John Delach

Bud Hearn

December 2025

A message from John Delach

Dear Reader,

I was asleep at the switch when it became time to record the end of the penny. Fortunately, my favorite author, Bud Hearn, was not asleep and, with his permission, I have re-printed his essay, “A Requiem for the Penny.”

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To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.   Ecclesiastes 3:1

* * *

     The penny has died, but I don’t see any tears. It had a good run—232 years, longer than most things, including whole empires. Its time has come and now gone, and we’re left scratching our collective heads trying to figure out how we’ll round off and reconcile our books and accounts ‘to the nearest penny.’

     It didn’t get much of an obituary. Cold, factual, void of emotion and pretty ho-hum. It was found tucked in on page 4 of the WSJ like some obligatory goodbye written by a journalist without sentiment for the penny’s accomplishments and legacy.

     The obituary also didn’t include the cause of death, only that it costs more to mint than it’s worth…3.7 cents. Of course, some perverted think-tank accountant minds in DC might be thinking this math could apply to a lot of other things, including people. A lot of things cost more than they’re worth. Like health insurance. Will George Washington be the next to be axed?

     But we can discern from the obituary the true cause of the penny’s demise, a heinous malady, Inflation.

     So here we are, bereft of the lowly penny. It had no intercessor to assist it in justifying its existence. It slowly became a nuisance, going the way of piggy banks and lying lifelessly in parking lots and street gutters, stepped on, ignored, demeaning the visage of Lincoln. A sad conclusion to a useful life.

     Most obituaries include the good works and highlights in the life of the deceased. And the penny has many. It’s the penny sales tax—SPLOST—that repairs our roads, furnishes drinking water and builds parks for playgrounds. The power of one penny.  

     It has left us many useful aphorisms, helpful one-liners that offer definition in brevity to many of life’s issues. Where would we be without penny loafers, a throw-back to years gone by. What about penny wise, or the penny-ante game of chance. Then there’s the penny pincher, a euphemistic description of the misers among us.

     And where would we be without the ‘penny for your thoughts?’ The next generation won’t have a clue of what these cliches mean, much less any remembrance of the penny itself. No, the penny leaves a rich legacy worthy of commendation.

     Fortunately, the penny will take on a much greater intrinsic keepsake value as it becomes scarce and hard to find. Like expensive art, Van Gogh, Matisse and the others, sometimes things have more value after death. Such may be the penny’s fate.

     Bye-bye penny is really not an appropriate send off to this tiny copper coin. But life tarries not in the past for long, something will replace the penny.

     Maybe it’ll be the advent of a gold-plated bitcoin inscribed and stamped with an oversized “T” and sold to greedy speculators. After all, crypto currency offers its own promises of wealth.  Remember, though, it will be highly contagious with the disease of inflation that’s imbedded in the moment of its minting. Inflation cuts both ways, you know. There are winners and losers.

     But for now, let’s not lament the passing of the penny but celebrate its beneficent years among us. After all, nothing lasts forever. And as a token of respect for the penny, let’s pick up Mr. Lincoln out of the gutter when we see him.  

Bud Hearn

December 15, 2025 

I originally published this piece in 2019 and I hope you enjoy this edited edition.

Tess was our goof friend, Ria Meade’s seeing eye dog. At eight years old, she lost her ability to guide Ria. The Seeing Eye agreed and set out to assign Ria a new companion. Tessy needed a retirement home and we gladly adopted her. We already had Max, a nine-year-old Golden Retriever and they became friends at first sight.

To refer to what happened to Tess, our newly adopted Yellow Lab, as a vacation is a stretch. Trial by fire, being hazed or being introduced to an alternate universe are more appropriate analogies to describe what she endured from December 24 to January 6 2019.

Tess only had nineteen days to adjust to living with Mary Ann, Max and me before she experienced several versions of a three-ring circus – lots of chaos and confusion. Fortunately, we came to understand that Tessy is an amazing adaptable dog who quickly analyzes the new circumstances that confront her and adjusts her behavior accordingly. Tessy’s training as a seeing eye dog enabled her to recognize and deal with problems and unusual developments.

We set off for Michael and Jodie’s family home in Fairfield, Connecticut on the afternoon of Christmas Eve for dinner and the opening of gifts on Christmas morning. Back then, I drove a 2014 GMC Arcadia that we had loaded with our luggage and the gifts going to New Hampshire. We wanted Tess to ride with Max in my truck’s way-back, but previously, whenever I drove Ria to various destinations Ria would sit “shotgun,” and Tess would jump into the free space at her feet.

We trained Max to ride in the way-back forcing us to face a dilemma, would Tess join him? I tested her one evening, opened the hatch, held out a treat, patted the floor and asked her to jump in. Without hesitation, this ten-year-old girl leapt into the Arcadia with an incredible spring in her rear legs.

The dogs had plenty of room as I had already delivered the gifts including their biggest items size wise; three light-weight rolling Samsonite suitcases for Drew, Matt and Samantha for their upcoming cruise.

Jodie’s parents, Tom and Dale, were taking their immediate family on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate their 50^th Wedding Anniversary. You may ask, why is this relevant to this story? Because we will be boarding their two dogs, Max’s sister, Ruby and their two-year-old, miniature Golden-doodle with the incongruous name, Jumbo, for ten-days beginning December 27.

We knew chaos would prevail once we arrived. Any plans to restrain or impede Max from tearing loose once we opened the hatch were useless as our grandkids took it upon themselves to release him to join Ruby and Jumbo. Tess didn’t hesitate and joined the stampede.

Rock and Roll, we’re all dog people and little Jumbo, the only youngster, initiated play fights and got the party started. Ruby, Max and Tessy all joined in and, at times, Tess led the crazy play.  Our girl fit right in. At one point that night, Matt, our grandson and consummate dog lover coxed Tess onto his lap and declared that she was his. I woke just after Jodie on Christmas morning allowing me to witness each arrival, dog and person; the perfect Christmas greeting!

Back in the Arcadia, we four headed north on wide open roads through Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont on the Merritt Parkway and I-91 – then into New Hampshire, destination, Little House in the town of Marlow.

The Brooklyn Briggs greeted us – our daughter, Beth, son-in-law, Tom and grandchildren, Marlowe and Cace. Tom’s brother, Michael and his two sisters Linda and Debbie also preceded us having driven up from just outside of Springfield, Mass.

Dog wise, Max and Tess had to meet and greet Sampson their young, lively but unpredictable boy.  They had rescued him from the streets, so nobody is certain of his breed, but he is most likely a Shih Tzu in whole or in part.

Once again, all went well demonstrating how adaptable Tess is. The dogs enjoyed the freedom of being in open the country without roaming or becoming lost. The retrievers got it and stay close to home. Once again, Tessy understood the order of march and jumped right in. She took long walks and romped around our cleared property with the others as if she did this all her life. (Everything but swimming that will have to wait for next summer.)  

The last chapter of our NH stay involved Beth’s best friend, Rachelle and her husband to be, Paul. They arrived with two seven-month old sibling Portuguese Water Dogs, Allie and Denali, more like teenagers than pups, Denali’s male sex drive became apparent when he decided to take an interest in Tess. Our girl cut this behavior at the quick deciding enough was enough!

Silent all her life, she turned on this interloper with a sound that began as a rumble, progressed into her first bark ever! Case closed, he got her message.  

After NH, we had one last chapter remaining in this saga, return to Connecticut and bring Ruby and Jumbo back to Port Washington for the next ten days, the duration of their trip and cruise. The ride down was “interesting.” Four dogs, lots of traffic but we managed to make it still in relatively good humor.  

Ten days – four dogs. OMG. Again, we all adjusted and survived although feeding, exercising and cleaning up forced us to admit we were operating a de facto kennel.

Finally, Sunday, January 6 arrived, and we returned Ruby and Jumbo to Fairfield while Tess and Max rested at home.

This is an edited edition of my piece about this trip that I made in December of 1983.

I received two important invitations requiring commitments for early December of 1983 that conflicted with each other. The first was from Exxon asking me to speak to their Pacific Rim insurance executives at a conference they were arranging on a Wednesday afternoon in Singapore. The second was to attend the wedding of a woman with whom I had worked at the Westchester Country Club the following Saturday evening.

Everything being equal, I thought I could attend both without a problem, but another wrinkle was added. One of Exxon’s executives was from their Malaysian affiliate, EPMI. We were also the insurance broker for this profitable, though troublesome account that roughly equated to dealing with a recalcitrant teenager. Knowing that I would be in near-by Singapore, their man from EPMI demanded that I also schedule a visit to his base in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. K.L. is about the same distance from Singapore that Boston is from New York so distance wasn’t a problem. But I couldn’t leave Singapore until Thursday morning and would not be able to leave K.L. until Friday afternoon.

It looked hopeless, but I chose not to surrender. I took home the airline guides and studied them on the train. My company rules, quite loose in those days, allowed for First Class for a trip of this distance. I studied the guide and realized this could be done thanks to this being a First-Class trip that would include an upgrade to the SST, Concorde. By going via London and beginning and ending my trip on the fast bird, I could leave JFK on BA-Flight 1 on Monday morning, arrive in Heathrow that afternoon and catch a Quantas 747 to Singapore via Bahrain and arrive in Singapore, Wednesday morning. Sleep would have to come on the airplane which, flying up front was not a problem.

MAS (Malaysian Air Services) provided shuttle-like flights to KL and I could be in Kuala Lumpur by mid-morning on Thursday. That would provide sufficient time for in-house meetings with our local branch, dinner with the client and meetings in their office the next day. A late afternoon flight back to Singapore on Friday would allow me to connect with the Singapore Airlines flight to London via Bombay that night. That flight was scheduled to land at 6 am GMT Saturday, giving me three hours before Concorde was scheduled to depart to New York. Concorde’s ETA into JFK was 8:45 am EST.

It could be done! And so I accepted both invitations.

The flights out were fine, my speech went well, Kuala Lumpur was what KL is; teenagers making outrageous demands but I was cool. One of our local guys, Tan Lai Wat drove me to the airport. I checked into MAS with carry-on baggage only to find that all was not well. The airplane for our 5 pm flight was delayed. Oh boy, my Singapore connection was the key. If I missed the Singapore Airlines 747, scheduled to depart at 9 pm, my plan would collapse like a house of cards.

Everything went backwards; the MAS 737 didn’t arrive until 7:30 pm and we didn’t leave the ground until 8:15. I was sitting in Row 1 of First Class next to an Aussie who was of no help. All he did was attempt to feed me drinks and repeat over and over, “Mate, you haven’t a chance, you’re not going to make it.”

“Damn,” I said to myself, “I’m too close to fail.” I stopped a typical, pretty Malay flight attendant and told her, “I have a First-Class ticket on Singapore Airlines Flight 4 to London. Here is my ticket. Tell the pilot to call the airport and tell them to hold the plane. I have carry-on so I will not need luggage service.”

She nodded and went into the cockpit. My Aussie buddy thought this was great fun repeating, “Mate, you’re not going to make it.”

Defiantly, I replied, “Yes I am.”

But my push for confidence was dented when the pretty Malay girl returned and asked, “What BA flight are you on?”

“No, no, it’s Singapore Airlines!” I shouted in reply driving her back into the cockpit as my mate had a blast at my expense.

We reached the gate at nine and a lot of change. The door opened and a Singapore Airlines hostess stepped on board and called my name as best she could. “Damn,” my companion shouted, “Mate you are going to make it; well done!”

I heard his remarks over my shoulder as I sprinted through the jet way with my little angel. She stopped, trading my ticket for the boarding pass she held in her hands. Her traditional uniform and short legs made it impossible to keep up with my adrenalin induced gait so I stopped and asked, “What gate?”

She replied, “Twenty-one,” and pointed the way.

“Great, stay here,” I replied and went into overdrive.

I saw the gals waiting outside the gate for me and I waved my boarding pass at them as I sprinted toward the gate. All smiles as is their training and demur; they took my pass and hustled me on board. I swear the cabin door descended into position and locked into place on my heels like something out of a science fiction movie.

I immediately fell asleep and slept in my totally reclined big seat until jarred awake by the landing in Bombay…so much for “Your seats must be up in the erect and locked position.”

No memory of the flight from Bombay to London except toward the landing. Back in 1983, movies were shown the same way as a theatre using a screen in front of the cabin. Again, no memory of what film was playing, but it wasn’t over as the pilot made his approach to Heathrow. Even though we were on final approach, the flight attendants didn’t interfere with the passengers or the show and the movie continued as we landed and taxied to the gate. Even then, the movie stayed on, their suggestion; if you want to see the end, please do so before de-planing.

We landed way early, before 5 am local time. Nothing was open in Heathrow. The Concorde lounge didn’t open until 7:30. By chance, I asked a guard, “Is there any place I can take a shower?”

“Yes sir,” and he directed me to this blockhouse sort of a structure in the middle of the main part of the terminal. “Damn,” I said to myself. “Okay granted, almost all of my flights through Terminal 3 were just arriving or going home but how did this escape me?”

I found the shower facility and its sleepy attendant and for some small amount less than half a Pound, he gave me a tiny towel and a minuscule bar of soap directing me to a numbered stall. One look at the size of the towel and I asked for two. He said that was not possible so I told him, “No problem, I will pay for two showers.” He looked at me with visible distain, another ugly American. Visibly displeased, reluctantly he accepted my money and the second towel was mine.

One of the best showers in my life!

I actually used all of the remaining clean clothes in my bag and wandered the terminal until the lounge opened. The Concorde BA staff were on their game, but it was really quiet on this early Saturday morning. I fell into a conversation with a fellow American on his way home from a trip to South America and southern Europe. I recall he showed me a prize pipe he had acquired while we occasionally observed the lounge’s TV tuned to MTV without comment, a new experience for both of us.

Not very many people pay to fly this fast plane to New York early on a Saturday morning. But I did it, I completed the mission. Home by 10 am, words, kisses with Mary Ann, Beth, Michael and Harry and Fred (our first two Golden Retrievers), the giving of gifts from far off places and to bed for a four-hour nap before the wedding.

The wedding was grand, the bride, beautiful. Don’t ask me what I remember: not much. I’ll end with this: Naturally, Mary Ann drove. When we left our house, she had to make two turns to get us on a main road. After she did, she stopped the car. I asked her, “Why are you stopping here?”

She replied, “I usually stop at red lights.”

“Cool,” I replied, “It’s a good thing you’re driving.”                

December 2025

Banking in Midtown

Marsh & McLennan, the firm where I worked, moved uptown from the City Service Building at 70 Pine Street to the brand-new McGraw-Hill Building, 1221 Avenue of the Americas in the Spring of 1972. I had worked downtown since 1966 and it took less than a day to fall in love with midtown. It was as if the sky had opened and sunlight was everywhere. My old bank was on Wall Street so I picked a new one, Chemical Bank, that was across the street in the Exxon Building, 1251 Avenue of the Americas.

The branch was in a large area below the street. It did attract a good following which resulted in having to wait on lines most days. Chemical Bank took advantage of its waiting customers to display wanted posters of about a dozen bank robbers. For a while, I ignored these posters until one day the information under one of their photographs grabbed my attention. I picked up the poster and started studying it as I made my way to the teller.

I had time enough to reach a realization by the time I arrived at my teller. Transaction complete, I made my way to the part of the bank where the officers were located. I asked to see one and a receptionist led me to a young man. He asked, “How can I help you?”

I put the poster onto his desk with the felon’s photos facing him. “This is one of the wanted posters that you have in various places in this bank. I want you to take a good look at the information that is beneath each photo. You will notice that the dates shown for each and every bank robbery took place more than seven years ago meaning that the statute of limitation for every one of them has expired.”

With that, I got up leaving the poster on his desk as I walked out.

The next time I returned to Chemical Bank, all of the posters had been removed.

Restaurant Row

West Forty-Six Street between Eighth Avenue and Nineth Avenue is officially known as Restaurant Row. This block has offered more than a century of culinary history in the many restaurants that line both sides of the street. Originally, most of these eateries were French, some being upscale offering classic French cuisine, but mostly peasant French offering every day choices.

But why West 46^th Street and why between Eighth and Nineth Avenues. One explanation was: “Located conveniently close to Broadway and the Theater District, Restaurant Row is an ideal destination for the pre- and post-theater crowd, Times Square employees and Hell’s Kitchen residents.

Close, but no cigar. The real reason for the actual location of Restaurant is one of geography. Walk west along Forty-Six Street until you reach the Hudson River. In front of you is New York City’s cruise ship terminal, but back in the day it was occupied by the French Line. French immigrants who were seeking to open their own restaurants followed their predecessors as far east as they could to open an eatery with reasonable rents. Over time these restauranters and their successors established Restaurant Row.

During the 1970s one of the favorites of mine and my mates was Che Cardinale, a small, reasonable peasant French place with good food. It turned out that the owner lived in Port Washington and I would see him on the Long Island Railroad from time to time.

It was an ordinary place and one day I discovered how ordinary it was. At lunch, I decided to turn over my fork and found the back read, “Horn & Hardart” that referred to the operators of a famous of a chain of NYC cafeteria’s known as The Automat. I didn’t tell anybody, but I kept the fork.

Che Cardinale is long gone and today, thirty-one eateries occupy the block including Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Caribbean cuisine. The most famous are Becco, Joe Allen, Lattanzi, Orso and Barbetta that has been there since 1906.

May this famous New York block continue to prosper for another hundred years or longer.              

December 2025 

The Friday morning following Thanksgiving 2025, found me and several of my relatives sitting in our Four-Season Room having coffee, OJ, muffins, left over apple crumb, sour cherry and pumpkin pie as we waited for several additions to our party to arrive.

It was cold, below freezing, but the sun warmed the inside of our room. I sat there with my second cup of coffee reading the E-Edition of Long Island Newsday while sharing Thanksgiving thoughts with my wife, Mary Ann and son-in-law, Tom Briggs. His wife, Beth and daughter, Marlowe, who was named after the town, occupied themselves getting ready to pick up Beth’s friend, Tommie who caught a ride that morning from his home in Burlington, VT.

The plan was for Beth and Marlow to drive to Lebanon, NH where they would meet and drive Tommie the rest of the way to our place in Marlow that my wife named “Little House” way back in 1984 when we first bought it.

Also, on the way to stay with us were my two oldest Grandson’s Drew and Matt Delach, 26 and 24 respectively. They were driving north from their homes in Fairfield, CT using Drew’s Toyota Tacoma.

The TV was turned to one of the networks’ NFL pre-game shows. The commentators did their best to entertain us by exploring one of the three games that were to be played that day.

At about ten, the sun disappeared and the sky began to darken as thicker and thicker clouds began to push across the sky from the west. Conversation stopped as the wind began to swirl and heavier and heavier hail began to blow upon the room. It danced off the glass sounding like a drum beating in overtime.

We there in shock as the hail turned to snow. Lights were turned on and everyone came into the room to better see what was going on. The weather folks had forecast a cold and sunny day which obviously, turned out to be wrong. Several grabbed their cell phones tuning in their favorite weather sources.

All of them were as shocked as we were. It seemed that a narrow front had developed that was less than twenty miles across and we were in the center. Snow began to accumulate immediately on our cars and trucks, the grass, ground, and the roof of the house.

Beth and Marlowe planned to drive to Lebanon in Marlowe’s Jeep Renegade that Mary Ann had recently given to her. Instead, Beth chose to use their new Hyundai Santa Fe as she believed it had better traction.

One good thing, I had the Renegade inspected and serviced a week earlier and I had even added a snow scrapper that turned out to be the only one any of us had.

Drew and Matt also arrived in the storm using four-wheel drive.

Shortly afterward, the snow slowed, stopped and the sun re-appeared. The sun didn’t stay very long as we discovered the eye of the storm was passing over our camp. Sure enough, round two began shortly thereafter. It didn’t last as long as the first half and the sun returned for good less than an hour later but not before we received a total of three inches of snow.

Beth, Marlowe and friend, Tommie, safely arrived in this new setting. That, dear reader, is what Marlow, NH can be all about. Welcome to our unexpected winter wonderland.

We retuned home on Sunday, Beth and Tom to Brooklyn, Mary Ann and me to Port Washington and Marlowe and Tommie to school at Syracuse.

On Tuesday, Marlow was buried under seven-inches of snow, and so it goes.