John Delach

Perhaps true love does conquer all. Surely, in my case, it conquered geography.

I met Mary Ann Donlon at the New York World’s Fair on June 5, 1964 at The Red Garter, a banjo bar in the Wisconsin Pavilion. (The pavilion prized exhibit was the world’s largest wheel of cheddar cheese.)  Mary Ann gave me her phone number and after a few unlucky false starts, she agreed to a safe date; a Sunday afternoon return to the fair. Once she gave me her address and directions, I began to realize that we may be geographically incompatible.

Did I mention that I didn’t have access to an automobile nor that it mattered as I didn’t have a driver’s license either?

We were separated by two bus lines. My first ride was on the B-58 bus that once upon a time had a more descriptive name, the Flushing – Ridgewood trolley. I rode the B-58 on a 45-minute journey to reach the junction of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing’s business and transportation center. Leaving Ridgewood, the bus meandered through Maspeth, Elmhurst, Corona and the World’s Fair before reaching Flushing and the end of the line.

I transferred to the Q-16, Q-14 or the Q-44 to arrive within proximity of the Donlon residence.

Being a city kid, public transit was in my DNA and I never considered this trek to be other than the way it was, much less a burden. No doubt, the early sparks of romance between us eliminated any possible negative thoughts. The girl was more important than any geographical inconvience.

We soon found ourselves dating regularly on most Saturday nights and many of these dates took us into Manhattan for dinner and/or a movie or a Broadway show. I didn’t consider going to the city on a Saturday night to be unusual even though it required extensive time on public transit to make the journey to Mary Ann’s a house, escort her to Manhattan, enjoy a date, bring her home and return to Ridgewood.

On those early dates, a kiss or two or a short series of kisses was all I expected. Then it was good night, good bye until our next lengthy phone call. During this time the first inklings of love blossomed. As our relationship developed, I lingered longer and longer before beginning my journey home.

As my stays extended, those rides became more of an odyssey as Saturday melded into Sunday morning. At that hour, my only chance for a reasonable wait for a bus back to Flushing was the Q-44 stop. It was the only line that ran with any frequency at that time of night. The stop was outside a bagel store, but at that hour, even the bakers had yet to arrive. On arrival in Flushing I headed for an all-night news stand at the corner of Roosevelt and Main that carried the “bull-dog” (early edition) of Sunday’s The New York Herald Tribune, my favorite newspaper. 

Sunday meant the Trib’s new magazine section: New York, with the good chance of featuring pieces by both Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap. I’ve written about Breslin many times but Schaap was also a good writer and commentator. He was the person who coined the term, “Fun City” to describe John Lindsay’s New York. He also did a stint on the local NBC nightly news program as their sportscaster where he got into trouble.  When the great Secretariat was retired to stud, reports spread that his sperm showed signs of immaturity. His early breeding attempts in December of 1973 with Appaloosa received inordinate publicity prompting Schaap to comment: “It would not be an exaggeration to note that Secretariat and Appaloosa have become the most famous stable mates since Mary and Joseph.”

After picking up the Trib I made my way to a drug store with an outside vestibule unblocked by a security fence, common in those days. Their vestibule sheltered me against wind, cold and on bad nights, rain. The showcase windows gave off enough light for me to sit and begin reading my paper. Several times I reached my nest after one am. That made for a long wait as the next B-58 had an hour and a half layover and didn’t leave until 2:30. After discharging his Flushing passengers, the driver shut his doors and took a passenger’s seat for a nap. I never asked the driver to let me on. I just asked him to wake me if I fell asleep. Fortunately, I never did as the Trib held my interest. 

I disappointed Mary Ann by not asking her to be my wife the Christmas of 1965. In February, 1966, the National Guard shipped me to Fort Dix, NJ for basic training and my advanced training in my specialty, MS-311, a telephone lineman.

When I returned home late that summer, Mary Ann invited me to stay over finally ending my odyssey. I popped the question on Christmas Eve, 1966 and we wed on November 11, 1967.

The best decision I ever made was making that trek.       

March 2017: Number 169. Revised and edited. February 2024

John Delach

I am pleased to present this piece by my daughter, Beth Briggs.

I had avoided getting a dog for some time but my days were numbered. My excuses (our family move, young children, summer vacation) were running out and the day of reckoning was coming.

Late last August I had lunch with our 12-year old, Marlowe and my husband, Tom and they really put the pressure on –When were we going to get a dog? They were tired of my excuses and concerns and they were ready. Tom and I walked away from that lunch in different corners but quickly resolved our differences, as modern couples do, over text messages. I texted Tom that we should talk to our neighbor, Mark, who lived with a small, older rescue dog named P.B. to think about how we could do something similar. We reasoned that finding a dog, a little older and maybe lightly trained would make the whole situation easier. We left it at that.

I woke up early the next day, a Saturday morning, to head to the local bagel store. As I was getting ready to leave our doorbell rang. It was Mark from next door – he asked me to step into the hallway because he had a question for me. I thought he was asking us to dog sit for P.B. as we had done earlier in the summer.

Dog sitting was not on his mind but dogs were. He explained that he had had dinner at the new Thai restaurant across the street from our building and that the owner had approached him during his dinner. It seems that she had found a dog tied up two blocks over from our building on Friday morning. The dog was scruffy and alone except for an empty bowl of food. She already had a dog – plus she had just opened a new restaurant – and she could not keep this found dog. In fact, when she first saw the dog tied up, she just passed him and went home. A true animal lover, she could not stop thinking about this poor dog’s predicament and within an hour of returning home she went back and rescued him. She named him Sampson and Mark thought of us immediately when she asked him about taking Sampson home.

I was a little overwhelmed by Mark’s proposition – Is this it? Is this how we wind up with a dog? I decided to take the kids to get bagels and leave Tom sleeping and revisit this all in a few hours.

As I headed out of my building with my kids in tow there was his rescuer across the street walking her dog and Sampson. She knew we wanted a dog from Mark and we all stopped on the sidewalk for what would become a life changing transaction. She introduced us to this small furry creature with a cheerful disposition and a serious under bite. He was beyond what we could have hoped for, small but sturdy, hypoallergenic and friendly. I told the kids to go get their father and Tom came to meet us from a sound sleep. After all agreeing, she handed us Sampson’s leash and he was ours, just like that on the street outside our building. Suffice to say, we never saw those bagels.

We took him to the Vet and learned that he had no chip, weighed around 16 pounds and was between 1 and 2 years old. We kept the name Sampson because it seemed to suit him. And, thus began our adventure of dog ownership.

Needless to say he is the love of our lives. Most of my original worries were fulfilled – the dog walker costs a fortune, as do all dog expenses, the kids don’t help nearly as much as they promised they would and he has occasional accidents. But owning a dog is not a rationale decision, it is an emotional one and he has captured all of hearts.

Note to regular blog readers: I would be remiss if I did not note that Sampson has a particular love for my parents’ dog Max. Max, who some may know is the Robert Redford of Golden Retrievers, views Sampson as an unfortunate small beast to be sniffed and dismissed on each occasion they meet. Once Max creates action, Sampson insists on participating by biting Max’s back legs. To date, Max has refused to acknowledge this annoyance.

Second note: It is now February of 2024. We lost Max in May of 2023. He almost made it to his thirteenth birthday. Sampson, I am pleased to say, still rules the roost in Brooklyn. Not so much in Port Washington.

In October of 2023, we adopted Molly, an eight-year-old black Lab mix from Louisiana who was turned in to a local rescue organization after her master died. She turned out to be a perfect fit for us, smart as a whip and full of life and love.

Sampson still had a bit of the bully in him and decided to take on Molly. Molly reacted in a flash and quickly pinned Sampson to the floor in our kitchen. Sampson has since given Molly a lot of space since then.          

January 2017: Number 164. Revised and edited, February 2024

I commuted between Port Washington, Long Island and New York’s Pennsylvania Station from 1977 until 2000 and, since my retirement, I continue to make this run mostly on non-rush hour trains two to three times a month.

Port Washington is a terminal and my title is taken from the banter between crew members that I could hear over the open intercom in the coach as the crew prepared for the morning run:

Engineer to conductor: “Mickey says it’s time to go.”

Conductor: “No orders, no messages.”

Engineer: “I have the railroad.”

…and off we’d go each morning.

Other happenings were not so regimented or contrived. One morning a conductor named, Barney, entered my coach just after the train left the Plandome Station. A well-dressed and coiffed dowager looked up at him as he prepared to punch her ticket and asked, “Conductor, please tell me what time this train will arrive at Grand Central Terminal?”

Barney punched her ticket, looked at her and replied, “Lady, you’re on the wrong f***ing railroad.”

(Of course, today her question would have been valid now that the LIRR’s long-time East Side access terminal, known as Grand Central Madison finally opened last year,)   

One evening on a return journey, the train was just emerging from one of the East River Tunnels as a different conductor entered the car. He commanded: “All tickets, please, all tickets, please. This is the 6:11 Flyer to Port Washington stopping only at Great Neck, Manhasset, Plandome and Port Washington. We expect to arrive in Port Washington at 6:48. All tickets, please.”

When he reached my row, a chap sitting across from me asked, “Why did you say ‘expect?”

“Because nothing in life is guaranteed.”   

Beginning in 1989, I started a morning routine of having a daily workout before beginning my workday. I used Cardio Fitness, an upscale facility located in Rockefeller Center as my company was willing to pay for the annual membership. This required me to make the 5:36 train, not to be late for work,  as insane as that sounds. Needless to report, my regular coach was only sparsely populated with other riders when it left Port Washington.

 One morning, I sat next to the window on a two-seater on an otherwise empty coach. I was already engrossed in the morning’s New York Times when a young woman entered and sat down next to me. I slowly folded my paper, put it down, turned toward my unwanted companion and looked directly at her.

I obtained the desired effect. Clearly flustered, she spoke rapidly trying to explain: “I didn’t know what else to do, my mother always tells me to never sit anyplace, but on the aisle and look for a well-dressed gentleman to sit next to in order to be safe.

“Look around, the coach ids empty. I assure you that it will not get crowded and you can pick any other aisle seat except this one and nobody will sit next to you.”

She did as I asked and I returned to my paper but I did keep a protective eye on her, just in case.

Slowly, I realized that I shared the same locker bay at the club with David Rockefeller of the banking family fame and David (Punch) Sulzberger, Publisher emeritus of The New York Times.

Of course, I couldn’t resist telling people about this historical breach in the order of the universe. I’d tell them: You won’t believe this, but I get undressed and dressed with David Rockefeller and Punch Salzberger!

“In fact, we are on a first name basis; they call me, ‘Hey you.’ And I call them, ‘Your Wealthiness.”

Over time, another fellow who worked out at the same time that I did, realized we both took that same 5:36 train. He boarded at the Little Neck Station, the first  stop in the Queens’ part of New York City. Quickly, we arranged to meet in a certain coach and to share a cab ride from Penn Station to the club in the McGraw-Hill building. His name was Marty Blanc and he was an international diamond dealer.

We traveled together most workdays for the next ten-years, but, being typical New Yorkers, we learned very little about each other during our time together. Since we both traveled extensively, it was not uncommon that we missed each other, but without advanced notice. I did know that Marty drove from his house to Little Neck to catch that train, but I never knew where he lived.

Sad, but it was that type of a relationship…

And so it goes.  

August, 2016, No. 147 0f 500. Revised February 2024

I wrote Boeing’s 747 when this magnificent airplane was still the queen of the sky. I didn’t realize how fragile its future really was. The Air Bus A-380 with a passenger capacity of 550 went into service in 2007. But Boeing believed their 747 could co-exist with the bigger jumbo.

In reality both airplanes were doomed by changes in airline operations. Both jumbos were designed for the so-called hub and spokes operations where they flew passengers from regional airports in smaller planes to their main hubs. Jumbo’s would carry the consolidated  passengers between hubs. Instead, passengers preferred point to point flights that didn’t require changing airplanes.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Covid-19 Pandemic put the older Boeing 747 fleet out of business and doomed the assembly line for the A-380 to being cancelled in 2021.

And so it goes, but I did have many experiences  on that airplane that I hope you enjoy hearing about..       

The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing has delivered more than 1,500 747s since 1970. I first flew in one belonging to Pan American in 1974 on a flight to San Juan, P.R. from John F. Kennedy (JFK) and my last, in 2010, a British Airway jet from London Heathrow (LHR) to JFK. I have travelled a total of 133 flights on board those jumbos, 125 of them business related. More than half those flights were to and from London but 747s also carried me to and from places like Paris, Stockholm, Oslo, Zurich, Rome, Tokyo, Manila, Singapore, Kula Lumpur, Hong Kong and Beijing.

My number one provider of 747s was TWA by choice as I was both a valued frequent flyer and a member of their Ambassador’s Club. This combination gave me almost automatic upgrades from coach to business class. Before Carl Ichan ruined TWA, they had terrific on board service and even, post-Ichan, when many good flight attendants quit; TWA still retained an edge due to their seating setup.

TWA made the upper cabin of the 747 all business class seating. This meant the space was exclusive to 18 passengers who sat two by two with an aisle in the center (ten seats on the left side, eight on the right to allow for the spiral staircase.) We had access to two rest rooms that we shared with the flight crew and a happy flight attendant exclusively assigned to this section. Happy because the attendant only had 18 clients all of who were in business meaning no first-class drama and no jerks from coach.

On one particular occasion, Mary Ann, joined me for a business / vacation trip to London. TWA was desperate so we both wound up in this cabin with upgrades after I bought heavily discounted coach tickets. At best, there were only four or five business travelers accompanying us up in our perch. As we approached the start of the descent into LHR, a baby Ichan bred stewdess presented us with a bottle of champagne explaining, we were the best passengers on the plane. We thanked her and when she left, I shook my head and said to my wife, “She’s sweet and trying, but in an emergency; worthless, damn, I miss those TWA women who mattered when you needed them.”

I flew with Alexander, the deposed heir to the Yugoslavian throne who enjoyed my father’s heritage and sent me Christmas cards for two or three years, two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and Dick Nixon. Dan Rather was the most interesting. This happened because  TWA cancelled their evening flight and re-booked my mate and me on an Air India 747. That was January of 1981. I was flying in first class with Leo Whalen; (need I say more) as was Rather. Rather hustled off the plane to make a BA connection at Heathrow. Only later did we realize he had been tipped off that Iran was about to release our hostages the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Rather was on his way to Algeria where they would be released.                  

When TWA was forced to sell their lucrative London service to United, I switched to British Air and soon achieved gold card status. This came with a sensational bonus; whenever I flew business class or, as BA referred to it, Club Class, there was always the chance when I checked in for Flight 178, (the 10 AM morning flight to Heathrow (LHR,) that the clerk would ask, “Mr. Delach, would you be interested in changing over to 004?” (You have to love British subtlety; BA 004 was the 1:30 PM Concorde.)  Leave three and one- half hours later and arrive two hours earlier. It did happen more than a ½ dozen times! Loved the 747 but, the SST: the only way to fly when it’s on someone else’s dime!

The 747 was the greatest venue for international travel back then before the world and airline travel went into the crapper after the horror of September 11, 2001.

My favorite flights were those Friday-afternoon return trips out of Heathrow bound for JFK when all of the victories and horrors of negotiations with Lloyds were over. Win, lose or draw, the battles had ended.

Back then the last flights left Heathrow at 3 PM meaning we were out of London by 11 am at the latest and, more importantly, we were going home. The best were those homebound flights when we found other New York insurance guys sharing the same flight. No matter that we worked for rival firms; school was out; time to play…One time six of us took over the large empty space in the tail of a half-empty 747 to drink and smoke our way across the Atlantic. We generously tipped the flight attendants and none of us hit on them.

They enjoyed us and we’d spin our fingers to let them know it was time to “sprinkle the infield.”

What a flight! I still remember the price I paid due to my condition when I arrived home. Oh hell, it was worth it.