John Delach

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.”  

Something went array with today’s piece that was to be called “The Super Mario Bridge.” Somehow the body of this piece merged with last week’s piece “The Cold War Re-visited” and I can’t retrieve it.

I regret this attack by gremlins and hope that I can shake this off and properly publish another piece next Wednesday.

John Delach

June, 2017: Number 186. Revised and edited: March 2024: Number 503

Thursday, June 8, 2017 found Bill Christman driving our rental car 33-miles south of Tucson on Interstate-19 to the exit for Green Valley. It’s hot, really hot as we drive west for a mile on a two-lane road before we reach our destination, the Titan Missile Museum, formerly Launch Complex 571-7.   A cyclone fence stretches from one side. In front of the fence is a small sign that says: “Watch for rattlesnakes. We’re not kidding!”

Behind the fence sits a concrete structure low to the ground, the welcome center for a de-commissioned and preserved Titan II missile silo, now a National Landmark.

Welcome back to the Cold War.

Captain Joe Scott, our guide is a retired air force officer who spent two years as the launch commander in just such a facility. He leads a party of ten, Bill and I, a family of five, mom, dad and three teenage girls, another couple and a single fellow with a Germanic accent, into the facility. We enter a twisting passageway to begin our descent fifty-three steps down a metal staircase.

If the site had been operational, we would have had to pass through four locked checkpoints to gain access. As it is, we pass through two massive blast doors to enter the control room. Everything about this facility is deadly serious. Scott explains how serious from the intricate steel rebar pattern used to strengthen the massive concrete floors, walls and overheads to the complex’s communications system that has four independent and redundant back-ups.

The design and engineering of this facility is based on one over-riding reason, protect the Titan II missile and the four-person launch crew from all but a direct hit from an incoming nuclear device. (As an un-nerving aside, Scott pronounces nuclear in the same manner that W does.)

Completely sealed off inside, the crew has enough food, water, power, clean air and a/c to function for 12 days. Massive springs and shock absorbers, flexible cables and hoses protect the missile and the launch instruments from a nuclear shock wave. Positive pressurization prevents contamination by fall out or  the use of poison gas..

The complex contains three separate chambers connected by tubes. The control center, the missile silo and the crew’s quarters. We only visit the first two but Scott explains the crew quarters are basic, a small kitchen, bunk beds and a toilet.  “The crews rotated every 24-hours so there wasn’t’ a lot of downtime. For the most part we didn’t cook as the kitchen had to be cleaned for the next crew. Instead, we subsisted on a diet of Coke and Twinkies.” 

Scott is matter-of-fact, friendly, open and knowledgeable. He leads us through an excellent presentation of the launch procedure while we stand around the control room. He reminds us that the crew (two officers and two enlisted) were in their early twenties or late teens. Crazy as it sounds, the fate of civilization could have rested in the hands of personnel who could not legally buy a beer!

Our guide selects two of the girls to play the roles of the commander and her executive officer (XO).He directs them to sit in the two oversized rolling office chairs each at her appropriate work station.  They are about six-feet apart with the sister playing commander perched before a console bursting with a plethora of 1950s and early 1960s technology. Phones featuring rotary dials, analogue displays, and black & white TV monitors.

Scott points to a large metal cabinet with all the drawers marked “empty.” He explains:    “Originally, these draws were filled with vacuum tubes that powered the internal guidance settings for the missile. The air force estimated these missiles would remain in service for about five years. They actually lasted 20. Tubes must be replaced at regular intervals but after ten years, manufacturing ceased.” Pointing to one panel in the cabinet where a display is located, he continues, “Fortunately, NASA, Boeing and MIT developed this digital guidance system that replaced all those tubes.”

He instructs the sisters to re-enact a missile launch. First, he has the commander find a series of six numbers from the orders which she instructs the XO to enter into a her console that releases the locks holding the missile in place. Then he instructs them to simultaneously turn their two keys on the commander’s count.

(The position of these two keys is deliberately placed about twelve feet from each other making a one-person launch impossible.)

A series of turns activates a green light on the commander’s console. Scott gives the command, “Push the launch button.”

Reality check: It takes less than two and a half minutes to launch!

Scott notes, “By the way, the air force thought it best that the crew had no knowledge of their missile’s target.”

Someone asks, “What was the crew to do next?”

“One and done. They had no further real orders.” Scott is not without a sense of humor. “Remember, we were basically big kids. One night, off duty, after a few beers, we concocted a ‘what if’ plan. We’d leave the complex, walk down to the interstate, use our side arms to hijack a vehicle, rob a bank, hook up with four hot girls and hightail it to Mexico.”

In case you are wondering, the missiles cannot be recalled. The time to target was a little more than a half-hour.

As I absorb this information, I think to myself: And now: “Let us pray.” 

March 2024: No. 502

This edited piece combines two pieces, Once Upon a Time in Middle Village  (No. 182) and Time and Again in Middle Village (No. 195) both written in 2017.

(All of these events happened between 1970 and 1977.)

 One hot, steamy Saturday morning found me vacuuming the orange shag-rug that covered our first-floor living room and dining room. Mary Ann had left me alone taking Beth and Michael with her. A fortuitous glance out of our front window revealed my cousin, Bob, exiting his car…a dream come true. At that time, Bob was a Seventies swinging single and it was within the bounds of reason to believe he’d fantasize knocking at a door answered by a bored housewife wearing only her panties and bra. Close but no cigar; In fact, I was the one smoking the cigar and dressed only in a tenement tee shirt and Jockey shorts. I didn’t even give him the chance to ring the bell … I threw open the front door, vacuum cleaner in hand, cigar in the other to exclaim: “What can I do for you good looking?”

We moved into 65-33 77 Place in February of 1970. Beth was born in 1969 and Mary Ann would soon become pregnant with Michael who would be born in April of 1971. The house was where my Aunt Helen had grown up. She had it renovated  with new appliances. She offered it to us a rental so low that the amount was almost a miracle.

A word about street addresses in Queens County. There is a code to them that is not readily apparent. 65-33 77 Pl. The 65 is the number of the closest cross-street. The 33 tells you that house is the thirty-third house on the block and 77 Place, Street, or Way is the actual location.     

My cousin Helen, her husband Don and their family lived four houses away from us in 65-25. In April 1972, they moved to Ramsey, NJ but first sold the place to her brother and his wife, Bill and Del, and their family.

Middle Village is a real community with its own character. We lived in pre-war attached houses,   18-feet wide, two-stories with a basement. The main floor, back to front began with a small foyer with a closet off the front door. An inner door opened into the living room that was the only room that took advantage of the full width of the house. On the extreme right of the living room was the staircase leading to the second floor. The dining room occupied about 2/3rds of the back of the house and the kitchen the other third. This made for a narrow kitchen only six-feet wide before being reduced by counters, sink, stove and refrigerator.

A second foyer in back of the kitchen led to a small back yard and a garage that opened to a common alley that ran the length of the block. The neighborhood children including our own kids loved to race their Big Wheels in this alley. The Big Wheel was a plastic tricycle built close to the ground with an enormous front wheel and two small trailing wheels. The kids could quickly get it up to speed, it was extremely stable and built for quick and rapid turns.  

Money was scarce in those days. One Sunday, I attended the 7:30 morning mass at St. Margaret’s, our local parish. A well-dressed couple sat in the pew behind me. They were both still dressed for last night’s activities in Manhattan and I had a distinct impression that these strangers were there because she insisted on attending morning mass. When the time came for the collection, he placed a $20 in the basket. Wow, I thought to myself, that’s more money than I can get my hands on until the banks re-open at nine tomorrow morning.

Fred and Huguette arrived from Viet Nam in 1975. They moved into 65-31, a heretofore vacant house right next to us. Fred first served in Viet Nam as an army electronics technician during the early days when the army was still advisers. After  completing his service he took a job with Decca and returned in country where he met and married Huguette. Fred was a pragmatist with a terrific sense of humor. One Saturday afternoon witnessed the two of us consciously deciding not to prevent an accident. It was one of those Saturdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas when the Long Island weather gods produce a mild day perfect for installing outdoor Christmas lights. We were both outside, each working on our own displays, when Bill came out lights, ladder and staple gun in hand. Bill erected his ladder, plugged his string in and climbed up to begin fixing it to the house.

“Should we tell him to unplug them first,” Fred asked?

“Naw”, I replied, “Let’s watch the show.”

Bill’s second or third staple hit the wire. Fred and I watched as the spark, shock and sound took him off the ladder and onto the grass. Unhurt but flustered, Bill didn’t appreciate our uncontrolled laugher and our now useless advice to unplug the lights first.           

One of our favorite Friday night activities was “stoop sitting” around the front walkway leading to the door. Bill and Del, Fred and Huguette and we Delaches lived within five attached houses of each other. We’d leave the widows fronting the street from our kids’ rooms open allowing these organic baby monitors to sound the alert by way of crying if one awoke.

The gals smoked cigarettes, guys cigars; we drank beer or wine and a few exotic drinks, mostly for the ladies like whiskey sours, sloe gin fizz or whatever else was trendy. Eventually, the need for pizza would strike our collective stomachs and a couple of the men would make a pizza run to Tudor Tavern Pizzeria on nearby Eliot Avenue and 80^th Street. The later it was, the better the pizza tasted.

Fred and Huguette lived right next door to my aunt’s house. That fist winter, Fred complained about the amount of his heating bills from The Brooklyn Union Gas Company. It cost him almost twice as much as we were paying. It seemed this disparity repeated itself every month. No matter where he set the thermostat, his bill was enormous. He even had the gas company check his system to no avail. One night I mentioned to Mary Ann how this was driving him crazy. “John’ it’s his wife’s doing. Huguette has no tolerance for the cold so as soon as Fred goes to work, she cranks up the heat to 90 degrees so she can wear summer day wear. She lowers it back to 65 about an hour before he comes home.”

“You’re kidding me! Oh boy, one of these days he’s going to explode once he figures that out. I don’t want to be around for that, but damned if I am going to tell him.

I can report that they are still married, so I have no idea how that was settled if at all.

By 1977 we were ready to buy the house, but Aunt Helen wouldn’t sell as she wished to keep her house in her immediate family. So we bought a house in Port Washington where we continue to live to this day.

Part of me still misses Middle Village.                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe versus Wade on January 22, 1973 forced me to announce to my friends and family that I couldn’t accept abortions performed for convenience. Of course, I realized how unpopular my belief was so I explained to that this was my belief, and I would never try to stop someone from having an abortion. I simply ask others to accept my beliefs the same way as I accept theirs.

I also explained that rather than engage in discussions about abortions, I would avoid each and every one of these debates as they can be too emotional. In return, I would take on reporting the daily weather information from The New York Times. For any readers out there unfamiliar with the Times daily weather report, it is quite comprehensive.

My particular task would be to monitor the paper’s daily measure of our rainfall for the last 30 days and for the last year. I assumed responsibility to monitor shortfalls and report possible droughts.

Fortunately,  everybody accepted my wacky solution and so ended further debates of pro-life versus pro-choice.

Once I committed myself to belief in the right to life, I came to understand that I had to come to terms with death in combat and public executions. War turned out to be too big and too complicated to wrap my mind around and I finally decided to remove it from my consideration. I will admit that if I was forced to choose, I would lean on the side of becoming a conscientious objector, but I will never know if I would have had the courage of this conviction if push came to shove.

I also had a hard time coming to a meaningful conclusion for absolute prohibition of capital punishment. My problem was that to be meaningful, such a prohibition would have to include those who are so evil that to let them live would be repulsive. Thankfully, we rarely encounter people who are this vile and my epiphany didn’t arrive until Timothy J. McVey destroyed the Alfred P. Mirrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

April 19^th was a Wednesday and Mc Vey detonated his eight-hundred-pound ammonium nitrate / fuel oil bomb that he hid in  the cargo compartment of a rented Ryder truck that he had parked outside the north entrance to the building. The massive explosion destroyed the entire facade of the eight-story building and about a third of the interior killing 168 people including 19 children, most of them in a nursery pre-school located on the first floor.

McVey said this about his victims:

             To these people in Oklahoma who lost a loved one, I’m

             sorry but it happens every day. You’re not the first mother

             to lose a kid, or the first grandparent to lose a grandson or

             a granddaughter. It happens every day, somewhere in the

             world. I’m not going to go into that courtroom, curl into a

             fetal ball and cry just because the victims want me to do that.                  

.

In other words, His victims were merely collateral damage.

Of the children he had killed, McVey remarked: “I thought it was terrible that there were children in the building.”

Mc Vey was charged and convicted for killing eight federal agents who were on active duty that day. The penalty for killing each one of them was clearly death. Mc Vey was transferred to the federal death row at USP Terre Haute in Indiana where he was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

If you can, find the iconic photo by Charle Porter of a fireman gently cradling the body of a one-year-old child fatally wounded by Mc Veigh’s bomb. It sums up the results of Mc Vey’s despicable attack.   

Well, there you have it. I took a long time to straighten out my feelings and to make peace with my beliefs. Finally, I realized that my belief for life must prevail, even for Timothy Mc Vey. That photo will haunt me until the day I die,

Still, I choose to belief in life, so help me God.         

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best decision I ever made was making that trek.       

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

John Delach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conductor: “No orders, no messages.”

Engineer: “I have the railroad.”

…and off we’d go each morning.

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

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

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

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

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

“Because nothing in life is guaranteed.”   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sad, but it was that type of a relationship…

And so it goes.