News of Peter Angelos’ death reminded him of the acupuncture treatments that treated addiction and other health issues (“Peter Angelos’ baseball legacy is complicated, but he remains in Baltimore.” The Orioles are part of that (March 24). In 2000, I was persuaded by my wife, Betsy, and other friends to join him for a year at the Institute of Traditional Acupuncture in Colombia, expanding its offering of herbal medicine and health counseling, and beginning the formal university accreditation process. and helped secure land, funding, and design. A new building on 11 acres in Laurel, everything happened for a reason.
At the time, the Acupuncture Institute operated a Penn North clinic in space above Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore, largely under its own auspices and staff support. It pioneered the local use in Baltimore of nationally researched ear acupuncture and tai chi and counseling to treat addiction and other recovery issues. The clinic served patients throughout the city, but focused on serving the Sandtown-Winchester area.
One day, thanks to our community health work, we persuaded Peter Angelos, who started our asbestosis legal work in part based on statistics from the community health clinic in Dundalk, to drive to Penn North. I was able to convince him to visit. He drove himself and parked in the space we had reserved earlier.
After a brief introduction, we began his visit with a storytelling session where people in recovery and practitioners sat in a circle. One particularly bright and articulate young customer was from Miami, where he was a major drug dealer along with other gang members. In addition to how the drug trade is organized, Angelos kept asking him about the “nuts and bolts” – monthly business in real dollars and all-important profit figures. The numbers kept coming. “So what did you do with all that money?” Angelos asked repeatedly. He talked about travel, women, cars, and clothes. He soon realized that he was left with nothing, no savings, no investments, no attempts to use a legitimate business as a cover. No cash in, no cash out, no concept of the future. Angelos looked down at the worn carpet and shook his head in despair.
I asked him if he would like to have a full body acupuncture treatment. He agreed and we entered a small treatment room where the patient was lying on the treatment table wearing skivvies. He was explained what the patient’s examination revealed and how the traditional five-element Chinese medicine formula is used for treatment. He seemed fascinated. However, when the first needle was inserted, Angelos suddenly felt sick and ran out the door of the room. He quickly shook hands with the people gathered outside, thanked them, and headed down the stairs to the street.
“I’m scared of needles,” he confessed as he walked past me with a grimace on his face.
— Stan Whistler, Baltimore
Add your voice: Reply to this article or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.
