John Delach

Christmas, 2012; Mother Nature was not in a nurturing mood for those of us living in the Northeast. Small as our family is, we seldom spend it together but 2012 was an exception. Joining Mary Ann and me; both the Briggs and Delach tribes trekked to Marlow, New Hampshire.

Tom, Beth, Marlowe & Cace Briggs, Michael, Jodie, Drew, Matthew & Samantha Delach, plus their granddame, Bare Delach, the elder Golden Retriever who my wife always wanted to call, Ernistine, because of her sincere eyes. Joining everybody were Max & Ruby Delach, two, eleven-week-old Golden puppies, the male belonging to us and the female, a birthday gift to Jodie.

Six adults, five kids and three dogs, all made it in three separate vehicles having had to brave through various intensities of a major snow storm old Mother Nature threw at travelers like us navigating the I-91 Corridor. Mike and his family caught the worst of it but, fortunately, the peak of the storm didn’t hit until after we’d all made it safely to that place we call Little House.

Loss of power is issue number one in rural NH. Issue number two is freezing pipes that closely follows issue number one. We do have two wood burning stoves for our primary heat and our wood supply was superb. But, if we lost power, we’d lose water and life quickly becomes  difficult when that happens.

Cut to the good news: the power didn’t fail: “Thank God Almighty; say halleluiah, say Amen!”

With power, everything is good even though we were snowed in.  We shoveled where we had to with joy. The two pups realized they were in Golden Retriever heaven being able to play with each other in the snow without adult supervision anytime they wanted. Mike and Tom laid out a challenging sledding run on the hill above us that became the major outdoor attraction until the town plowed and sanded the hill.

What could have been an ordeal, turned out to be a winter wonderland. The pups left their need for action outside in the cold, kids also exhausted themselves in the snow and the adults had a marvelous time. Each time kids came in they were relived of soaking wet snow clothes; hats, gloves and boots that were hung from every available hook, railing or most any other surface that could hold a hanger. The stoves were well-tendered and the clothing dried quickly enough to be available for the next onslaught. Drew dug a short tunnel just outside the front entrance that gave Max and Ruby their own access to the front yard without having to go near the driveway. The pups loved it. 

Inside was non-stop action. Food was always being prepared whether it was bagels and eggs, hot chocolate, soup, or great dinners. Good cheer and entertainment of every kind abounded from simple board games to playing electronic games or watching TV or DVDs.

Of course, things still go wrong. At the time, I was driving a Chrysler Aspen that I parked at the bottom of our circular driveway. My plan was to use this SUV as the lead vehicle to open the way out of the 16 inches of snow the storm had gifted to us. Unfortunately, when I made my attempt to open the driveway, I judged the turn too sharply and put the left-hand side of my rig into a depression. Mike’s van was behind me. Mike and Tom did most of the clearing around the wheels and dug it out enough to enable me to pull the Aspen out using low gear with the transmission in four-wheel-low. After I made it to the road, I walked my original route and told Mike, “If you put your left tire in the depression I made with my right tire and you will be okay.” He did so and got out easily.

Another time, after the driveway had been plowed by a local fellow from a garage in the town of Gilsum, one town away, I came into the top of the driveway too fast. We were returning from a small local ski slope where my passengers had gone tubing – Beth and Tom, their two and Matt Delach. As I went into the first turn by the house, I realized too late that I was on ice under the snow and I wasn’t going to stop. The house was on the right so that direction was not an alternative. Ahead of me where the driveway curves to the left was Beth and Tom’s Grand Cherokee so that wasn’t a good alternative either.

Mary Ann, who was sitting in our “Four Seasons” type glass room, saw what was happening. “I realized that you were moving much too fast, so I got up to get dressed so I could be of help.”

My only choice was to keep going straight between a bush and a tree; deliberately leave the driveway and drop down into a level snow-covered grass area below it. Not sure how much space this gap afforded, but I aimed more toward the bush figuring that would be the path of least resistance. Hot damn, it worked. It all happened so quickly that nobody said anything. Good fortune, part two, I was able to drive through the snow and regain the driveway.

(Mary Ann,) “By the time I got dressed, John’s SUV was back on the driveway. Totally shocked, I couldn’t figure out how he did this.”

Only then did we three adults begin to realize what just happened. It did occur to me what an old friend used to say, “Delach, you just cleaned out your luck locker!”

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas vacation and we all made it home safely.

May you, dear reader, enjoy this 2024 Christmas. If not Christmas, May you enjoy your day that you consider joyful.

Robert Riger, the renowned sport’s photographer, artist and writer, took a black and white photograph at Yankee Stadium late in December of 1962 during the NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers. Six of the eleven members of the Packers defensive squad stand in the foreground, their backs to the camera. Number 46, Hank Gremminger is closest to the camera. To his right stands Number 87, Willie Davis. Number 79, Dave Hanner stands in the center partially obscured by the dust blowing up from the Yankee Stadium infield. Numbers 66, Ray Nitschie, 74, Henry Jordon and 83, Bill Quinlan, stand to his right. All wear white uniform jerseys with dark stripes on the sleeves and dark pants with a lighter stripe on the seam. The teams’ capital G logo is visible on several of their helmets.

They are all looking at the Football Giants offensive squad who are bowed in a team huddle preparing their next play. Only three linemen’s numbers are visible, tackle, Jack Stroud, 66, center, Greg Larsen, 53 and tackle, Roosevelt Brown, 79. The Giants are dressed in dark jerseys with white numerals and white pants with a dark stripe along the seam. Only the side of Brown’s helmet is visible revealing the teams’ lower case ny logo.

A solitary game official stands between the two teams, head bowed, his white and black striped shirt barely visible through the dust. He is wearing a white hat designating that he is the referee.

The stadium grandstand provides a background for the photo, the lower deck, mezzanine and part of the upper deck. Bunting lines hangs from the façade fronting the upper deck. Curiously, despite the wind that is blowing across the field, the bunting remains undisturbed.

The photo captures Sections 8, 10 and 12. A capacity crowd fills the stands and the open press box suspended in front of the mezzanine. The wind-blown dirt makes it impossible to identify any single individual.

What the photo doesn’t show is the cold. The temperature at 2 p.m. when the game began was 16 degrees and the wind was clocked at 40 mph. Being a city kid in this pre-Gortex era, my clothes are no match for the cold. The scarf, overcoat and ear muffs worked pretty well, but the cold concrete easily defeated the thin soles of my shoes in the same way that the freezing air penetrated my unlined leather gloves.

The Packers would prevail, 16 to 7 and, I sat somewhere in Section 12 obscured in the photo by four of the Packer defenders and the flying dirt. I remember how devastated I was that my team lost. Compounding my misery was the cold. I was never again as cold as I was that day.

This was only one of Robert Riger’s brilliant photographs. In a book entitled, “The Sports Photography of Robert Riger” the author notes: “(Riger) began taking photographs in 1950 as research for his drawings. His distinctive sepia-colored sketches appeared in the first issue of Sports Illustrated in 1954 and became a regular and familiar feature in the magazine for many years afterward.

“He was soon publishing both drawings and photographs, and in 1960, his first photography book, The Pros, was published. The same year he became a writer / photographer / artist for Esquire. In 1963, Riger joined ABC’s Wide World of Sports, where he became a producer / director of many ground-breaking and award-winning programs. Among his prizes were nine Emmys. In the 1980s, Riger’s Journal appeared regularly on ESPN. His books include The American Diamond, Best Plays of the Year, Man in Sport and The Athlete.”

He died on May 19, 1995 in Huntington, California. 

He drew the covers for the programs for several organizations including the New York Football Giants. In 1958 Shell commissioned Riger to draw a series of ten scenes featuring Giants players for distribution to customers at their gasoline stations. A friend of mine recently came across an offer to sell an entire set in excellent condition. He told me this story of how he acquired the prints:

“ There is a side-story to the purchase of the Giants Robert Riger prints. The seller requested that I phone him before he accepted my transaction for $129.99 plus shipping that totaled $152 and change. I called back not without some curiosity. He was friendly and engaging and explained that they belonged to his recently deceased father but had no extra value to him other than sentimental (not a fan.) However, since they meant a lot to his father, he wanted to know what I was going to do with the them and to make sure they had a good home. He was disarmingly sincere about my plans for them. Nevertheless, I had a feeling that the money meant more to him than the sentiment so I offered him another $100 which was unsolicited. He came away happy with my plan and slight windfall. I came away with a cherished piece of memorabilia and a warm glow of doing good. A win-win.”

A happy ending to a good story.              

America accelerated its pre-war effort once President Roosevelt declared that we would become “The Arsenal for Democracy.” Beginning in 1940, after FDR had won election to his third term and secured his power, he began his so-called “short of war” policies to supply Great Britian with military equipment that included 50 obsolete destroyers in exchange for bases in Bermuda, Canada and the Caribbean.

FDR, took on the powerful Isolationist lobby who opposed our entrance into this new conflict in Europe. He initiated the draft, passed legislation to greatly increase our army, air force and navy, despite this lobby’s opposition.

Lend-lease, our program to supply our allies expanded by leaps and bounds once America entered World War II. The colossal industrial might that was the USA geared up to produce an enormous stockpile of airplanes, ships and land equipment that greatly surpassed what the ten million men we had in uniform needed. Our surplus was so great that we supplied the USSR, Great Britian and its Commonwealth, the Free French, and China. Lend-lease essentially translated into Uncle doing this for free.

When the war ended on August 15, 1945, a rapid demilitarization began that forced this military / industrial colossus to reverse course, de-militarize their plants, factories and organizations. Instead of bombs, cannons and warships, they began to produce commercial ships and civilian airplanes while resuming everything our citizens wanted and needed like jobs, housing, appliances, new cars and varieties of food without ration cards. We also became the supplier to our devastated allies, sending them everything from grain to surplus trolley cars, again for free under the Marshall Plan that saved many European nations from Communism.

Up to the start of the draft in 1940, America had always been a country with a small military presence. We, as a nation, incorporated the same philosophy for returning our citizen army and navy to civilian life. Our immediate goal following the surrender of Japan was to bring home our service men from those numerous locations where they had been deployed. The navy’s first post-war challenge was to bring the boys back home from those far-flung locations across the Pacific.

This feat was accomplished by using soon-to-be laid-up aircraft carriers devoid of airplanes with reduced crews that participated in an incredible operation to bring our boys back home that the navy called: “Operation Magic Carpet.”   

Once that mission was accomplished, the navy took up the task of prserving all of their ships they deemed eligible for future re-activation should the need occur.

The army cut its active divisions as this service discharged about 70% of its manpower. A strong effort in Congress tried to eliminate the marines, but their alumni of significant supporters squashed this effort. Still, the marines remained vigilant.

The air force was the only service to prosper during these stringent times. First off, the Defense Act of 1947 made  this, a separate service, the United States Air Force (USAF.) The need for bigger and faster bombers to deliver the atom bomb, and later the hydrogen bomb plus the development of jet powered airplanes guaranteed that congress would fund the USAF with the money needed to develop these bombers and fighters.

Boeing built these bombers, first the B-47, a medium bomber and later, the B-52, our international heavy bomber that with the advent of air-to-air refueling, could reach any target anywhere in the world. The B-52 defied becoming obsolete and, while  its role has changed several times since it was designed and built, it remains our primary long-range nuclear bomber.

My cousin, Bill, pointed out to me that the USAF is still be operating the B-52 in 2024 and plans to use this “B.U.F.F.*” until 2050. That’s the equivalent of the army or the navy using guns, equipment and ships designed during the Civil War. Do the math: Far out!

The navy mothballed 17 Essex Class Fleet Aircraft Carriers, seven Light Carriers and 70 of 72 Escort Carriers.

 Every battleship was removed from service except the USS Missouri. (Remember, Harry Truman was president and Missouri was his home.) Fifty cruisers, all constructed during the war were also decommissioned.

The navy was a mere shadow of its war-time self, but then, the Soviets dropped their version of the Atomic Bomb and the North Koreans invaded South Korea. We went to the United Nations requesting they declare that the North had created a hostile situation and a UN force led by the United States would lead and command an international force to defeat them. The Russians had the power to veto this mandate, but, strange as it seems, they walked out of the Security Council and the resolution passed unanimously!

Korea was too far from our air bases in Okinawa and Japan to allow fighter-bombers stationed at the bases to support our troops fighting the North Koreans who outnumbered them. The only carrier in the Western Pacific available to support this vanguard of American troops trapped in the shrinking Pusan perimeter was the USS Valley Forge that quickly went into harm’s way.

Demilitarizing stopped on a dime and nine de-commissioned Essex Class aircraft carriers were chosen for re-activation. Six other carriers were transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Like it or not, We had been drawn into a Cold War with the USSR that would last until the fall of the Soviet Union 40-years later. It began with a hot war for all of the marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in that conflict from 1950 to 1953. These men, now senior citizens had the dubious distinction of serving in America’s forgotten war.

But any thought of cutting our armed forces had disappeared and each effort to do so since then has been stopped by events hostile to our well-being.

*BUFF: Big Ugly Fat F**ck.