John Delach

Guest Blog by Mary Ann Delach

The spring of 1971 was a stressful time in my life, trapped at home with a toddler and a new born on a bare-bones budget. Imagine my delight when Helen asked me if we’d be interested in vacationing with them at Journey’s End. Having the opportunity to get away with Helen who had become a good and supportive friend was special but when John lost his job, not having him for most of the week was a bummer. I cajoled my mother, Dorothy, to join me and help care for Beth and Michael. Dorothy drove but that also meant my grandmother, Catherine, who lived with Mom would be part of the entourage.

We had to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Rilling that we had two additional adults with us plus our dog. The ladies only cost us an additional $10 each but the bounty on Woofie was $20.

Catherine slept in master bedroom, while the rest of us shared the living room. Dorothy slept at one end on a Murphy bad, Beth and Michael in two cribs and I was consigned to a narrow single bed in the corner that doubled as a sofa during the day. Are we having fun, yet?

Helen’s fourth, Karen was also an infant just a couple of months older than Michael. Ann, her oldest, was eight, Bill, seven and Rita, three. Beth adored her cousins and couldn’t get enough of them. During the day, we would put the two babies to sleep in carriages under a tree near the pool while the older kids played. This gave us the chance to talk while smoking cigarettes and keeping one eye on the pool and the other on the babies. Our mothers would help by pushing carriages along the dirt “country road.”

Helen’s mother, Helen, aka, Big Aunt Helen, lived with the Markey family and it was not uncommon for the mothers to escape for a civilized lunch away from the fray providing us with a new sin of envy / hate. Some of the time they left Catherine on the front porch to her own devices. That didn’t sit well at all. Catherine enjoyed a drink now and then, especially Cold Duck or Southern Comfort. Dorothy decided to appease her with a couple of miniature bottles she bought at a souvenir store. My mother took the label to read Southern Comfort. Unfortunately, the look-alike label was for Northern Comfort, 100% Vermont maple syrup. She served it to grandma in a glass over the rocks. Catherine took a taste and exclaimed, “It’s a little sweet, Dorothy.”

One day Helen, Don and I ferried the six kids to Santa Land. What could go wrong, did go wrong. They sold animal feed from machines where one put in a quarter and turned a knob that dispensed animal food into a hopper that you caught with your hand. It seemed like a good idea at the time but, as usual ended in tears as feed spilled on the ground, animals were aggressive or the older kids threw it at the younger ones.

What stood out that visit was this chap, a total stranger, who saw Michael asleep in his stroller. He came close to look at Michael and exclaimed to me, “That is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.”

Times were beginning to change but shopping and the choice of take-out remained limited. Few fast food outlets had yet to arrive but there was a Howard Johnson just across the river and their ice cream was a major treat. Back in the day, Howard Johnson was the nations eatery on the go and in many ways, they were the king of the road. By the early Seventies, they were losing their edge. Their food remained decent, but their service was awful.

There was a store in town called “Shop-o-rama.” We used this name to coin a new expression to describe bad days when we were at our wits end and the whip was flying. “This place is like being in a whip-o-rama.

Because Howard Johnson continued to operate more like a restaurant with take-out limited to ice cream, meals on the go weren’t yet available. Margaret Rilling ran a weekly spaghetti dinner that guests had to sign up for in advance, so she could have an accurate count. Besides the pasta, it included hamburgers, hot dogs, corn, Cole slaw and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Washing was a must and the coin operated laundry was at the south end of Brattleboro, VT just across from the railroad station and bus terminal. The Giant Store, an early supermarket, became the place where Helen and I did most of our shopping.

On my own, without John, I had to exist only on the money he left me (setting aside what I could cajole from my mother.) Without a local bank account, the money you had in your pocket was all there was: no super market cards, no debit cards and no ATMs. What you had was all you had.

The electronic age was light years away. None of the cabins had phones and God forbid anyone asked the Rillings to use their phone unless it was a matter of life and death. The only place where I could call John was from a pay phone at the Sand & Sea Motel on Route 9 at the end of the dirt road. We had to agree on a set time for these calls otherwise making contact would be a disaster. Fortunately, we both kept the schedule, so I got through. If not, it was impossible to let him know I was trying to contact him.

Living with a toddler and an infant, my mother and grandmother made my head spin and it is safe to say that I was thrilled when John arrived early on the next Friday morning bearing a box of Dunkin Donuts.

All and all, despite the whip-o-rama, it was a wonderful experience making me look forward to a less hectic return visit.

I was delighted when Mary Ann told me that Helen had invited us to join them for a week’s stay at Journey’s End. We had heard nice things about this collection of cabins on the Connecticut River, the cost was reasonable even for us in our salad days and we had no other plans. We jumped at the chance and Helen contacted Mrs. Rilling to introduce us.

That Spring of 1971 was one to remember. Mary Ann was pregnant with our second child, Michael, who was born on April 30^th. Two weeks later, I lost my job as a cargo surveyor. This blow, shocking as it was, didn’t blindside me. I saw it coming but I hadn’t prepared for the obvious until it happened. Business had been slow for some time but ignorance is bliss.

The culprit was the advent of containerization. For generations, cargo arrived at ports like New York on wooden pallets that were unloaded and stored on piers until delivery. Containerization changed that forever and so rapid and so thorough did it happen between 1969 and 1971 that the number of surveys our firm conducted throughout the port of New York was halved from the number we conducted in 1969. There just wasn’t enough damage to cargo being discovered before the goods left the pier for delivery. My boss, Don Lamont, gave me two week’s pay and agreed to pay me for two additional weeks if needed to find another job.

My top priority was a cash and carry job to put money in our pockets while I sought a change in careers. A short search secured me employment as a claims adjuster for Boyd, Weir and Sewell who represented a German steamship company, Meyer Lines. I interviewed with the claims manager, Henry Meehan, a nice enough chap who was being swamped by a backlog of claims. My background fit but first, I had to meet with the principal of the firm, Mister Strauss. Strauss sat me down in his office but ignored my resume. He removed a yellow legal pad from a desk draw and began to ask me questions without looking up, jotting down my answers on the pad. When he finished, he put down his pen, looked me in the eye and asked, “Do you have a drinking problem?”

I told him that I did not, and I was hired. Of course, I had no vacation days so, as our scheduled week at Journey’s End grew near, I confessed my dilemma to Henry. Henry was nice enough to give me off the Monday of the weekend we were to arrive and the next Friday when we would return home. Henry’s offer exceeded anything I could have hoped for. I decided that I would clear up as much of their claims backlog as I could in my hopefully short time at the firm.

Meanwhile, I had already begun my search for a real position. I applied to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PA) for a position in their ports and airports division, the newly minted Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Marsh & McLennan as a hull insurance broker. The first two never panned out but I did secure a position at Marsh where I began the last week in August.

Mary Ann and I headed north in our Dodge Dart with Beth, then twenty-months old, Michael, an infant of two months and change and our four-year-old mutt, Woffie. The ride was not without drama. Mary Ann made an exciting discovery as we headed out of Springfield, Mass when she realized Michael’s first tooth had popped through his gum. Not to be outdone, Beth put her hand in her mouth causing self-induced chocking followed by vomit. Once things calmed down and we cleaned Beth, she announced that she could be sick again by saying, “Uh-oh, more schokin.” Fortunately, it was only a scare.

We settle in to Cabin No. 4, the Oriole and I joined Don for a booze run to the Vermont and New Hampshire state package stores for price comparisons and to the beer and soda distributor.

The weekend went by in a flash. Mary Ann’s mother, Dorothy arrived on Monday together with her grandmother, Kate to help with Beth and Michael in my absence. I reluctantly hit the road home Monday at mid-afternoon after their arrival. My ride was uneventful except for the number of young semi-hippie hitchhikers who had taken to the road in that era as part of the so-called “summers of love.”

But a strange thing happened just after I left as I headed across the Connecticut River into Vermont and the southbound entrance to Interstate 91. The local AM radio station began playing a song I had never heard before. Its lyrics matched my mood just as I was about to begin my southbound journey:

Would you care to stay till sunrise?

It’s completely your decision,

it’s just that going home is such a ride.

Going home is such a ride,

going home is such a ride,

 going home is such a low and lonely ride.

I didn’t know the song was Dory Previn’s “The Lady with the Braid” that had just been released. It would haunt me for years to come until I finally rediscovered it on one of Ms Previn’s CDs.

I left Middle Village at four in the morning the following Friday and arrived a little after eight with a box of fresh Duncan Doughnuts giving me a full last day less a nap before we headed home on Saturday.

That Saturday was brutally hot, our Dodge Dart was without A/C and I still remember that long, hot ride through an oven called Connecticut. The only folks noticeably more miserable than us were motor cyclist in their leathers. Any breeze they found felt like a blow torch.

Then and there I vowed our next car would have A/C.

My first business flight was a day trip between LaGuardia Airport and Norfolk, Virginia via Piedmont Airlines in March of 1973. My last, a farewell trip to London on United Airlines in March of 2000, days before I retired. Between those two round-trip flights I logged 355 trips courtesy of Marsh & McLennan in what was then still the golden age of flying.

I flew on Eastern Airlines most of the time because they had the best service to many of the places I flew on business; Boston, DC, Richmond, Miami, Bermuda, San Juan, Mobile, Houston and Corpus Christi. Eastern became my airline of record and the first airline club I joined was their Ionosphere Club. They also provided my entry into the world of frequent flyer perks. Eastern may not have been the first carrier to offer bonuses to valued customers, but they were on the cutting edge. They christened their original program the Executive Traveler Club, (ET Club.) My colleague, Steve Beslity, put me on to it and gave me a copy of the application. “To be honest, John, they are limiting the number of travelers they accept.”

Undaunted, I submitted it and, by return mail, I magically received my ET Card and Luggage Tag. Oh, happy days, I still have that gold on brown ET Card with my number: ET51668. This card together with my membership in the Ionosphere Club threw open the door to frequent upgrades to First Class. No wonder why I went out of my way to fly Eastern.

I flew enough morning flights out of JFK to befriend the woman who ran the front desk at that Ionosphere Club. Her name was Helen and she was magical. She even upgraded Mary Ann to first class on a flight to West Palm Beach when Mary Ann and I were flying separately.  I had left two days earlier to attend our Managing Director’s meeting held that year at the Breakers Hotel and Mary Ann would join me for a post-conference Florida vacation.

That would turn out to be a tumultuous conference because the very day I left, news of a bond trading scandal involving our firm broke in the morning papers. I had The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal with me as I boarded the airplane. Helen had upgraded me to First Class on one of their Lockheed L-1011s. Heading to my seat, I noticed a chap sitting near me. He was reading information about our conference, so I asked, “What do you think of the bond scandal?”

“Pardon,” he replied with a heavy French accent. Instead of replying, I handed him the Times Business Section. Marsh &McLennan’s name was plastered across the front page as our bond scandal was the lead story. He looked down at the piece, looked up at me, looked down again and finally looked me in the eye and said, “Sacrebleu!”

His name was Raymond Jutheau, son of the president of a major French insurance broker that Marsh had recently purchased. He had just arrived at JFK on the daily Air France Concorde to attend his first Marsh conference and he hadn’t seen a newspaper since he left Paris. The price of our stock was tanking. Much of the purchase price was paid in Marsh stock making his family the largest shareholders in our firm: Sacrebleu, indeed!

Looking back at my flying career, if Eastern was my airline of record, my airplane of record was Boeing’s 727. Over the course of my career, I flew in a 727on 239 occasions. The DC-9 / MD-80 finished a distant second with 107 flights. Eastern used the 727 extensively as that three engine Boeing jet became the first domestic workhorse that opened almost all of America to jet travel. My colleague, Norb Forrester, once called it “the Pacific locomotive” of the airlines.

The party ended once the FAA de-regulated the airline industry. Eastern and other so called, “legacy carriers,” like Pan Am and TWA couldn’t compete in a free market. They were too slow to adjust to this brave new world and operated with many uncompetitive practices. Eastern’s flight network, constructed under tight FAA rules included several money-losing routes. So too, their pension obligations, union work rules and pay scales made them a weak sister to Delta, their principal domestic competitor. Eastern’s management exacerbated their problems by making several bad business decisions. I have said this before, their CEO, former astronaut, Frank Borman, didn’t help. As Eastern waivered and declined I offered my own explanation: “Eastern’s CEO is Frank Borman. The way he operates the airline, you’d think he was (Hitler’s private secretary) Martin Bormann.”

Using this carrier became a chore and I last flew on Eastern Airlines in 1987. I was prompted to abandon the Ionosphere Club and my remaining frequent flyer miles in part because the FAA slapped the airline with a $9.5 million fine for safety violations, an amount that wasn’t surpassed until 2010. Their service too, had deteriorated to a point just short of being antagonistic. Cabin crews were definitely in an, “I don’t give a s*** mode.

Borman sold Eastern to Texas Air who also bought Continental. Frank Lorenzo the new CEO didn’t try to save Eastern and cannibalized it by selling off profitable operations.   What was left of Eastern gave up the ghost at midnight on January 19, 1991.

American became my domestic carrier of choice and when they bought TWA’s overseas routes, American became my first choice for flights to Europe, especially London and Paris. I even joined American’s Admirals Club. Their service was a definite improvement, yet it too was declining.

The last time I traveled in a 727 was on a round trip Delta shuttle flight between LGA and DC in 1999. By then this jet had been relegated to the Boston and DC shuttles. Delta had the distinction of retiring the last 727 still operating in domestic scheduled passenger service in April of 2003.

What remained of the joy of flight disappeared after 9/11 as security regulations, shoddy service, cramped cabins and endless add-ons crushed it. Once a romantic adventure, flying became a bad experience to be avoided whenever possible.

Geoff Jones-Part One: Westchester and Danbury

Bill Christman’s recent piece about flying home from Keene, NH on Mohawk Airlines reminded me that Mohawk served Westchester County Airport located in White Plains near where I lived during the mid-40’s and 50’s. Flying was as novel to me as John and Bill. My parents often took me there to watch planes take off and land. Most were small private craft both single (mono) and bi-wing, painted yellow, as I recall. I thought they were all Piper Cubs-I guess that was the only name I knew. The airport was small set off by spotty chain link fences with many gaps allowing my father to drive through giving me the chance to get close to the aircraft, a real thrill for a 10-year old.

Another destination, even smaller, was an airport in Danbury, CT. There he could drive up to the same small “Piper Cubs,” parked within spitting distance so we could walk around looking into cockpits and talk to the owners. There were no fences I can recall. It was a big weekend event for me because that’s when the planes were most active. I’m not sure exactly where in Danbury it was or if it still exists because the city has grown, and nearby Interstate 84 changed everything. I don’t remember ever seeing anything bigger than the planes I described.

To go on about Westchester Airport sometime in the mid-90’s Judy and I drove to the airport from our Pleasantville home 15-minutes away to visit their new parking garage and terminal. We sought out a small eatery in the terminal where we sampled their bloody Mary’s that were said to be excellent. They were. While sitting in our car at the now much improved chain link fence we noticed a big black chopper with rotors. A closer look revealed the Trump name on it. Moments later I heard the delightful click clack of spike high-heeled shoes approaching from the terminal and turned to look. A tall knockout blonde in a tight skirt was approaching the chopper. I’m not sure if it was Judy or me who said, “that must be Mrs. Trump,” nor do I recall which of us retorted, “or a hooker”.

Based on the woman’s attire, she could have been either but later we realized she must have been one of the Donald’s wives-I think, Ivana. That was easily worth the fifteen-minute drive and the cost of the bloodies.

John Delach-Part Two: LGA

In “An Outing with Mom,” I related one of our Sunday trips to Canarsie. Another favorite destination was LaGuardia Airport, (LGA.) Again, we travelled by trolleys and later the buses that replaced them. The original terminal was a sand-colored, Art Deco, four-story brick building. A circular driveway lifted taxis and private cars to deposit passengers at the departure level on the second floor. Vehicles tunneled underneath this ramp to meet arriving passengers on the ground floor. This small terminal was, in its day, sufficient for departing passengers to check in and arrivals to re-claim their luggage. The upper floors hosed offices and terminal was topped off by a glass enclosed control tower.

Passengers left from or arrived at two flimsy, single-story structures that curved out from both sides of the terminal for about a quarter-mile in each direction. The flat top of these structures accommodated observation decks open to the public. They were no more than one hundred yards from the airplanes. Passengers walked from the gates to their aircraft across the tarmac led by an airline employee and boarded via portable stairs mounted on trucks. The observation deck was a great place to say goodbye or hello. The public called this structure and the boarding/arrival process, “the sheep walk.”

As memory serves me, American Airlines occupied the western end of the western sheep walk and Eastern Airlines, the eastern end of the east walk. United, TWA, Northeast, Mohawk and Capital among others occupied designated parking areas between them. The airplanes included two-engine DC-3s, Convair 440s. Four engine planes included the Douglas DC-4s and DC-6s or Lockheed Constellations flown by both TWA and Eastern. Capital Airlines had a peculiar fleet of British built Vickers Viscounts turbo-prop, four engine planes with big oval windows.

I found these Viscounts to be alien and disturbing. Unlike the Douglas or Lockheed offspring, these foreigners didn’t start with a blast of sound and black smoke. They had to be subversive!

My greatest joy was witnessing the flight crews start those Pratt & Whitney piston engines one at a time beginning with an outboard engine. Electricity from the starter would force the prop to begrudgingly turn with a soulful screech until a spark caught and the engine belched to life in a cloud of black smoke as the propeller caught and began to spin faster and faster until it was a whirl. Just as this engine came to life, my attention would be drawn to the opposite outboard engine as it began to screech. And so, it continued until all four engines were firing hot and normal.

I never became bored but all too soon, it was time to leave. Mom softened the end by allowing me to purchase two nickel post cards depicting black and white airplanes on the front. The walk back to the bus stop was never fun, but at least I enjoyed watching those last few landings and take-offs.

Jean Shepherd was a great story teller. My favorite, told on a hot and humid night, still resonates:

Picture if you will, a sedan heading north on the New Jersey Turnpike between Exits 12 and 13. The boy is driving as his girl snuggles up against him. He has one hand on the steering wheel the other wrapped around her. The windows are open to catch the breeze inadvertently allowing an odd and unpleasant odor to penetrate the interior of the car. Neither one of them say a word, but he thinks it’s her and she thinks it’s him.

(Esso had a large refinery and chemical plant between those exits and Shepherd used his vocal talents and the listeners imaginations to bring to life the odors that permeate that stretch of the turnpike, odors that anyone of us who drove that road surely remember.)

Another time, seemingly out of the blue, he remarked:

Think of the wildest, most unorthodox and simply crazy or weird type of behavior you can think of. Guess what, no matter how bizarre it is, there is a group out there who are dedicated to it. They’re not only dedicated, they’re organized, and you can bet they have a newsletter.

Addicted to Shep, I listened to his radio show live on WOR, 710 AM, without fail. Not yet married, I still at lived with my mother in my boyhood home, 1821 Himrod Street.

Like many a teenage boy, I secretly listened to late-night radio. Transistor radios equipped with an earphone were our pathway to a personal freedom, a place our parents didn’t go. I found Shep accidentally. Shep’s 45-minute show, that started at 10:15 PM, proceeded Long John Nebel’s open-ended science fiction, science-fantasy, science-weirdos show. Unlike Shep, Long John had guests and callers. One night his guest was a self-described time-traveler who explained in detail that there were three portals in New York City where one could go backward or forward in time. I recall him explaining that one was in an apartment house. To access the portal, you rode the elevator to the basement, then pressed “B” three times to enter the portal. Long John rightly asked him, “Which portal do you use?”

“None of them,” he replied. “I Astro-project myself to where I want to go.”

That’s when I developed my doubts about Long John, but by then I was hooked on Shep. I became addicted to his radio show. He became my refuge from teenage confusion. Shep understood the torture of being a teenager: “Life is a shit sandwich and every day you take another bite.”

He had a sadness about him and his stories usually included an element of failure or of unfulfilled expectations. Sort of like Peggy Lee’s: “Is that all there is?”

Or as Shep put it. Suppose St. Peter isn’t a nice guy and likes to make people sweat? Makes them want to believe they could have done more. Especially, when a great person makes it to the Pearly Gates. He reminds them of all their failures and puts them down by telling them: “You could have done more but you were asleep at the switch.”

I did see him in person one night in the Limelight Club in the West Village where he did a live show. Somehow, I convinced Mary Ann to accompany me to this performance. That night, he chose to speak about his World War II experiences a state-side assignment at a radar facility. His story emphasized the monotony of being assigned to a radar station in some God-forsaken rural area. We had nothing to do day and night except to listen to the radar as it swept the horizon left to right and right to left constantly buzzing while it looked for Hitler.

Shep visualized this by crouching down on the stage as he spoke putting both hands up on either side of his head, palms open going back and forth sweeping the room.

These memories came flooding back when my cousin, Bill sent me a piece from The Wall Street Journal about Shep. Written by Thomas Lipscomb, who was his editor and a willing or unwilling confidant in the 1970s, Lipscomb recounts how, A Christmas Story, became a national Christmas tradition if not an obsession. Lipscomb was Shep’s editor for his anthology of his radio broadcasts that were published under the title, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.” (I bought and savored this book, but with heavy heart, I admit, my copy is long lost.)

Lipscomb noted that Shep’s agent, Leigh Brown, tried to convince him to take a few of the stories from the book like Ralphie’s obsession with the Red Ryder bb-gun, Flick being triple-dared to stick his tongue to the flagpole and his old man and the flat tire, and use them to make a screen play. After a long and arduous fight, Shep conceded and A Christmas Story was made.

Still, Shep would have been reduced to a footnote except that when he agreed to be the voice of Ralphie, he perpetuated his persona in the American culture for as long as we celebrate Christmas in the land of US.

The movie allowed Shep and Leigh to earn enough money to retire to Sanibel Island. I will not suggest that it made him happy but at least he could be blue in paradise while looking for Hitler. He died in 1999. RIP Jean Shepherd.

You can easily listen to some of his broadcasts on the internet by typing, “Jean Shepherd Radio”. Just don’t blame me if you become addicted. I know I have, again, after all these years.

Part Two

On board a Brooklyn trolley car bound for the Canarsie Pier with my Mom in 1951.

Rockaway Parkway, despite its grand name is a quiet street. Two-family attached brick houses line it for several blocks nearest to the subway station. Even so, as the trolley proceeds south, vacant lots gradually begin to outnumber houses until the scenery becomes mostly fields. The skeletons of a few remaining Quonset Huts dot some of these fields. Now abandoned, my Mom explained on an earlier trip, “The government built them in 1946 to house newly married ex-GIs because regular housing was so short. Two families shared half of building. It must have been terrible.”

Before reaching the pier, the tracks leave the street and enter their own right-of-way. The trolley runs along an uneven gravel and grass path bucking and shaking until it loops into the wooden covered platform that is the Canarsie Terminal. We tumble off the car, walk back to Rockway Parkway, through the underpass beneath the Belt Parkway and toward the pier.

A square parking lot occupies most of the pier. The only structure is a single-story red-brick park house containing an office, bathrooms and snack bar off to one side. Fishermen, using reels and rods, cast from various spots along the apron. Tin buckets and nets on long metal poles line their fishing spots to collect their catch. It is a warm spring day and Mom says, “Why don’t we take the boat ride around the bay?”

“Great,” I reply and follow her onto a gangplank that leads to a floating pier and a surplus navy whaleboat. Mom purchases two tickets for ten cents each and I hurry to grab an end seat on one of the benches. The boat ride though not exciting, is something different. As the boat weaves around several islands, I watch the afternoon aerial parade of Constellations, Stratocruisers, DC-4 and Dc-6 airliners as they follow the approach toward Idewild Airport just over the horizon.

We walk around the perimeter of the pier before my Mom makes her way to a bench to rest and read. I while away the afternoon, wandering among the fishermen comparing their catches, watch airplanes, seagulls and the occasional boat that sails by and, when Mom is not looking, lean over the edge and launch discarded ice cream sticks into the bay.

When Mom is ready to leave, we make our way back to the trolley.  Across the street from the subway station, she lets me buy a Three Musketeers candy bar. The toys and comic books in the store are off limits.

I look out the window at the low skyline of East New York as the Manhattan bound subway train approaches its next stop, Atlantic Avenue. The sun that is beginning to set casts orange light through windows on the opposite side of the car spreading it across the floor and the seats. My mother sits near me. She shifts her body to escape the light, but when the conductor opens the doors, a jolt of sunlight assaults her and several other riders forcing them to shield their eyes with newspapers, magazines, hands, or coat sleeves. I too turn away to duck the sun until the doors close again.

I am still enjoying the day and this last train ride. Mom is tired. She has given up another precious Sunday to entertain her eight-year-old son who is too young and too selfish to realize her sacrifice. The train moves on crossing the complex of switches and tracks that is Broadway Junction. I look down at the subway yard with its rows of tracks separated at intervals by cement firewalls, the red brick bus garage, the silver and green GMC and Mack buses parked outside and the remnants of an old Piels brewery. The houses, churches and schools of Bushwick line a ridge behind the train yard and brewery.

This is the last stop before the train descends into the subway erasing my view of Brooklyn. Through the portal, into the tunnel, the wind roars as the train pushes it forward. I look out into the darkness. The window ceases to be the canvas for the images I enjoyed this day and, instead, it becomes the disappointing reflection of my own image.

My day dies with the descent into the tunnel. Today’s adventure melts away as my thoughts quickly turn from the joys of this Sunday’s outing to Monday morning and the dread of returning to the fourth grade.

Written in 2004, first published in “The Big Orange Dog and Other Stories” in 2011 and revised in February of 2018

Part One

My excitement begins when the 8:45 a.m. mass at St. Aloysius Church ends. Outside, I line-up on the Onderdonk Avenue sidewalk with other kids to give a vendor a nickel for a salted pretzel that he selects from his wicker basket lined with a clean dishtowel. It is the first piece of food I eat today. This is 1951 and my Holy Communion fast began at midnight.

Mom told me before we left for mass that we would have an outing today. I still don’t know where we will go, and I must wait while she chats with friends and neighbors. I have learned to keep my mouth shut. I am sure my body language gives away my growing impatience as these women continue to talk aimlessly. But one time, I made the mistake of wising off and my Sunday outing ended right then and there. I am happy and relieved when my mother and her friends say their final good-byes. Walking home, Mom announces that we will be going to Canarsie today.

This is fine with me because that is one of the few places we travel to that is still served by trolley cars. Before Mom heads for our apartment to start our breakfast, she hands me seventy cents. I run to the bakery around the corner to buy 4 seeded rolls and 2 crumb buns for two quarters and to the candy store where I leave twenty cents in a plate on the counter for the Sunday News and Sunday Mirror.

It’s a four-block walk from our house to the DeKalb Avenue station. No clerk is on duty on Sundays forcing us to use the automated turnstile. I hate this machine; a steel enclosed cylinder with room for only one passenger at a time. I must push it around by myself and I fear becoming trapped. I’m sure if I do, I will wet my pants, but fortunately it does not jam.

I delight in this train ride. Being a kid, I imagine that I drive the train through the tunnel as I look out of the front window holding on to the doorframe as the subway car bucks and rocks as it travels with speed between stations. A marvelous combination of sensations, the swoosh of the train rushing forward, its lights bouncing off the concrete walls creates patterns of shapes and forms that disappear before I can even think what they could be. In front of us, the tracks glow until eaten away as the train devours them. The white light bulbs lining the tunnel walls are the stars in a galaxy; the blue emergency lights with their pink halos are its strange planets. Signal lights change from red to yellow or green as the motorman eases or increases his throttle to keep pace with them.

Every now and again, I look over my shoulder to make sure my mother remains in her seat reading a newspaper or magazine. Satisfied, I return to my own universe excited to be riding the train on this Sunday outing.

The day is ahead of us. Morning light fills the train as it emerges from the tunnel and onto the elevated structure. Apartment buildings, tenement houses, schools and small factories melt away with each station as the landscape becomes less crowded. We pass junkyards, rail sidings and even an occasional farm and farm house as the train descends to ground level before it reaches the end of the line. I abandon my post as the train eases into the last station and follow Mom to wait for the connecting trolley car that will take us to the Canarsie Pier.

“Will we go on a boat ride? Can I get ice cream, candy, a soda?” “How long can we stay?”

I don’t see that I am testing her patience until it is too late. “Stop it and be quiet.”

I sulk but the sound and sight of the trolley distracts me. Few streetcar lines still operate and, soon this one too will be replaced by buses. I have watched the ones that ran near my house all disappear, so this is a treat for me. Visions of ice cream and Pepsi vanish with its appearance, at least for a while.

We board the trolley, a double ender dating from the 1920s. So much more fun to ride than buses, trolleys have their own unique sounds and smells. The sound of the electric motor purring as the car waits to be engaged. The crackle and smell of the electric ozone when the trolley pole sparks as it crosses other wires. The clang-clang of the bell as the operator prepares to leave a stop. The sound and smell of steel on steel as the car crosses switches or makes tight turns.

Mom allows me to sit next to a window when a seat is available. She sits next to me. I am only allowed to open the window so long as the breeze doesn’t disturb other passengers. Five black iron horizontal bars block the opened window, but her sharp words of caution are enough to prevent me from sticking my fingers through the bars.

Practicality: The sensible use of dealing with or coming to terms with an unexpected, unusual or extraordinary situation or opportunity. Historical example: The Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson was opposed to westward expansion but when the French offered their legitimate claim to 867,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River for a bargain basement price of $15,000,000, Tom jumped on it. Practicality won out.

Item Number One: The Practical Author

“Fire and Fury” is currently the hottest book in the publishing world. Hyped as a tell-all of   supposedly salacious insider stories, it portrays the Donald Trump White House as more akin to “One Flew Over the Coco’s Nest,” “All the President’s Men,” and “The Pentagon Papers” rolled into one. This tell-all phenomenon from the pen of Michael Wolff is flying off bookshelves at warp speed.

In the interest of clarity, I note the full title of Mr. Wolff’s book is, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” I make this distinction because The New York Times recently reported that the book’s abbreviated title is causing confusion with another Fire and Furious, written a decade ago.

That book was authored by Randall Hansen, a Canadian professor who is currently the interim director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. The complete name of Professor Hansen’s book is: “Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942-1945.” The Times noted this about Hansen’s book: “It is highly critical of the British-led nighttime firebombing of German cities, finding it both morally dubious and of little strategic value.”

Apparently, Hansen’s book is enjoying a popular resurrection on Amazon’s best-seller list. Hansen noted to The Times: “I don’t know how much of this is a mistake and how much of this is from new interest created by free advertising., There might be some returns.”

The Times included a mild shot he took at Trump, but the Toronto Guardian provided a juicer quotation: “And we are talking about that at a moment when we have this warmongering, unstable, deranged demagogue in the White House, so that coincidence actually makes me happier than the sales.”

Unfortunately, Hansen’s self-proclaimed moral superiority over The Donald prevents him from enjoying the practicality of a return from oblivion and the profitability of renewed sales. Other authors would crave this unexpected windfall and a new opportunity to get your own message across without lifting a finger. Most would be satisfied to proclaim: “I should be so lucky.”

Item Number Two: A Free Lunch

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Nothing is certain except death and taxes.

Usually, when we receive invitations to free lunches, they are produced by folks who want us to give them control of our life savings in return for a piece of chicken. Think about it, when was the last time an attorney asked you to lunch, must less, a doctor. Attorneys, especially, elder care shylocks should be an opportunity for free-bees, but who wants to delve into their financial problems and the extent of their dysfunctional family in the company of other seniors?

As for doctors, I’ve never met even one who offered to take me out to lunch. I believe that there are times when that would be a humanistic gesture, especially by your proctologist. (A lousy cocktail wouldn’t hurt either.)

Most of my offers for free lunches come from money managers, estate planners or other financial advisors. That was until received a slick flyer from my friend, Geoff Jones that came to his home on St. Simons Island, Georgia. The top of the flyer proclaimed:

CONSIDERING CREMATION/ JOIN US FOR A

FREE LUNCH

& INFORMATIONAL SEMINAR

The brochure offered two different venues on the island, Coastal Kitchen and Catch 228. Geoff, noted at the top of the flyer: “I think it’s curious that two pretty good eateries got involved with this.”

The flyer makes sensible points explaining that they’ll discuss the benefits of preplanning, affordable options, veteran benefits and a travel & relocation protection plan. The folks who put this together must have realized that the flyer wasn’t enough to generate the response they desired. The problem: Is offering a free lunch at a nice restaurant enough to entice people to deal with a difficult and put-off subject?

They chose to sweeten the deal by including an incentive on the left-hand corner of the flyer, the place the eye naturally sees first:

Attend

a Seminar

For Your Chance to

WIN A FREE

7-DAY CRUISE FOR TWO

That is practicality at its best. Embrace the inevitable yet get a free lunch in the process plus the chance for a 7-day cruise.

My First Flight: Bill Christman

It’s truly amazing to me how vividly I can recall my travel experiences from that Labor Day weekend in 1964 and yet have no recollection of the weekend I spent with Helen and Don at Journey’s End itself.

I recall arriving by train at the Brattleboro station, looking at my watch to see that it was about 2:30 am Saturday morning and seeing my brother-in-law looking fresh and bright all set to drive me to their Journey’s End cabin. But from that time to Monday late morning my mind is a blank, and so it goes.

My game plan was to fly home as I had never flown before. Just like my first real train trip on Friday night, I wanted to experience flight for the first time. Come Monday, I remember getting more and more nervous as the time drew closer for us to leave for the airport, but not so nervous that I would back out. Mother Nature helped granting me a clear day of beautiful weather so that would not be a factor. Don drove me to the Keene airport while my sister Helen and my mother stayed back with my infant niece Anne-Marie.

The trip to the airport was memorable in one aspect. Most of the ride was on a simple two-lane winding country thoroughfare that had the necessary traffic lines dividing the road. A broken line on your side of the rode meant passing was permitted; a solid line meant don’t even think about passing. Somewhere along the way two young punks drove immediately in front of us and would crawl at say 20 mph when no passing was allowed and then speed up to the point where you could not attempt to pass when it was permitted. They seem to be in front of us most of the 20 or so miles to the airport but eventually went their own way.

At that time, Dillant-Hopkins Airport, (The airport’s official name) offered non-stop service to JFK on Mohawk Airlines. I bought my ticket at the counter, spending about $20 for a coach seat. My thinking was that I would figure out how to get home from there with the limited resources that I still had, meaning I was damn close to broke.

The flight was about half-full and uneventful although for a while I believed that my fellow passengers owed me a debt of gratitude for my keeping that plane in the air through sheer willpower. I remember being disappointed that the plane flew as high as it did since this minimized my view of the ground, but this was a minor annoyance and we arrived on time and in good order.

Relieved and safely on the ground, I exited the terminal and walked toward an area where several green municipal buses were waiting to begin their next runs. One of the first I saw had “World’s Fair” as its destination and I knew the Fair was relatively close to home if only I could find a local bus there. On arrival at the World Fair’s bus parking area, I found a sign showing where different buses stopped. One of them was the B-58, the Flushing-Ridgewood bus, that ran down Grand Street in Maspeth, within walking distance to my house. Almost safe at home, I boarded the next bus to arrive and handed my transfer to the driver.

Unexpected Encounter: John Delach

Mary Ann and I were seeing each other on a regular basis by Labor Day of 1964. We spent at least part of that holiday weekend together. Like, Bill, I too cannot remember the details of our experiences that weekend. However, I do recall that I left her family’s home that Monday afternoon to begin my long bus trip home. First, I grabbed any one of three buses of opportunity to Flushing followed by the long trek via the B-58 that would meander to the World’s Fair, then on through Corona, Elmhurst and Maspeth before finally reaching Ridgewood. Once on board, I opened my paperback book to pass the time, likely a James Bond novel or a book about World War II.

The Fair always drew my attention so when the bus stopped at the Rodman Street’s Worlds Fair Terminal, I put down my book to pay attention to what was going on. Lo and behold, entering the bus, shoving a paper transfer to the driver was my cousin and just-graduated, former college buddy, Bill Christman.

I saw him before he saw me. I know I fired the first salvo but I’m certain I wasn’t so quick to think of a line so clever that it blew his socks off.

Bill recalls, “I heard from the back a familiar voice shouting, ‘So you’re going away for the weekend, huh?’ It was my cousin and good friend John. Eagerly and anxiously I could not wait to talk about the topic then upper most in my mind; my first plane ride. Visiting Journey’s End, my sister Helen and her husband or my mom, forget about it. I flew in a plane. Wowzah!”

A guest blog by Bill Christman

Summer trips to Journey’s End stopped once our Dad took ill. He passed on Christmas Eve, 1957. RIP, Dad.

Life continued and we carried on. My sister, Helen, married Don Markey and once their first baby, Anne Marie, came into the world, Helen revived the Journey’s End experience. In 1964. Helen and Don thrilled Mom by inviting her to join them there.

I was working for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Manhattan, having started there in early July following my graduation from St. Francis College. Helen surprised me with a call from New Hampshire inviting me to join them for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

That call became my proverbial “one small step” that began my not-so-giant leap.

Mom had driven the 200 or so miles in our 1959 Ford and I had no car of my own. I had gone with my parents to Journey’s End as a kid several times. I loved the place and I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity some ten years later. Besides I was 21 and full of myself even though I was hardly worldly or sophisticated. How to get there and return home? I decided to take the train from NYC and fly home.

This was my first opportunity to ride on a real train, not the NYC subway.

I bought a ticket for the train leaving on Friday after work meaning a late arrival in Brattleboro, VT. I vaguely remember asking a ticket agent at Grand Central Terminal for a ticket to Brattleboro being told I would have to change trains. That was upsetting, I was a rookie, what if I missed my connection or fell asleep and didn’t get off? This is not the subway where you just double back or wait it out. I had no choice but to stay awake.

How did I let my sister know what train I would be on? None of the cabins had phones and forget about cell phones-this was 1964. I must have called the Rilling’s main house and left a message for Helen.

I asked the conductor to let me know when we reached my transfer station. (Let’s say it was New Haven although I’m not sure of that.) As we rode onward through Connecticut I became more concerned. In the oncoming darkness many stations either had no identification or I could not identify them before the train moved on. The loudspeaker, what there was of it, sounded garbled or only on in the other cars.

The conductor, true to his word, told me this was my station when we reached New Haven and I’m sure I pushed everyone out of the way, so I could detrain before they closed the doors and pulled out. It didn’t seem long before my next train arrived; I remember asking the conductor if this train stopped at Brattleboro and he assured me it did. Ahh, things were moving in the right direction. But not for long.

The train was scheduled to in Brattleboro around 11:30 pm. That was not going to happen. I joke that we spent too much time standing at various stations, probably waiting for mail to arrive or delivering milk. It became obvious that sticking to a timetable was not a priority.

Little did I understand when making my reservations that the North-Eastern railroads were going to hell in a hand basket and the last thing on their agenda was passenger service. They were bleeding money because of antiquated union contracts and ICC restrictions on pricing and loss of passengers. By 1964, hardly anybody took long distance trains in the North East. The interstates opened up New England for easy access by cars and buses and people flew for longer distances. Had I taken a bus, I would have easily made it to Brattleboro by 11:30.

Springfield, Mass was the worst; a long delay with no explanation. Vendors came through the cars with the most unappetizing sandwiches, which most passengers passed up, me included. When a newspaper vendor came through with the next day’s edition, I began to get concerned about whether I would ever get there.

I probably dozed off several times as we made our way north along the Connecticut River valley stopping at towns like Amherst, Northampton, Deerfield and Greenfield before finally entering Vermont.

We finally pulled into the Brattleboro station at 2:30 am. In my mind’s eye I still see a chipper looking Don Markey greeting me, appearing as though sleep was no problem for him. The five miles or so trip from the station to Journey’s End is only a blur but I do hope I had the good sense to apologize to everyone the next morning for my tardiness and interrupting their sleep.