“Ollie Nappy Hill’s Autosuggestive Stoic Wisdom”

success isn’t a matter of chance, it’s the result of consistent habits

every successful person follows a pattern

they prioritize growth 

stay committed even when challenges arrive 

it’s the small daily choices that compound over time 

start by shifting your mindset 

surround yourself with positive influence and take intentional steps forward every day 

when your habits align with your vision success will follow naturally 

your habits, your choices, your thoughts, they are the paintbrushes and your life is the canvas

are you creating a masterpiece or are you letting life paint a picture you don’t recognize?

every decision you make no matter how small contributes to the foundation of your future self 

don’t cling 

flow

in a world obsessed with noise silence is a weapon 

words reveal but silence conceals

hold back forcing others to reveal themselves

remain a mystery

in that mystery lies power 

instead of reacting, pause

let silence stretch

silence creates tension

tension creates leverage

if someone insults you stay silent

give them nothing, they lose power over you

your silence forces them to deal with their own emotions rather than feeding off yours

silence is a tool for observation

when you talk less you notice more

do not waste your energy on meaningless chatter

start practicing restraint

pause before speaking

observe the room

listen more than you talk

harness silence 

embrace it in moments of high emotion

when someone demands an immediate response, delay it

when you are angry, stay silent

when you are insulted, stay silent

silence is a response in itself

a pause can say more than a sentence

a moment of quiet can shift an entire interaction

stay silent 

let them wonder

let them reveal themselves 

master silence, master control

every doubt, every fear, every hesitation 

these are enemies that must be conquered

move with certainty, that certainty commands respect 

power is not in promises, it’s in execution 

*Thank you to my long time friend since childhood Keith Thomas for sending me (Oliver) Napoleon Hill’s speech “Learn to ACT as if Nothing Bothers You”. Ripped the words from his mouth, read a Wikipedia on him, and constructed another “Found Poem”. “Baloney Ponies Ride At Midnight”. “Keithy Baby!” 💗 😃 ✌️ 😎 🤲

** “Bologna Ponies Ride At Midnight”

This past Sunday I reached a a personal goal I set for myself, 90 days of sobriety. 

The goal was multifold, but I’ve heard 90 days or roughly 3 months is the biological physiological neurological time frame for the brain’s capacity for neuroplasticity, that is to repair itself, begins to truly bear fruit and shy away from whatever substance or substances your brain became accustomed no matter how many years of abuse. Again, that’s what I heard. I’m left wondering what brains are beyond repair and the extreme abuse some brains are subjected to and what constitutes the beyond repair label.

My friend Keith Thomas is a trained Marine my age who served our country during the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts post 9/11 tragedy. Marines are essentially trained Warriors. They command respect. Basically, if they choose, they can fuck you up. They are masters of discipline, especially when it comes to physicality and training of the body and mind.

Quick tip Keith taught me, every morning do 20 squats, 20 pushups, and 20 crunches. This is not an extreme amount and does not take that much time, but if you follow that advice you will see results slowly, but surely.

He actually said do it as the very first thing you do in the morning right when you open your eyes, but I modified due to being a middle aged male and having a kickstand problem. However, will say, I followed Keith’s advice even with the kickstand and it solved an animalistic base problem I was having. Also, I learned to just urinate first and not suffer and give myself leeway to at least do them by noon.

His second military tip is to make sure you make your bed every morning. It provides a sense of accomplishment and starts the day right. Also, when you are done working for the day and ready to sleep it is a positive thing for your brain to see and reminds you that at least you did one thing successfully today. Now, if you don’t have a bed for whatever reason or have a bed that is unmakeable obviously this advice does not apply. If you are homeless and do not have a place to come back to after every day could be one example. If you are a wanderer another. I’m thinking of you, Dion.

My friend Keith saw my posts and perceived I was suffering during these last 90 days and reached out via direct message and sent the link to Napoleon Hill’s “Learn How to Act as if Nothing Bothers You”. He basically perceived that I was out of control and offered some friendly loving advice. Keith was correct by the way, at 42 years old I am still working on self control and discipline. I suppose everybody is to a degree and everybody will always be to a degree, but it was the degree that I was at that concerned him and I. 

Happy to report thanks to the love and support of people like Keith I am getting better and better each and every day. Sure I still struggle, life is a struggle! We aim for a life of ease, but the struggle, the every day challenges, that’s just life. Just getting better equipped to handle these struggles on multiple levels: physically, intellectually, spiritually, and positively.

“Baloney/Bologna Ponies Ride At Midnight” is an inside joke for Keith, but if you’ve gotten this far I’ll let you in on it. I first met Keith at one of our mutual friend Kevin Pent’s family pig roasts. We were in 7th grade. Kevin must have played football with Keith because Keith was wearing a maroon scrimmage Matawan Huskie school colors jersey. He hair was bright blonde m, parted down the middle as was a popular style at the time. The pig roast was also a pool party and their property off of Texas Road was sprawling. Must have been farmland at some point. I was lucky enough to be invited to a couple of these barbecues. Tents were set up everywhere as these were weekend events, not just one day and then kick everybody out. 

Kevin was my friend from elementary school, Lloyd Road School. We also went to Matawan Recreation together where I got to know his older brothers Bryan and George. Bryan and Kevin are Irish Twins, only one year apart. George was my brother Christian’s age, three school grades older than us. So when we were freshman they were seniors. One thing I’ll never forget about Kevin is his unique pupil. I still haven’t met anybody else with a pupil like that. One is standard issue, the other is like a runny egg. Man it’s cool and man I love it, fascinating!

This party is in seventh grade, I think the one in sixth grade is where Kevin showed me one of my first porno mags. We were just hanging in his bedroom and he pulled it out from between the box spring and bed. I remember opening it up and seeing this female teacher in the buff giving one of her student’s a private lesson after school on extracurricular activities. Woah, as an adult thinking about the people I know who have married teachers and live that childhood fantasy out on possibly semi-regular occasions. Okay, I concede, there is a slim chance they think about Miss whoever as that’s their wife and plus now that we are older and all have our master degrees in sex it’s probably not as tantalizing, probably…

This is a true story, the first time I met Keith the following year we got into a fight. I’m lucky he wasn’t a Marine back then. Day had turned to night and I was hanging in a tent with a girl. So that girl was Kevin’s cousin Monica and there was a metaphorical giant bucket of iced water poured on top of our heads because there was no hanky panky going on, we were just hanging, laughing, and having a good time. Well, the tent was zipped up and we hear a madman cackling circling the tent and shining his flashlight into the tent. This angered me at the time, as I did not know Keith and found it to be annoying and rude. Since I’m a psychopath I unzipped the tent and punched him on the forehead. Well either that or I was just handling my emotions immaturely. As an adult you spend time in the bull pen for shit like that. Once that happened the vibe of the party changed. It was all fun and games until I made that choice. It was all, “Keith C., why did you do that?!” and “Awww poor Keith T., he was only fooling around why did you have to take it to that level?” I remember this like weird egg like blister formed on his forehead, right where his mind’s eye would be. Icepacks are great for lumps and bumps.

Anywho, that’s the first time I met Keith T. Mr. T. “I Pity The Fool” who dares to try something like that nowadays.

Bologna Ponies though, riding, at midnight. Well you’d have to ask Keith the true origin of that, but I became extremely close with Keith the following year in 8th grade through our mutual friend Chris Cashin. I vividly remember the day he cut those blonde locks off. From my angle in this giant hall of mirrors reflecting the light  that is all around us I was sitting at Jackson Street park with Chris and a ziplock baggy full of freshly shaven blonde hair was tossed at our feet. Maybe he threw it at us drive by shooting style as he flew by ca-cawing on his street illegal yellow dirtbike, or maybe he casually walked up with a cigarette in his mouth eyeing us down with his freshly shorn scalp daring us to say something stupid. I truly don’t know, memories tend to be fuzzy and one angled, colored by the inner life, emotions, life experiences, and perceptions of each individual’s unique like a snowflake experience. Unique like each apple of the same flavor at the grocery story. Basically the same, but basically different. Basic Training Camp. Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. 

Bologna, Ponies, Ride, At, Midnight. So I don’t know what that means other than creating a surreal image of horse babies fashioned out of lunch meat galloping in the dark star shining of the night. Keith used to make me say that as a secret password to get into his parents garage when they lived below The Hawkins sisters and that little troublemaker Shea. Last time I saw Shea I was working at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ as a beer runner and he had tackled one of my coworkers near the top of the hill on The South Side of the lawn that had a handtruck full of red Coca-Cola trays that we filled with cans of tall boy beers that subsequently rolled out into the audience causing a free for all. 

Back to Fountain Ave and another set of Irish Twins come to think of it, Caitlin and Mildred commonly and lovingly known as “Millie”. Millie, one year younger than me. Both those girls are ridiculous human beings with great sense of humors, but at one point when I was a sophomore I had a real connection with Millie. Eh, you shouldn’t kiss and tell, and really that’s all it was, but I still remember that day like it was yesterday. That’s why it is very important for woman to choose carefully who they let into their worlds because they become beautiful memories, well hopefully beautiful, for their lovers. I guess I just said that thing about beautiful memories because I was riding the nostalgic high of memories of fairly innocent days, and then you talk to Millie and she’d be like, “Uh, yeah, Keith C. One and done kiss because he slobbered all over me,” or something like that. Rose colored glasses smashed and broken lenses on the cold gray concrete of the ground being put out like a cigarette with a foot. 

This is also random, but in that garage where you had to whisper about baloney ponies riding at midnight to gain entry, The Thomases and The Hawkinses or The Thomas’ and The Hawkins’ or The Thomasez and The Hawkinsez or I don’t know the proper way to plural them, but they must have shared washer and dryers or both families had their set down in that there bologna ponies riding at midnight clubhouse because I have a vivid memory of seeing The Hawkins clan’s father’s military fatigues in the dryer. Wonder what his military history was like?

Just this past weekend as I walked up to the first stop at Porchfest 2025 in Freehold, NJ with my 13 year old son from where we parked behind The Court Jester, Federici’s Pizza, The American Hotel and the like in the Market Yard parking lot before walking to The Elk’s Lodge to meet some coworkers on a regular USPS carriers favorite day of the week, Sunday, I became overwhelmed by the tribute to the Veterans from Freehold, NJ that served in World War Two.

If you are coming from the Freehold Post Office at 200 Village Center Drive and heading toward Matawan Route 537 you will eventually come to a fork and choose your own adventure which will give you the choice of going to the right on 537 which is Main Street or going to the left and the fork becomes Route 79 which is Broadway. Right where that splits, right in front of The Elk’s Lodge and visible from the traffic light is the memorial.

The memorial is reminiscent of Arlington National Cemetery except on a local level and these headstones in Freehold symbolize the faith of the soldier that paid the Ultimate Sacrifice for our Country and in this case The World. The irony of fighting for peace, but what other choice did we have back then? The majority are white Crucifixion Crosses, with a handful of white Stars of David, each symbolizing the individual’s faith and the soldier. 

My son asked me innocently what these symbols were. I had to hold back tears while trying to explain. I showed him the marble wall with the names of all the men who served from Freehold during World War 2. Sequels are never better, only worse, and that’s the case here with the invention of the Atomic Bomb 100 years ago. The third in the trilogy is up for debate I suppose. In this case I hope if it does happen it is as light hearted and fun as “Back to the Future III” where Doc and Marty go back to the Old West. Whew Doggy!

Maybe those sci-fi ray guns are on the way that turn people into puddles of goo. Better yet, since vaping nicotine and THC is in vogue currently since we don’t know the long term effects of sucking on batteries all day or whether popcorn lungs are a real thing, what about those vaporizing guns? Maybe go the other way and somebody makes guns that turns all of enemies into bearers of Christlike light? Or if we are going to be animals at least turn them into food so it’s not such a waste. 

All joking and fantasizing aside, sacrificing for the greater good right now for the future of all mankind is quite frankly Christlike and I celebrate and honor all of our Veterans. My Adopted Grandfather foe WWII, my Step Grandfather also a Marine during the Korean War. My Coast Guard Step Cousin Stephen who also signed up during the early 2000’s and served during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and the military provided him with an honorable life that took him around the globe.

Also, the “Keithy Baby!” inside joke is something Keith T. would say in a voice akin to a parrot that I would in turn parrot back to him. If I remember correctly it started while we were riding our bikes on Little Street Bridge one random teenage afternoon about 30 years ago. 

Love you “Keithy Baby!” Keith Thomas

Bologna Ponies Ride At Midnight.