John Delach

This is the second part of my tale of an outrageous round-the-world business trip that I first published in 2014.

Manila was insane. Traffic was a chaotic choreography that, before it was politically incorrect, we’d refer to as a “Chinese fire drill!” Local jitneys, called Jeepneys, ruled the road traversing routes that locals understood, but were indecipherable to rookies like us. We arrived Thursday morning for a stay of two days and nights. The Hilton was our base and Paul C, our station chief in Manila, was our guide. I first met Paul when he ran the office in KL. A middle-aged Brit professional ex-pat, Paul enjoyed the good life mostly operating out of the Anglo-American-European restricted men’s clubs. He was truly a relic of Britain’s colonial past.

First things, first, I purchased a post card with a view of Manila at the hotel gift shop and a stamp at the front desk. I wrote the usual message on the back, “Hi Doug. This place is nice and the girls are great. John & Al.”

This was the third post card that I had sent to Doug Adams, my traveling companion, Alan Gardiner’s boss.        

Paul had his driver pick us up at the hotel later that morning and take us directly to his shirt maker who outfitted us in Barong Tagalong shirts. Made of light-weight, local fibers, they are accepted as proper business dress designed to be worn outside over a tee shirt without a jacket or tie to deal with the tropical heat. Then we were off on a tour of clubs, lunch and a short visit to his office so he could show it off and make note that this was an official visit. Cocktails at one of Paul’s favorite clubs proceeded a relatively early dinner allowing Alan and me to crawl back to the Hilton for a decent night’s sleep.

Friday was more of the same. Prior to the trip, I had hoped to visit the battlefields on Bataan and Corregidor, but both proved to be too far away from the city for a day trip. Paul did introduce us to a couple of his clients, but we met more of his ex-pat buddies than we did clients that day.

Paul hosted cocktails in his personal regal digs, then it was dinner followed by more clubs until we ultimately found ourselves back at the Hilton in the early morning hours. I recall a worker waxing the floors when we arrived. “Alan,” I said, “We’re screwed if we go to bed. Our flight to KL is at seven and it’s almost three. Let’s go up, pack and come back down. We’ll grab some shut eye at the airport.”

By 4 AM, we were checked out and on our way to the airport. Without Jeepneys  clogging the streets, we quickly reached the airport. We quickly settled in at the departure lounge for what we hoped would be quiet time.

Unbelievably, we found an open bar where I ordered us bloody Mary’s. Alan and I were quietly resting on a faux-leather sofa nursing our drinks when, next we knew, there came a clatter of hoofs roaring down a near-by stairs like an imitation of Fred Astaire dancing his way to Ginger Rodgers. We watched the chap responsible for this commotion dance by and greeted him with what I considered an appropriate greeting of, “F— you!”

My obscenity didn’t stop him; it only redirected him toward us. He saw our drinks, went to the bar, grabbed a bloody Mary, headed back to us, sat down, let us know he was an Aussie and, unimpeded, proceeded to tell us his story:

“Mates, let me tell you about the week I just had. I came up here on what I expected to be a hell of a trip. I was so anxious that I set aside the entire week to resolve the problems I’d encounter. But unbelievably, I pulled off the deal before lunch time on the morning of the first day!

“I couldn’t believe this miracle so after a celebratory lunch, I returned to my hotel where I was pampered that afternoon in their spa. I had a light dinner then headed to an upscale club to celebrate before checking out and heading home the next day. Ah, but I fell into the company of a beautiful American woman who took me back to her place and proceeded to screw my brains out!

“The next morning, she insisted that I check out of my hotel and move in with her for the remainder of my stay. Not only was she a thoroughbred in bed, she was socially well connected. She took me to the race track, cocaine parties at her clubs, top shelf dining, dancing and drinking.”

Then he stopped, took a sip of his drink, shook his head and said, “It was the most incredible week of my life.”

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“Why to KL,” he replied, “I’m meeting my wife and kids. We’re going to a Club Med for holiday. Well, good day, mates, I’m off.”

With that, he disappeared into the terminal. The two of us sat there absorbing this encounter. “Alan,” I asked, “Do you realize what just happened here?”

Alan shook his head, no. “Alan, we were that bastard’s window of opportunity. We are two innocent bystanders to whom he could brag before he met his wife. Otherwise, he couldn’t be certain if what happened was real. Now he can.”

( This is the first part of my tale of an outrageous round-the-world business trip that I first published in 2014.)

Alan Gardiner and I sent our first post card to his boss, Doug Adams, during our layover at O’Hare International Airport. The front had a skyline shot of Chicago and on the back, I penned:

Hi Doug,

This place is nice and the girls are great.

John & Al.

I would write this identical  message on picture post cards that I’d mail to Doug from Tokyo, Manila, Kula Lumpur and Paris.

We planned this trip in the late winter of 1983 to visit an oil company client in Malaysia. The outbound flight was the brain child of my buddy, Mike Scott, who discovered an ad in The Wall Street Journal, for a special fare that offered first class travel on Northwest Airlines at a bargain price on their route between New York and Manila. “Hopie,” (then my nickname at work,) look at this crazy cheap price for your trip to K.L.” (Kula Lumpur, Malaysia.)

Mike was right; Northwest’s price for a first-class ticket to the Far East was less than business class on every other airline. Better yet, it also put us in first class for all of the other legs of our journey: Manila to KL, KL to Paris and Paris to JFK. The bad news: the flying time was insane, especially the outbound journey. The first leg was JFK to Dulles just outside DC, Dulles to O’Hare, O’Hare to Tokyo’s Narita Airport and Narita to Manila. Total flying time of 23 hours!

Somehow, I convinced Alan that this could be a blast and, being 39, I considered myself young enough and eager enough to believe it would be fun. Our 747 left JFK about 9 AM and the first two legs to DC and Chicago were uneventful. Our accommodations were in the upper cabin where we occupied two of the nine seats. These seats were the most luxurious that either of us had ever sat in on a flight. We were seated in Row 1, Seats A and B.

Our defacto private nine-passenger airplane remained exclusively ours during these first two legs. I cannot describe what the seating was like in the rest of this jet as I never ventured below except to deplane during layovers. Service was attentive, Bloody Mary’s, before take-off and in-flight; though the flight attendant let us know that her crew was deplaning in Chicago.

We did notice one thing on the airplane that seemed unusual. On the bulkhead in front of our seats were three metal stanchions arranged like an upside-down letter “L”. Neither one of us could imagine what purpose they served.

A few other travelers joined us at O’Hare but several seats remained vacant. The purpose of those mysterious stanchions became apparent once we reached cruising altitude out of Chicago as in-flight service began. A flight attendant climbed the spiral staircase from the main cabin carrying pieces of metal and fiberglass and went to work. She fitted a “u” shaped metal leg into the two stanchions one on top of the other and the bottom and a straight metal leg into the third. Then she placed a fiberglass table onto the top of the “u” brace. By Jove, she had built a bar and then this angel proceeded to stock it with spirits, wine, ice and mixers. She had our complete and undivided attention. Satisfied with her effort, this extraordinary woman turned around and addressed her charges: “tell me what you are drinking gents. I’ll make you each your first drink but from then on it is strictly self-service.”

I asked her if this was heaven? She replied, “No, but we’re flying over Iowa.”

Compounding this experience of being a kid in a candy store, the fourteen-hour flight to Japan had left O’Hare about 11 AM so we’d be traveling during the day most of the flight meaning sleep wasn’t an option. Add to that the excitement of making this trip and I was still running on adrenaline when we deplaned in Narita 14-hours later for a layover.

The first-class lounge was outside the main terminal meaning Northwest had to issue us “shore passes” allowing us to clear Customs and Immigration. Not much to report about the stay. We bought the post card and a stamp and found a mail box to post it. But I do recall teaching a group of Japanese businessmen a mathematical card trick that my colleague, Lisa had taught me called, “The Sundance Kid.” Using a prepared deck, I dealt three fellows and Alan each a hand. When they turned over their cards, each of them had a full house. But I had also dealt a straight flush to myself. They were astounded.

I “crashed” as soon as I re-boarded the 747 and slept for the full six-hour flight to Manila. Think about it, six-hours is the same flying time as New York to London. Not a bad nap.

At baggage claim in Manila, Alan tried to tell me about things that happened on the flight from Tokyo, But I explained that I had gladly missed all of it. To this day, I don’t regret sleeping through almost that entire flight. It would appear that I finally learned exactly how to utilize  those luxurious seats to complete the last leg of this outrageous journey in peace.

In 1983, the suitcase of choice for people flying into Manila was the corrugated box and I do not believe I had seen that much cardboard since I quit being a cargo surveyor. I deemed cardboard boxes to be the national luggage of the Philippines!

Looking back, this was my most outrageous aircraft journey and that Northwest 747 Queen of the Skies, was the only airplane up to the challenge.

I can remember the advertisements Boeing used during NFL games in 1967 and 1968 to introduce the concept of their new giant of the skies. The exterior of this jet liner wasn’t shown. Instead, Boeing concentrated on its theme that their new creation was more than just another airplane. Instead, Boeing promised that it would revolutionize trans-Atlantic travel and they boldly insisted their queen of the skies would replace traditional ocean liners like the SS United States, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 and the SS France.

The Seattle based airplane manufacturer had come a long way from introducing the first airplanes capable of crossing the Atlantic, the B-314, Pan American’s Pre-World War II flying boat and the  post-war four engine Stratocruiser that replaced these elegant, yet obsolete airplanes.

 Boeing’s share of the commercial airplane market waned as advanced models of Lockheed’s Constellation and Douglas’ DC-6 and DC-7 erased the Stratocruiser’s appeal.

The firm abandoned this sector in favor of developing a jet transport and airborne tanker for the Air Force, Douglas also bid on this contract, but Boeing’s design won out, The USAF deemed the cargo version, the C-135 and the tanker version, the KC-135.

That Air Force contract gave Boeing a head start on the competition allowing the early introduction of its civilian version, the 707, the first  successful commercial jet capable of flying passengers in comfort and safety all over the world.

Boeing followed this success by introducing the world’s first jumbo jet with a sales pitch using the slogan that their 747 was: “The airplane that is a ship, and the ship that is an airplane.”

December 12, 1969 found me in the cargo area at JFK International Airport. I was employed as a cargo surveyor for Donald M. Lamont:

That September. Don had asked in his Scottish brogue, “Don’t you live in Queens? How close are you to JFK (Airport)?”

“Don, I’m in Middle Village. I can drive to JFK in less than a half-hour.”

“ Great,” he replied. “I have a good number of requests to perform surveys at the airport for lost cargo and baggage. “I hereby designate you to be my JFK surveyor of record. I will make you a beautiful, fake ID that will get you in to every airline cargo operation and all of the freight forwarders located outside the airport.”

My reply: “Fantastic.”

That adventure is a tale for another blog. But Don’s decision found me at JFK when the first 747 debuted. Boeing pilots taxied their charge over to the massive Pan Am service hanger that was also their warehouse for lost cargo.

I was sitting in the parking lot when I heard the commotion, I looked up to see the biggest airplane I had ever seen moving down a taxiway in my direction. I jumped out of the car,  my 35 MM camera in hand and began taking photos of this beautiful bird.

I had the privilege of watching the ceremony where Boeing turned over the first operational 747 to their lead customer The queen arrived  with Pan Am’s name written along the massive fuselage and their logo on the tail. Unfortunately, my black and white film failed to capture a Boeing produced abnormality. Instead of the stripe that encircled the hull below the windows being Pan American’s baby blue, the painters at Boeing had made it red, Pan American chose to name this airplane: Young American Clipper and re-paint the stripe before sending it off to Paris. 

I turned my black and white photos of Young America’s arrival over to Lamont who used them in a brochure touting our ability to find lost or missing cargo at JFK.

Pure chance had put me in the right place at the right time.

First 747 Flight

I left Lamont and surveying in 1971 and joined Marsh & McLennan as a marine broker. My first experience on a 747 took place in November of 1974 when I accompanied our Director of Marine Insurance, George Handley, and my immediate boss, Charlie Robbins, on a Pan Am flight from JFK to San Juan for a meeting with a major marine client. Befitting Handley’s status, we all flew First Class. Our Pan Am Clipper had an upstairs lounge, but it wasn’t in service as the airline was in the process of adding additional seating there.

This was the only opportunity I had to travel with Handley as he died of a massive heart attack  a little more than a year later. We did have an excellent dinner that night and a fabulous stay at the Caribe Hilton. But the next morning, the manager of our San Juan office informed Handley that the Executive Director of this client had excluded  brokers from participating in this meeting.

Handley was stunned and embarrassed. We were ready to propose improvements to their insurances at a lower coat. Now the trip was simply a waste of time. To this day, I don’t know who screwed up, but if I had to bet who it was, I’d pick Luis M, our San Juan manager. 

Suddenly off duty, Charlie and I also screwed up when George asked, “What do you think we should do?”

“We jointly replied, “Go to the beach.”

Handley, always on duty, let us go, but he spent the day with Luis M. I guarantee that Charlie and I had a better time the rest of the day than Luis did. But we too paid the price for this screw-up. Neither of us were allowed to go to San Juan again until after Handley passed in December of 1975.

I retired in 2000 and between that flight in 1974 and my final 747 one in 20031993, I flew 152 flights on that airplane.

Soon, I will report on the most memorable of those flights.

An excerpt from my vacation log: “Voyage of the Vikings: July17 to August 5”.

I had awakened early in anticipation of the possibility of experiencing a unique crossing through a Greenland sound. Unfortunately, the early morning fog won’t quit. Unless it cooperates, my hope will be dashed, I wait for the MV Maasdam captain’s first  briefing of the day. Shortly after nine, Captain James Russell-Dunford’s booming voice announces:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s been quite a night and a rather long one for me. I have only just returned to the bridge having been relieved so I could get a bit of rest. One of our passengers, an eighty-four-year-old man took ill late last night and our doctor determined that he had to be evacuated. We returned to Qaqortoq (Greenland) arriving at 3 am where we lowered him by tender and he was taken to the local hospital with his wife and their baggage. The crew did a superb job and we were on our way back to sea by 3:30. Hopefully, he will be fine and I’ll be able to report his status.

We have made good time and will be approaching an entrance to the (Prince William) sound in a half-hour. Helicopter observations report that the sound is ice-free, but we’ll have to see if the fog persists when we reach the entrance before I can commit to a passage.

I return to my book continuing to sit looking out over the bow from the Crow’s Nest, an observation area above the ships bridge that looks over the bow giving me a panoramic view of what lies ahead of the ship.

When the electronic gong signals another announcement, I look up and there in the distance breaking through the mist directly in front of the ship is a mountain at least 2,000 or 3,000 feet high. “Where did that come from?” I remark to the woman in the next seat.

I rise to leave as the captain announces we were going to start a passage. “I may have to turn around if conditions deteriorate, but right now I am satisfied with visibility and ice conditions.”

Back in our cabin, I put on rain pants over my jeans, a wind breaker, wool vest raincoat and a Tilley’s rain hat and off I go to the bow. I stay only long enough to photograph our entrance into the straits. I move to the stern out of the wind and away from the crowds. Here I stay for the entire passage except for lunch in the Lido and a camera battery change. The rain is heavy and cold but, not only do I survive it, more importantly so does my camera. Whenever possible, I shoot from positions shielded by bulkheads and over hangs that protect my Nikon, and when necessary, I use one of the many cloth napkins I expropriated to keep my camera dry when I have to expose it to the elements.  

What a passage; the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever witnessed. It may have been better had the sun been out, certainly far more pleasant and colorful, but the low clouds and mist add drama that, in my opinion, trump color. Mountains rise to heights in excess of 4,000 feet closing in to the ship as close as 500 feet on either side. At times, layers of clouds wrap around the rock faces, clinging to the sides obscuring them, but allowing crags and peaks to poke through.

Other times, the drab gray, brown and green formations rise free of the mist. Countless waterfalls drain pockets of ice and snow while seven different glaciers descend down the mountains, one directly into the sound. Icebergs of all sizes, shapes and colors drift by. The captain’s enthusiasm grows as we continue and, at some point he silently decides we will complete the journey including a side-trip to a lone Inuit village that clings to a rocky landing in the sound.

Approximately 150 men, women and children inhabit Aappilattoq, ( APE-il

-at- tog) an isolated hamlet of rectangular pre=fabricated houses all with exteriors in bright colors perched precariously on flat rocks  at a junction of two canyons. The inhabitants’ fish for sustenance and hunt seal to make a living. The captain steers Maasdam past the village into a wide basin where we make a 180 degree turn to continue our east – west passage through the second canyon.

The ships horn bellows as we complete the turn calling out fishing skiffs from the village. Four appear, a single man in the first, two men in the second, six in the third including at least three children and three in the last. The boats are all similar, white open skiffs with huge outboards. Two of the drivers stand steering by means of long handles attached to the motors. They wave and take photographs of us as we wave and take photos of them.

Before lunch, Mary Ann brings me a welcome cup of the thick Dutch pea soup being served on several decks. It is so good that I have more with lunch.

I return to the stern for the remainder of our passage. We leave the sound just after 4 pm.

I stand down from my self-imposed watch. I need dry clothes and a nap. Even so, I’m pleased to discover that I took over 250 photos over the seven hours that I spent on deck. My first edit reduces this number to 127. Eventually, I reduce the number to under 100.

 What a fabulous day! For sure, my best ever, better even than transiting the Panama Canal. This passage was a hoot and a half. 

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

The lake it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy

Gordon Lightfoot: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”. 

At 7:20 on the evening of November 10, 1975, The Laker, Arthur M. Anderson lost the radar profile of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Big Fitz had disappeared beneath those waves generated by the hurricane like storm that enraged Lake Superior. Nineteen-minutes later, Captain Bernie Cooper, the Anderson’s skipper contacted the Coast Guard on Channel 16, the emergency distress frequency. The operator treated his call as non-essential and asked him to call back on Channel 12 to keep Channel 16 free for distress calls.

Cooper couldn’t contact the Coast Guard again on Channel 12 until fifteen minutes later at 7:54 pm. In the meantime, Cooper was able to contact an ocean-going ship, Nanfri, whose captain confirmed that Big Fritz had also disappeared from their radar.

True, the Coast Guard was slow to respond, but the storm had crippled the USCG Station, taking out masts, communications and radar at the same time that they were inundated with distress calls. It wasn’t until 10:30 that the USCG accepted the ugly truth that the largest boat in history of sinkings on the Great Lakes had been lost.

The Coast Guard requested that all commercial vessels in or near Whitefish Bay commence a search for the Big Fitz or any survivors. They also dispatched a helicopter and a fixed wing aircraft. Once daylight returned, all the searchers found were lifeboats, rafts and other debris that belonged to the Big Fitz.

It wasn’t until November 14^th, that a US Navy aircraft equipped with a scanner designed to detect magnetic anomalies located the wreck about seventeen miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. The wreck was resting in 530 feet of water.

The following spring, the Navy surveyed the wreck of the Big Fitz using an unmanned submersible. Between May 20 and May28, The CURV III found the ship’s remains lying in two pieces. The ship had split almost in half. The forward section starting at the bow measured 276 feet in length and rested upright, while the 253-foot stern section bottomed at a 50-degree angle.

The evidence suggests strongly that the Big Fitz split in half. But why? All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t give a definite cause of loss. All we have is hypotheses as to why The Big Fitz was lost with all hands.

They might of split up or they might have capsized

They might have broke deep and took water

And all that remains is the faces and the names

Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Mariners Church in Detroit

 In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed in the maritime sailors’ cathedral. The church bells chimed twenty-nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The original wooden church was built in 1841 on land bequeathed to the Anglican Church of North America  to serve the spiritual needs of Great Lakes mariners. The completion of the Erie Canal transformed how goods and passengers could travel between the mid-west and New York City and the entire Northeast. The current edifice, a Gothic Revival stone church, replaced the original structure in 1849.

The church was a stop on the Underground Railroad assisting fugitive slaves to cross the border into Canada and freedom.

In 1955, the church was saved from being demolished by George Stark, a reporter with the Detroit News who led a crusade to raise enough funds to move the church 880 feet away from its site condemned for an urban renewal project.

The story of these men and their ship may have slipped into history had not Gordon Lightfoot memorialized them in his haunting ballad. The Mariners’ Church has an annual service to recall the 30,000 men and women lost across the Great Lakes. It is not a coincidence that this service is held on the Sunday in November closest to the 10^th.

In 2020, the 45^th Anniversary of the sinking, Reverend Jeffrey M Hubbard, the church rector noted: “It’s stuck in the memories of folks in Michigan, and the Great Lakes. (They) are so integrally connected to our area. Hearing the story of the brave men who lost their lives resonates with the people.”

Near the end of the service, a performer sang a rendition of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Last Watch ceremony followed and the Steeple’s bell chimed thirty times, twenty-nine for each of the crew who lost their lives to Superior’s gales of November and one for the Edmund Fitzgerald.

My interpretation.     

Part One

Gordon Lightfoot’s  poignant and profound poetry fills his lyrics of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Lines like: The lake it is said never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was named after the president of its owner, Northwestern Mutual Life. Ordered in 1957, she was an investment for that life insurance company. When completed in 1958, the “Fitz,” was the largest ore carrier operating on the Great Lakes, a distinction the ship would carry until 1971. This US flag laker had several other nicknames, Mighty Fitz, Big Fitz, Pride of the American Side, Toledo Express. And regrettably, Titanic of the Great Lakes. Northwestern signed a 25-year contract with Oglebay Norton, a major lakes carrier to operate this lake boat. The operator designated the Big Fitz as the flagship of their American fleet.

The Big Fitz left Superior, Wisconsin at 2:35 pm on November 9, 1975 with a full load of treated iron ore called taconite. The ship sailed under the command of Captain Ernest M. McSorley with  a crew of 29. These twenty-nine consisted of the captain, three mates, five engineers, three oilers a cook, a wiper, two maintenance men, three watchmen, three deckhands, three wheelmen, two porters, a cadet and a steward. They ranged in age from 20, (watchman, Karl A. Peckol), to 63, Captain McSorley. Their route  would take them across Lake Superior to Detroit, through the Soo Locks to a steel mill on Zug Island.

Capt. McSorley decided to join the laker, Arthur M Anderson captained by Bernie Cooper in an informal convoy of mutual protection. The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that a storm would pass just south of Lake Superior by 7 am on November 10th.

The wind in the wires a tattle-tale sound and a wave broke over the railing. And every man knew and the captain did too t’was the witch of November came stealin.

Another laker, SS Wilfred Sykes, loaded opposite the Big Fitz. Its captain, Dudley J. Paquette, didn’t trust the NSW forecast and predicted a major storm was coming. He decided to take a more circuitous route across the lake staying closer to the shelter of its north shore. By radio, they learned that the Big Fitz and the Anderson’s masters had decided to make their runs out in the middle of Superior.

At 7 pm the NWS altered its forecast issuing gale warnings for the entire lake. The two lakers altered course northward seeking that same shelter of the north coast before the storm struck at one am on November 10. The Fitz and the Anderson  reported winds of 60 mph and waves 10 feet high. At about the same time, Capt. Paquette of the Sykes heard Capt. Mc Sorley tell the Anderson that he had hit a rough patch and “You are walking away from us… I can’t stay with you.”

Despite that transmission and the NWS’s early morning update upgrading wind speed to neat hurricane speeds of 58 mph, McSorley had a change of heart and his faster laker pulled ahead of the Anderson around 3:00 am. About the same time, it began to snow. A half-hour later, McSorley radioed the Anderson that the Big Fitz was taking on water through two vent covers blown away by the wind and the high seas. The Big Fitz had developed a list, but, fortunately, two of the ships six bilge pumps were up to the task of controlling the flooding.

The storm compounded the Big Fitz’s dilemma. Both radars were blown away so the captain slowed his boat so the Anderson could get close enough to guide the now blind giant. With the Big Fitz in peril, McSorley chose to head for the shelter of Whitefish Bay on the Canadian side. He used the radio to ask for help from other ships in the area about the condition of navigation aids leading to this possible shelter.

Captain Cedric Woodward of the laker, Avafors, communicated with McSorley between 5:00 and 5:30 pm. Woodward later testified that he overheard McSorley say: “Don’t allow nobody on deck.” McSorley also told Woodard, “I have a ‘bad list.’ I have lost both radars, and am taking heavy seas over the deck in one of the worst seas I’ve ever been in.”

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves from minutes to hours?

By late afternoon, the Arthur M. Anderson sustained wind speeds as high as 67 MPH and wave heights of 25 feet. At 6 pm, this lake boat suffered through wind gusts of between 81 and 86 MPH and rogue waves of 35 feet.

At 7:10 pm, Capt Cooper radioed the Big Fitz and asked McSorley, how he was doing? McSorley replied: “We are holding our own.”

These were the last words ever heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald. No distress signal was received. Ten-minutes later, the Anderson lost both radio and radar contact with the Big Fitz. The big laker was gone.

And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

To be continued.    

I first wrote this piece in 2002 and included it in my 2011 anthology, The Big Orange Dog and Other Stories, that pre-dated my blog.

In the last quarter of the Twentieth Century, Wyckcoff Heights Hospital grew to become a medical center occupying a complete city block. It came to serve a broad area of northern Brooklyn including Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Ridgewood and Glendale in Queens. The center has six different and distinct buildings built between 1903 and 1985.

Stone steps led to the long closed main entrance to the original building. A stone arch framed the old entrance  with the hospital’s original name  carved into this stone: The German-American Hospital. That  name reflected the nationality of the people who developed Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens at the turn of the Nineteen Century when these neglected areas developed into the new neighborhoods as rapid transit in the form of the Myrtle Avenue Elevated subway opened providing service to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The hospital’s name was changed to Wyckoff Heights during World War I as part of the frenzy of anti-German sentiment once we entered the conflict. This same sentiment led to a local street, Hamburg Avenue, being renamed, Wilson Avenue and calling sauerkraut, victory cabbage as the brutality and carnage of The Great War became apparent.

These neighborhoods remained basically German until after the 1930s when Italians joined the mix. Blacks started arriving during World War II displaced from the south by the invention of the automatic cotton picker and the promise of jobs in the war effort. In 1948, Puerto Ricans started to arrive via Trans Caribbean Airlines’ surplus Army Air Force C-54s that provided cheap transportation to New York. The Italians retreated north out of Bushwick and into Ridgewood victims of fear and prejudice against these new residents.

Wyckoff Heights also set its sights north ignoring these newcomers in favor of its historic population. At least it did in the 1950s and 1960s. The black and Hispanic people utilized Bushwick Hospital and other small neighborhood facilities until they were closed when the City of New York consolidated their operations into a new giant, Woodhull Hospital, located at the junction of Broadway (Brooklyn) and Flushing Avenue.

But Woodhull quickly developed a terrible reputation. Then, as the violence of the 1970s escalated and Bushwick was consumed by acts of arson, residents demanded that ambulances responding to their emergencies, take them to Wyckoff Heights. As the German and Italian population aged, or moved away, Wyckoff Heights became a curious mixture of elderly European widows being treated for illnesses brought on by old age lying on gurneys in an over-crowded emergency room, side-by-side with young black and Hispanic men who had been shot, stabbed or who had OD’ed.

I found myself drawn to this scene on several occasions as I responded to my mother’s emergencies. When I arrived for my last visit, I found her in a bed squeezed into the Emergency Room right next to a young man who was cuffed on his ankle to his bed.

Fortunately, a semi-private room became available the next day freeing her from this nightmare. When she was well enough, I begged her that whenever she felt the need to go to a hospital, that she contacted me first so I could arrange for an ambulance to take her to St. Francis Hospital in Port Washington. She agreed and I never returned to Wyckoff Heights again.

But, as I left that night, I passed a security guard occupied by an inebriated man attempting to enter the hospital. The guard was telling him, “You cannot come in, you are drunk. Come back when you are sober.”

Over my shoulder, I heard the drunk respond, “Sure, but by then visiting hours will be over.”

I smiled in spite of myself as I walked out the door.   

How we react to UIC, Unsolicited Incoming Calls, is mainly a function of our mood when we realize that, once again, we are a victim. More times than not, we just hang-up. If  our mood is ugly, we may curse the caller and then hang up. Sometimes we get into a verbal brawl with the caller. I have found these incidents disappointing and sometimes depressing. I try to avoid them and I usually succeed.

Rarely, but it does happen, I find myself to be at the top of my game when I become caught on the receiving end of an UIC. It is those rare times that my response blows the caller away.

 My best reaction to an UCI was with a woman who I guessed was a Millennium with a Southeastern Asian “sing-song” accent.

“Hello, my name is Kim. I’m alerting you so you know your computer has been infected.”

“Hi, Kim, you must be mistaken. Are you sure you called the right number?”

“Yes, of course, we have been monitoring your device and we have found an infection.”

“Kim, I don’t think so. Exactly what device are you talking about?”

“Your PC, you know, your computer.”

“No, no, no; you have the wrong person, I don’t own a computer.”

“That’s impossible, we have been monitoring your computer and it has been corrupted.?”

“Kim, please understand, I don’t have and I have never had a computer. I don’t believe in computers.

“I don’t understand, how do you communicate on the internet?”

“I use a rosary.”

“What?”

“A rosary. It’s simple, but very effective. You take it, hold it in your hands and move your hands along it to find what you are looking for.”

Thoroughly confused, Kim was resorting to grunts and groans that mirrored her defeat. So, I ended her misery by advising her: “Google the rosary. Buy one, they’re inexpensive and you will find them to be superior to PCs, but maybe not Apple”

Victorious, I hung-up.

I wish more of my encounters with UIC were that satisfying, but most of the time, anger, indifference or fatigue cause me to react like a jerk. I hate acting like a jerk!

My second UIC triumph happened just this summer. This UIC came on my cell phone while I was driving to my local drug store here in Port Washington. When I pressed: Answer, the caller automatically went right to my Blue Tooth speaker. The dude’s voice was without accent. I surmised he was an Anglo. He took off into his pitch without any prompt. My half-listening brain surmised that it was for time shares.

Without thinking, my personal light bulb illuminated inside my head giving me the premise for my counter attack. By now he had gone on for at least fifteen seconds without me saying a word: 

“Stop right there!” I commanded. “I haven’t heard a word you were saying. Look, man, I know you’re trying to make a sale, but I’m going through a difficult time in my life. I’ve decided to transition from being a man to a woman and do you really think I care about what you are trying to sell?

The caller went silent but I could tell he was still there. Knowing he was on the ropes, I went for the kill shot and continued: “Since I have you on the phone, let me ask you a question, what do you think of the name, Denise?

He hung up.

Game, set and match.

On The Outside Looking Jn will not publish next week and will return on September 7, 2022   

Last November, the Mets acquired a 33-year-old free agent, Mark Canha, who had spent most of his nine-year career with the Oakland Athletics. Mark signed a two-year contract worth $26.5 million.

In mid-July, Newsday published a piece about Canha with the title, “Canha is enjoying the ride.” Written by, sportswriter, Tim Healy, this scribe took us on a game day subway ride with Canha from his apartment on the Upper Side of Manhattan to Citi Field.

Canha explained that he and his wife, Marci, are city people and commuting from Times Square to Willets Point on the No. 7 Flushing Line was, “Practical, it’s cheap, it’s pretty reliable. It drops me off right at the stadium. Why not? It’s New York. I fell like that’s what you do.”

Healy, the author did admit that Canha’s subway adventures were not an-every game choice, but he did make his way by subway to one of the Yankees games.

As I read Healy’s piece, I had a light bulb moment of how far a baseball player riding New York transit had evolved. Canha rode the subway for fun.

Once upon a time, players rode out of necessity. What follows is the last instance of one MLB ball player making that long and lonely ride for the last time.

I wrote about this in the following  piece with the title, “Choo Choo Coleman, R.I.P,” in 2016:

Several Metropolitan daily newspapers reported the death of Clarence (Choo Choo) Coleman on August 16. The New York Times reported his age as either 78 or 80. Their obituary included two quotes by Roger Angell about Choo Choo: “He handles out side curve balls like a man fighting bees.” And a second referring to his speed on the bases: “This is an attribute that is about as essential to catchers as neat handwriting.”

Their obituary included the following story about Choo Choo (who called everyone “Bub.”) “Perhaps the best-known anecdote about Coleman is one that, in later years, he said never happened, though Ralph Kiner, the former slugger and broadcaster, assured The New York Times that it had. In 1962, Kiner interviewed Coleman (on his post-game show, Kiner’s Korner) and asked, ‘What’s your wife’s name and what’s she like?’ Coleman replied, ‘Her name is Mrs. Coleman – and she likes me, Bub.”

Choo Choo also had the curious distinction of being the only baseball player I ever encountered when I was young. It happened in the spring of 1966. I left Shea Stadium with my friends, Bill and Jimmy about an hour after a game ended, We had successfully made our way into the private Diamond Club for a couple of beers before we departed for Manhattan. I wrote about it in 2005 as part of a piece called “Shea Stadium Nights:”

Since the baseball game ended early on a Friday night in May, Manhattan beckoned to us. Being city kids, cars weren’t a factor so we climbed the Willets Point-Shea Stadium elevated station to catch the No. 7 train bound for Times Square. As we waited for the train to arrive, we noticed a fellow standing against the station’s wall. Jimmy looked at him several times before deciding to take the chance that he recognized this man. Jimmy walked away from Bill and me to speak to him. Instinctively, we quieted to hear their exchange. Jimmy looked at him and said, “You’re Choo Choo Coleman.”

Coleman looked back at Jimmy and said, “Bub, that’s cool, people don’t usually recognize me.”

We all asked for his autograph. He had been the Mets’ best catcher during 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons. We’d all seen him play at the Polo Grounds. Labeled, “a defensive catcher,” his hitting left much to be desired. Clarence, “Choo Choo” Coleman played in 55 games in 1962 hitting .250 and 106 games in 1963 hitting .178. The following year, he was farmed out to a minor league team and he did not make it back to the Mets until the 1966.

We said good-bye when the train arrived. We talked about how strange it was that a baseball player had no alternative but to take the subway alone.

The next day, the Mets cut Choo Choo. His come-back had only lasted six games before we met him and that subway ride was his last trip home from the Show. Sad, but that’s where a .188 average will take a defensive player.

R.I.P. Choo Choo

On the morning of Saturday, July 23^rd, I received the following message from my buddy, Geoff Jones: “You will probably want to see the story about the late Capt. Joseph Hazelwood.”

Geoff’s message found me sitting on the back porch of our house in Marlow, New Hampshire enjoying my breakfast. I took a sip of coffee, then lowered my cup and murmured “You poor S.O.B., I hope you are at peace.“ I opened the lead story in a maritime daily blog known as, gCaptain Daily, whose headline read: “Captain Joseph Hazelwood, Former Master of the Exxon Valdez, Passes Away”

Mike Schuler, the author put the captain’s age as 75 and noted that he died on Friday, July 22^nd   Hazelwood was born on September 24, 1946, one of the first Baby-Boomers.

Geoff’s understatement that he thought I’d probably want to see this notice, made me smile. My career at Marsh & McLennan and in the marine insurance market was defined by the disaster that began in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of Alaskan crude oil causing one of the worst environmental disasters that impacted over a thousand miles of shoreline devastating the virgin shoreline and millions of creatures that swim in the sea and fly in the air. The only good news was no human lives were lost.

Curiously, we were also in residence in our Marlow house when the Valdez stranded on that Good Friday. I still recall receiving a call from Mike Kern, an insurer with whom my team had placed a portion of the Exxon program. “Am I screwed?” he lamented.

“I don’t think so, Mike. The biggest spill to date cost $100 million and you sit excess of $600 million.” Satisfied, he hung up to enjoy his Easter weekend. Little did we know that the enormous clean-up costs, the resultant reparations, claims by the fishing industry, the people of Alaska, the state of Alaska, Uncle Sam and all of the lawyers and others would result in Exxon going through that $600 million like the Accela goes through Metuchen, New Jersey.

Capt. Hazelwood was treated like a rented mule in the press. Big bad Exxon quit on him in a New York minute. He lived in Huntington, NY and, when he arrived back home, a despicable District Judge compared Joe to Hitler and set a punitive bail treating him as a flight risk. He was accused and convicted in the newspapers, not just the rags, but also The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, of having been inebriated while navigating his charge, the Exxon Valdez, outward bound from the port of Valdez to the open sea.

The only people and institutions that stood by Hazelwood were his SUNY Maritime, his Alma- Marta and his classmates who had become maritime lawyers and came to his defense.

You may ask, “Why should I believe the tale you are telling?” The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Since I had to spend eight years of my career as the primary witness for Exxon in their dispute with their insurers, I developed a unique insider’s understanding of what transpired that fateful night on the bridge of the Exxon Valdez.

Once the captain maneuvered the tanker into the outbound shipping channel leading to the Gulf of Alaska, he received communications from the Coast Guard advising him that there was ice calved from a local glacier in that channel. In response, he asked the USCG if he could cross over inro the incoming channel that was free of ice?

The USCG confirmed that channel was free of incoming traffic so the Exxon Valdez could make passage there.

Paper work was then, as it is now a great burden for ships’ captains. Hazelwood had to bring his own log up-to-date documenting the Exxon Valdez’s departure, so he turned over the watch to the third mate with specific instructions when to move into the incoming lane, how long to stay and when to return to the outgoing lane.

The next significant thing Captain Hazelwood experienced while working in his cabin was that the tanker had stranded on Bligh Ridge…and so it goes. Hazelwood immediately called Coast Guard to report the accident.

Blame fell on Hazelwood and to Sperry, makers of the navigation system.

Perhaps human error? During my long ordeal, gathering evidence, discovery and multiple depositions, I heard several times from different sources that there was another explanation. It seemed that the third mate, male, and the helmsman, female, had a thing going that may have caused them to take their eyes off the road and the Sperry navigating machine.

When asked about this years later in a CNN interview, Captain Hazelwood replied, “If you want to find the real story, it’s easily available.”

As far as I know, he never expanded on this. Joe was a real man. He was the captain; the safe navigation of the ship was his. He sucked it up, took responsibility for being in command and took the real story to his grave.

Curiously, not one single newspaper carried his obituary. Perhaps that’s a blessing?

RIP Captain Joseph Hazelwood, you paid your dues.