Local Man’s Life Leads Him To Do Random Acts Of Kindness

By Stephanie Faughnan

LITTLE EGG HARBOR – A lifetime area resident,

Michael Patrick Hogan is the fi rst to admit he started off life a bit rough around the edges.

Some might still fi nd the 46-year-old man to look a bit intimidating, giving credence to the old adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Meanwhile, the reality is that there’s nothing daunting about Hogan – unless you consider any ill effects that could come from random acts of kindness.

The day before he turned 18, Hogan landed in some legal trouble. Teenage pranks could have found him behind bars. Instead, the court decided the young man would be better off somewhere else.

The New Jersey Youth Challenge Academy ran a bootcamp-like program that was a novel idea at Fort Dix at that time. The six month residential quasi-military training environment turned out to be lifechanging for the young man who might have been headed down a bad path.

One of the fi rst changes came when program organizers sheered Hogan’s long locks to conform to a military haircut. Nearly 30 years later, the Little Egg Harbor resident still maintains the same version of the buzz cut. Hogan said it’s who he became after literally learning the ropes to a changed behavior.

“The bootcamp got me into the position I’m in now,” said Hogan. “It deprogrammed me and helped me get through some of the bad times I went through as a kid.”

That’s not to say the program was an easy one even as far as dealing with the others he lived with for six months. Hogan’s attitude and look quickly earned him a “Mad dog” nickname.

“I was rough,” Hogan shared. “When I bulked up and tattooed my entire body, it was my way of putting on a suit of armor. Back then, the way I acted was actually a protective mechanism.”

Thinking back, he admitted he might have had his own sense of fear concerning his surroundings and the others sentenced to the same program.

From getting up early and making his bed, to following instructions, to taking notes, Hogan learned quite a bit about a structured environment. Some of his classmates felt so comfortable with the regimented lifestyle that they ultimately enlisted; Hogan did not.

It wasn’t as if bad behavior was something tolerated in Hogan’s home as one of five siblings. His mother, Mary practiced “tough love” with her son and continues to be a huge influence in his life.

Hogan suggested he’s still a work in progress. He suffers from extreme anxiety that often interferes with his daily life. While Hogan claims he stutters and has some uncontrollable tics, none were noticeable during a two hour interview with him.

However, Hogan said the stuttering led others to bully him and caused him to be timid early on. In his youth, he was a bit smaller than the other kids. Yet, when he saw others tormented, he put aside his own fears and intervened. To this day, he maintains a zero tolerance for bullying.

A little more than a year ago, Hogan felt the challenges of his anxiety reach an incredible high. A professional in the insulation industry, he was asked to help out on a job in San Antonio on short notice.

“I’d never flown on an airplane or even been outside New Jersey,” said Hogan. “I wish I’d never asked anybody about airports because when I got to Newark Airport, I was terrified.”

The ropes training from nearly three decades ago kicked in as he heard the voices of his drill instructors.

“I could hear them saying they weren’t going to steer me wrong,” Hogan shared. “They were telling me what to do and that I was not going to fall. They were with me every step of the way.”

This served to remind him that everything was going to be okay and continued as reassurances once he got to work in San Antonio.

Meanwhile, Hogan also has a preconceived (Kindness - See Page 24)