John Delach

When we lost our best friend, Max, our sixth Golden Retriever just after Memorial Day last spring. We mourned our old friend, who would have turned Thirteen on September 9, 2023. We had his older sister, our other best friend, Tessie, who was closing in on fourteen. Tessie had been our friend Ria’s seeing eye dog who we had adopted when she retired. We agreed that her needs had to come first especially if we decided to adopt a new dog,

And so, spring progressed into summer and summer into autumn as we hemmed and hawed while we considered different ways to adopt a new companion.

We had a couple of leads, a breeder of Labradors nearby in Pennsylvania, who donated their breeder females after their second litters. After careful consideration, no thank you, too many complications. Meanwhile, Tessie’s age began to catch up to her slowing her down and bringing on some problems that we coped with.

It was in September that Max’s old trainer, Marianne, told us about a retriever adoption group in the Metropolitan area that rescued mostly mixed-breed Labradors from a rescue facility in the South that they distributed by truck as far north as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. They had a shipment coming north that week that included an eight-year-old black lab mix girl dog in need of a foster home. Marienne, (the trainer) assured us that the rescue group would gladly allow us to adopt her once the papers were prepared.

Her arrival was scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday September 30^th at a weekday commuter parking lot just off of the Thruway exit in Nanuet, NY. Needless to say, we arrived at an empty parking lot well over an hour too early. We grabbed a burger from Burger King as began our wait.

Other cars began to arrive, each with an expectant person or family. We had a “cheat sheet” on our soon-to-arrive new very best friend and here’s what we learned. Molly had lived in Louisianna near Shreveport. Her owner had recently died, and no one in the family wanted to adopt her. Instead, they surrendered her to the Longview Animal Care & Adoption Service Center in Texas.

Here is what her sheet informed us:

Good with kids: Yes.                      Car Rides: Loves them!

Housetrained: Yes.                         Dog parks: Excellent: (Lie: See with dogs.)

Easy on leash: Yes: (Lie)               Water: Loves!

Good with dogs: Yes: (Lie. At best: overenthusiastic)    Treats: Ummm, yes.

It was after four pm when this enormous tractor-trailer truck entered the parking lot. Slowly, as the monster came to a stop the dozen or so new owners and/or fosterers approached the rear doors of the trailer. The driver opened the doors a sheaf of papers in his free hand.

His name was, Eric, who owned and operated his truck on a regular bi-weekly run-down south where he collects a truck-load of rescue dogs. He transports them north making stops where he turns them over to their new owners and/or fosterers. Eric calls his transportation service: Mighty Mutts.

(We discovered that he has the support of small armies at each of his overnight stops who feed, walk and clean the dogs as well as giving them a dose of tender loving care.)

Eric pointed to Mary Ann first and asked, “Who are you picking up?”

“Molly,“ my wife replied. Eric stepped into the truck and quickly returned with a black dog pulling at her leash with all of her God given power. Eric told Mary Ann, as he handed her the leash: “Grab hold and brace yourself, she’s ready to bolt.”

Mary Ann held on, absorbed the shock of her new charge and led her to a grassy spot where Molly relieved herself before devouring a bowl of water. Finally, Mary Ann, opened the rear door of our SUV and Molly jumped in.

I tipped Eric and thanked him for all he did.

I aimed our Palisade southward toward the Mario Cuomo Bridge, through Westchester and The Bronx, crossed the Sound and drove to Port Washington,   Moll y’s new forever home.         (To be Contiued.)

        (On the Outside will not publish on May 1 and will return on May 8.)        

John Delach

April 2024

This Story is a product of the author’s imagination

Part One

As every fable begins: Once upon a time…

Once upon a time, my daughter informed me that New York State, with emphasis on New York City and its surrounding counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland, had been declared the epi-center for the Covid-19 Virus attack on America.  To protect the nation, the President of the United States, declared all interstate commerce in, out and through New York would be suspended until further notice. President Trump issued this Executive Order with the active agreement and support of the Governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida.

President  Trump authorized each governor to activate their individual National Guard units, arm them and deploy them at all border crossings with New York.  They will have the power to explain to exiting New Yorkers that they had two choices: One: Turn around and go back home, or Two: Enter into being quarantined in tent cities for a minimum of two weeks or longer as the state should require. Failure to accept one or two would subject them to being forcibly removed, imprisoned or death. New Hampshire chose to eliminate the first two alternatives. Their message: Get the f*** out of here or Die. 

When Trump went on TV with a gaggle of governors, generals and medical experts we were understandably upset, but when Andrew Cuomo joined the mob on stage and signed on lock, stock and barrel, we knew we were up Shit’s Creek!

Cuomo had sold out his own people in a quid pro quo of receiving federal aid in unlimited amounts that supposedly saved the greater good. Point made; point taken. Still, in the process, he reduced the Big Apple and the Empire State to being the largest internment camp of all times. Judas sold out for thirty pieces of silver! Andrew sold out for respirators.

Damn, damn, damn. We had a plan! Hell, we’ve had that plan since 1984 when the Reagan / Gorbachev peace talks broke off and war seemed imminent. Not coincidentally, that was same year we purchased Little House, our camp somewhere in remote New Hampshire. Mary Ann loved the Granite State and called our camp, “Little House.” I loved the state’s motto: “Live Free or Die” or thought I did until the quarantine was declared.

Beth was 15 and Michael 13. We were both active; Mary Ann. a Fifth-grade teacher at PS 121 in South Ozone Park, Queens and me, a newly promoted Managing Director (MD) at Marsh & McLennan Inc. In a way being a MD elevated me to a similar status of being a made-man in the Mafia.

The original threat was nuclear war and we acted accordingly, constructing an underground shelter sophisticated enough and supplied to sustain us for a minimum of 36 months.

Time marches on. Being a made-man brought me enough wealth to forgo silly stuff like more upscale cars, Olympic size swimming pools, motorboats, wave runners, etc., etc. Instead, we invested in independent electric power, security and communications. As time went by, we actively developed our own alternatives for a personal, secure and closed electronic connection.

Trust me, James Bond would have been pleased with our arsenal.

 We did everything necessary to keep up as times as the world changed and became more and more unhinged. This led me, on several occasions, to wonder if I should put Operation Bug Out into motion to head north to our last redoubt?

September 11, 2001 tested our resolve. By then, both Beth and Mike were married. Mike and his wife, Jodie, already had two boys, Drew and Matt. Beth and Tom were close to having children. All of them save Jodie were in Manhattan when the towers came down. A terrible time for all of us, but survivable.

So was the great recession of 2009 and Super Storm Sandy in 2012. Both were trying, but not enough to pull the trigger.

Still, we changed and improved our personal fortress to address changing needs. We expanded living spaces to account for not only this photo in time but prepared to accommodate our grandchildren’s future married families. We established independent electric, internet and radio / TV sources making us independent of any grid.

We continually expanded our escape procedures, always with a “What if,” theme in mind.

And so, when Cuomo sold us out to Trump, we were ready to put Operation Bug Out into motion.    

(To be continued)      

Edited by John Delach

Number 510, last edited April 2024, originally edited in 2010                

This piece was written by a friend of mine, Brian Davidson. I edited it and thought up the title. His piece reflects the man he was. We lost Brian to cancer in 2016.

            George, the owner of the sporting goods store handed me my new annual Alaskan fishing license. “Where are you from?”

            “Houston,” I replied. “I got a job with a contractor to settle insurance claims so I’ll be up here for thirty-days at a time for six to nine months. I don’t read much, hate television and I don’t want to spend my free time in bars so I figured I’d try fishing”

            “Well, you picked a good time to start fishing for pink salmon. They start to run in May and you can fish as late as you like because it doesn’t get dark until about 2 a.m. I’ll help you pick out the kind of equipment and clothing you’re going to need.”

            George selected a rod and reel, a net, tackle box, wading boots, thermal socks, and long johns. “Why do I need thermal socks and long underwear in June?”

            “The water temperature in Prince William Sound does not get out of the thirties. You’ll be happy to be wearing them when you wade out into the sound. If you don’t have a sweater or light gloves, you should buy them too.”

            I figured he knew what he was talking about so I kept quiet as my pile kept rising on his counter. When he finished counting and totaling my purchases, he reached behind the counter, opened a wooden box and placed an odd-looking fishing lure in the palm of his hand. A big silver spoon with a big red plastic diamond shaped thingy glued to it, it looked like something that your grandmother used to wear on her chest to church on Sunday.

            “This is the best lure for catching pink salmon. It’s called it a pixie. If I were you, I’d guard it with my life. I’m running out of them and I don’t know when I’ll get new ones in stock.”

            I asked him how many I could have and he agreed to sell me six for six dollars each. I started asking him about places to fish, but he stopped me and called over an Eskimo guy hanging around the store. “Hey, Billy, come tell this guy where to fish.”

            Billy and I got to talking and he agreed to meet me the next night at a camp-ground located on the shoreline. We seemed to hit it off and became regular fishing buddies. Also, it didn’t take long for me to realize just how valuable Billy was to me. The first thing I noticed that night was that when I cast my pixie out into the water, it kept going down and down and down. I asked Billy what was going on.

            “After about ten feet, the bottom drops 500 to 600 feet. If you wander out too far and take the plunge, you’ll have about five minutes left to live.”

I became a good angler catching five to ten fish each night which I cut loose or gave to people staying in the camp-ground who gathered to watch the master fisherman. I usually traded the fish for a cold beer and a relaxing chat with these tourists and retirees in their trailers, campers and RVs. The fishing alleviated my boredom from the seemingly endless task of settling claims. I only regretted losing my pixies which made me feel badly as my supply dwindled.

            One night while fishing with Billy, I cast out my next to last pixie. It didn’t hit the water and my rod started to jerk away from me pulling skyward. “What the hell…,” I shouted as I looked up. To my astonishment, I realized that I had hooked a sea gull on its butt. People on the bank shouted at me to cut the line, but all I could think of was my six- dollar pixie attached to a bird that was maneuvering like an out-of-control kite. Up and down, it flew screeching like all hell as we continued our struggle. I had to let out line fearing that the tension would break it and the gull would make off with my pixie. Finally, it went straight up then came crashing down onto the bank to the oohs and ahs of the crowd who were watching the show.

            I ran out of the water, grabbed onto this pecking and clawing creature who continued to screech for its mother. In desperation, the gull threw up a regurgitated fish onto my boot, but I managed to get a firm grip on its mangy butt to retrieve my pixie. As I stood up, I heard loud and clear, “They’re not very good to eat.”

            Rather embarrassed, I yanked my pixie out of its butt, released the gull who flew away and gave each and every one of my admirers a very low bow.

John Delach

April 2024

Number 510

I awakened on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 to the news that earlier that morning, the MV Dali, a large container ship outbound from its terminal in Baltimore had struck the Francis Scott Keys Bridge. Seemingly, the force of the strike was sufficient to collapse the entire 1.6-mile-long main truss sections that spanned the channels leading into the port in a manner of seconds.

This catastrophe closed the port to all marine traffic and other maritime activity for the foreseeable future until the wreckage that once was the bridge and the damaged Dali could be   removed. The bridge, itself, can’t be rebuilt and must be replaced by a more modern and safer span than this 1974 relic.

The only good news – the death toll at this early hour was limited to four of the six workmen repairing the roadway.

 But that’s still a developing story for another time.

Today, I want to share with you a different ship versus bridge story. Soon after the disaster became a national headline that morning, I heard from two old business friends, Louise Varnas and Geoff Jones,  who took to the internet to share their recollections of this bizarre incident that we all remembered from 1977.

That bridge was named after Benjamin Harrison, a past Governor of Virginia and the father / grandfather of two Presidents. It was a vertical lift draw bridge that spanned the James River carrying vehicle traffic between Hopewell and Richmond, Virginia.

The ship was a war-built T-2 tanker, converted to a bulk carrier and renamed the Marine Floridian by its new owner, Maritime Transport Lines, or (MTL)  MTL was a client of Marsh & McLennan, our employer and Louise and I were familiar with their operations. Geoff worked for one of the insurers responsible for settling the loss.

The Marine Floridian finished unloading its cargo of chemicals into the tanks at the Allied Chemical Plant in Hopewell in the early morning of February 24, 1977. Fredrick Luke, the James River pilot boarded his charge on time and set sail down river about 6:30 am.

As the ship approached the bridge, the Floridian experienced steering malfunctions. Ultimately, the National Transportation Safety Board determined the cause was an electrical failure that led to a loss of power to the steering motor.

Mr. Lake, the pilot, radioed a Mayday, ordered the engine into reverse, dropped both anchors and alerted the bridge tender, Henry C. Frazier, that he had lost control of the ship.

Frazier’s station was on the top of one of the two towers that could lift and lower the main deck of the bridge. He realized that his best chance for survival was to stay at his station. He told the Coast Guard Board of Inquiry that he remained in the control house atop the north tower when the ship struck the bridge. “For a while, it looked like I was going to eat breakfast off the captain’s table.”

The out-of-control Marine Floridian missed the main channel and struck the bridge to the left of  the center. That section was high enough for the body of the bulk carrier to pass underneath until it reached the superstructure. At that point, the voyage of the Marine Floridian came to a halt, but not without a souvenir, a 241-foot section of the bridge that fell onto the main deck of the ship.

The vertical lift’s main section still remained in its open position, but precariously so. Frazier, the bridge tender, made it out of this office and away from the bridge. Lucky for him, as the following day, the central span and the entire northern tower dropped into the river.

Reconstruction of the bridge took 20 months and cost $9.5 million. The bridge reopened to traffic in the fall of 1978.

Someone out there whose identity has been lost to history, produced a tee-shirt that for a short while became a collector’s iitem:

The front and back had images of the Marine Floridian and the bridge:

On the front, it said: “I was there when the ship hit the bridge,

and on the back: “and when the bridge hit the ship.”