,003,562.12 if you include my neighbor’s house, but shouldn’t our money stretch a little further?

Halloweek would start with every citizen of our fine country being required to dress up for all seven days. If you’re living in the US of A, regardless of age, race, religion or political party, you’d be required to wear a costume each and every day. While I haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet, there’s a good chance I would be a Cowboy on Sunday, followed by a robot, a caveman, a pirate, then a fireman, a lumberjack, and a vampire. That would be my dress up week as I selected costumes that I thought would be somewhat compatible with my primary occupation. I’m not looking to scare or disgust my clients, but simply to get into the theme of the holiday. I guarantee you no one would dress up as a commercial real estate agent or humor lifestyle columnist. That would be too boring. I know because I live it 24/7 and while at times it can be a little sad and depressing, glamorous it isn’t.

Watching scary movies should also be part of the Halloweek celebration. There is scientific proof that scary movies are good for the heart, digestion and circulatory system. Cinematic masterpieces such as Friday the 13th, The Ring, The Shinning, The Exorcist, Psycho, Carrie, and of course all seven of the Halloween franchise movies starring Jamie Lee Curtis would be required viewing. I’ll even accept old black and white classics such as Dracula staring Bella Lugosi, The Mummy featuring Vincent Price or The Fly (the original not the remake). Just for the record, Ghostbusters, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Young Frankenstein, Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and the live action Scooby-Doo do not qualify as a scary movies. Watching Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne run around town in lame 70s outfits with a CGI/animated Great Dane is just wasting two hours on a Saturday I’ll never get back.

A scary movie needs to illicit bowel-churning anxiety while watching the action through the cracks in your finger mask with the family room lights turned out – a dark room adds to the viewing experience.

Handing out candy to trick-or-treaters is about as All-American as the UFC Fight Night, Chick-fil-A, and Honda cars. During my week-long Halloweek master plan, T-o-Ting would however be limited to just two days for two specific reasons. A) Two (2) days is necessary in case a trick-or-treater gets sick or has a scouts/band/sports/school/church conflict on one of the days and (B) Trick or Treating for any more than two days would just be easy pickings for the dentists in our community.

Now, it’s also about time we set a minimum standard for giveaway candy. Back in my day, aka the good old days, mini candy bars (Milky Way, Three Musketeers, Snickers, Mounds, Almond Joy, Kit Kat, Baby Ruth and $100,000 bars) were about twice the size of what they are today. What is this world coming to, when candy bar companies determine that mini isn’t mini enough so over time they slowly make these delicious morsels mini-er? Being a candy aficionado myself, I do enjoy me some Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, Starbursts and Twizzlers. Hold on for one minute. I’m not saying Twizzlers are as satisfying as Red Vines and Black Licorice, but I’ve grown to appreciate “the Twiz,” especially since The American Licorice Company doesn’t produce a Trick or Treat portion size that I’m aware of. Where we stray into unacceptable territory, is when people try and pass out raisins, an assortment of nuts, or popcorn balls. That’s just not right! In fact, that’s just someone asking for their pumpkin to be kicked in or an egg rainstorm to befall their driveway.

Pumpkins will continue to be another favorite element of Halloweek, but not just carving Jack-O-Lanterns. I’m not opposed to a Hannibal Lecter type face skinning and brain-goop dissection of a big ripe pumpkin, but there’s just so many more delicious baking options to this delectable vegetable including pumpkin pie, spice bread, cookies, Bundt cakes and even pumpkin-based CBD oils and incense. My pink eye and gout cleared right up when I recently smoked a bowl of pumpkin seeds.

When it comes to Halloweek decorations, the mo the better. Drape those orange and purple lights across your house like it’s that December holiday that encourages festive outdoor light displays. Install as many blow-ups, pop-ups and rise from the dead fake graveyards as your front yard can support or your HOA will allow. I’m all about trying to create an audio and visual cemetery scene that will induce every elementary schooler to “mess their pants” if they pass by it at night. I’m not saying that happened to me in October of 1973, but my sister does claim to have some type of proof she’s willing to release if I ever decide to run for public office.

It’s a little known fact that many other countries have already transitioned to the Halloweek concept. My good friend, Cliff Clavin, informed me that several nations in Eastern Europe and the Kurdistan region, such as Latvia, Moldova, Albania, Azerbaijan or was it Kazakhstan (?), Disneyland, and Transylvania, have all embraced a weeklong celebration leading up to the Day of the Dead. Transylvania was an easy one. The Magical Kingdom actually celebrates for an entire two months and they wear costumes year round.

Truthfully, most countries don’t celebrate Halloween. Why not you ask? My deadline is nearing and I don’t have time to Wiki research that question, but suffice it to say, we should consider ourselves lucky to enjoy such a frivolous and decadent one day celebration consisting of candy and dress up hedonism. Halloweek may never get off the ground, but I hope everyone enjoys a spooktacular Halloween.

On Thursday, October 25, 2018 at the Village Theatre in Danville, Alive Magazine’s humor lifestyle contributing writer, Mike Copeland will be back hosting the 5th annual Evening of Music and Laughter, a fundraising show benefiting Discovery Counseling Center’s anti bullying project. This year’s show features a rare acoustic performance by co-headliners Static & Surrender and, back by popular demand, the very funny comedian, Bryan Kellen. With each show building off the last, there is much anticipation for this year’s annual event as Jeff Campbell, who performed acoustically in 2012, will be back fronting his new band, Static & Surrender, who just released their self-titled debut album to critical acclaim.

I’m very honored and proud to be a part of Discovery Counseling Center’s Anti-Bullying Fundraiser again this year. The passion of all the people who work so hard to produce a show that raises funds and awareness for such a useful cause is both heart-warming and contagious. I jumped at the chance to come back and do my part.
– Bryan Kellen

Mike, who has chaired this event since its inception back in 2011, also serves on the Board of Directors at DCC. He says “Bullying is widespread and perhaps the most underreported safety problem on American school campuses. Contrary to popular belief, bullying occurs more often at school than on the way to and from there.” Once thought of as simply a rite of passage or relatively harmless behavior that helps build young people’s character, bullying is now known to have long-lasting harmful effects, for both the victim and the bully. Bullying is often mistakenly viewed as a narrow range of anti-social behavior confined to elementary school recess yards. Perhaps more than any other school safety problem, bullying affects students’ sense of security. Discovery Counseling Center of San Ramon Valley also offers comprehensive and affordable assistance to school age kids in times of crises, emotional need and life transitions.

Past shows have included many of Copeland’s friends and such talented performers as Nashville country artist Paul Jefferson, singer-songwriter Courtney Randall, Rocker David Victor (formerly of the band Boston), STUNG – the preeminent Police tribute band, and, the incredibly versatile ACappella group from Vanderbilt University – The Meledors. Additionally, the show has featured the comedic talents of Tony Camin, David Vanavermaete, AnthonyHill and, Bryan Kellen who regularly opens for George Lopez on his national tours.

Copeland says this year’s event has secured their largest response yet from corporate sponsors including Title Sponsors; Interior Motions and Links for Life Foundation, in addition to Gold Sponsors; Tommy T’s Comedy Club, Cushman & Wakefield, Sunset Development Company/Bishop Ranch, Herzog Insurance Agency/Farmers Insurance Group, Ware Malcolm and ALIVE Magazine. Silver Sponsors include; Melanie Koehler, D.D.S., Synergy Global Housing,Cuenin Orthodontics, Trumark Homes, Pension Dynamics, Studio Blue Reprographics, Cardinal Consulting, Colliers international, ID Architecture and the San Ramon Valley Thunderbirds Football & Cheer.

Tickets for the show are $40.00 General Admission and $75.00 for Reserved VIP seating along a Static & Surrender CD. There will be a complimentary wine reception (sponsored by Fastbreak Consolidators) and dessert (sponsored by Danville Old Towne Bakery) prior to the show again this year. Kathy Chiverton, Executive Director at Discovery, say funds from this event will help Discovery Counseling Center to expand their highly- regarded anti-bullying program to more schools in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. Every dollar raised at the anti-bullying fundraiser goes directly to the cause and the Quest Foundation, a private foundation located in Danville, has historically matched two for one, all funds raised with a generous donation. With a successful event, over 2,000 4th and 5th graders will be able to participate in Discovery’s powerful and effective anti-bullying course.

Tickets can be purchased by calling Discovery Counseling Center at (925) 837-0505 or you can purchase on-line at the Discovery website www.discoveryctr.net/eventsandnewsfallfundraiser.html. This event will likely sell out again so Mike encourages people to buy their tickets early. Kathy says she is so proud of what this annual event has become and yet it wouldn’t happen without the help of people like Zach Haller, Nicole Fornaci-Roukis, Mary Verstraete, Mark Heavey, Alex Cole, Eric Johnson, Ceal Barlett, Michael Taylor, Michele Milz, Karen Cordeiro, Greg Betty, Dave Jones and Sylvia Luneau.