John Delach

By Geoff Jones as told to John Delach

After Judy and I married in 1964, we moved from Westchester to a rental apartment on Webb Avenue in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. Judy’s prize possession, her 1962 Corvette, accompanied us to our new digs. I understood that my new wife was an ardent automobile aficionado and remains so today.  

We were young and naïve about city living and gave little thought to protecting her Vette from theft or damage. It became my job to deal with alternate side parking by seeking out safe spots. I can’t recall how long I did it, but I remember being frustrated after only a few weeks.

The apartment we rented had a driveway and garage. The building owners were real city people who didn’t have a car, but they had rented their garage to a couple who lived next door. We were free to use the driveway but only when we were home, so we didn’t block their access. I can’t recall that we ever had an issue with the couple who seemed nice and who liked Judy’s car.

One summer Sunday, we drove out to Jones Beach for the day. That evening we arrived home exhausted by the sun, surf and the long drive in crappy traffic. Even so, that was a lucky night as we found a spot in front of our home. We grabbed it making unloading the umbrella, cooler, blankets etc. easier. We sat down after bringing our stuff inside and fell asleep, forgetting we’d left the Corvette’s convertible top down. Sometime before sunrise, I awoke and remembered what I had failed to do. My dread that the car had been stolen was lessened when I saw the keys on the table, but what if it had been vandalized? Fortunately, there it was completely untouched.

You can imagine my relief! I’m not sure if the crime rate in our neighborhood was better than I’d imagined, or if the Vette looked like a setup to catch car thieves. Whatever, this event may have been my motivation to find a garage. The primary impediment to securing garage space was that we didn’t feel we could afford to rent a spot.

One day, though, we noticed a “parking space for rent” sign on a house only a hundred or so feet away. I checked with the building owner who showed me the spot. The garage was an odd space  located beneath their house. It only had one door and already had a car in it. However, it was a long enough to accommodate two cars, one behind the other.

I felt that could only be a problem, but the lady said the spot for rent was not behind that car. There was an open space on the left just inside the garage door that had been her husband’s workshop that he  no longer used. The woman believed a car could be parked there. It was a tight squeeze, but our Vette was shorter and slightly narrower than many normal vehicles. I asked for a tryout and Judy and I found we could maneuver our car in and out without damages. So, we took it.

Someone once asked me: “I understand that you have had a season ticket to the New York Football Giants going on 60 years. What kind of an experience has that been like?’

“I’ve witnessed five runs to the super bowl, four of which the Giants won. But overall, I’d have to say that attending games for 60 years has given me the opportunity to see an awful lot of  lousy football.”

I recently heard a long-suffering New York Knicks’ season subscriber reply to a question of how they will do this season: “We’re two-years from being two-years away from being a contender.”

The last time the NFL’s Detroit Lions won a title was 1957. Ike was president, TV was broadcast in black and white on a maximum of 13 channels. All telephones were leased from Bell and you had to dial them. They had alphabetical prefaces like: WH-2-5000. Operators had to assist with long distance calls to most of the other 48 states. The Dodgers played in Brooklyn and the Giants played in Manhattan .

Two lumberjacks from (take your pick) St Clair, Minnesota / Buffalo, New York died and went to hell. After being there a week, Satan stopped by to check on them. To his displeasure, he found them still wearing their winter snow gear. “Aren’t you two suffering in this heat?”

“Not at all, after so many cold and brutal winters, this is still plenty cold for us.”

Satan cranked up the heat several times only to find them slightly warmer. He finally cranked it up all the way, and to his dismay, he found them in shorts and golf shirts. “Hey, Satan, this is more like it, but when will it be summer?”

Thoroughly angry and upset Satan had his engineers lower the temperature to an insanely cold level. When he entered the room, he found the two of them still in shorts and golf shirts drinking beer, dancing and high fiving each other. “Why are you two acting like fools? Why aren’t you miserable?”

“Why? Because the Bills / Vikings won the super bowl.” 

The New York Titans are the ancestors of today’s NY Jets. The original owner was Harry Wismer, a well-known New York sports announcer who amassed a decent fortune through marriage. Harry bought the rights to American Football League’s New York franchise for the AFL’s 1960 inaugural season. He named his team: Titans because Titans were bigger than Giants.

Things didn’t go well for Harry. His team premiered at a time when the rival Football Giants owned New York. Harry tried every trick he could think of to pump up publicity including inflating the game attendance. He announced the paid attendance for one game to be 10,000, a figure that prompted, Dick Young, then a sports scribe with the Daily News to write: “Ten Thousand, huh? If there were 10,000 fans at the game yesterday, 5,000 were cleverly disguised as empty seats.”

Harry’s dreams and his wife’s money dried up during the 1962 season when the Titans ran out of cash in November. The players began a job action over back pay until Lamar Hunt, the Texas oil man and owner of the Dallas Texans guaranteed the players’ salaries.

In 1963, David A. (Sonny) Werblin, led a syndicate of wealthy New Jersey businessmen known as the Monmouth Park Connection. Horse owners all, Monmouth was their home track. Sonny recruited his pals to be limited partners who included the likes of Phil Iselin, Townsend Martin, Don Lillis and Leon Hess.

The few fans who signed on with the Jets in 1963 were forced to endure a final year of play at the doomed Polo Grounds. The Jets moved to Shea Stadium the following year saw the impossible happen in 1969 when Broadway Joe Namath led them to an era changing victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

The bad news is the Jets have never returned to the big game. Super Bowl III is now 50 plus years ago. Few of their fan base was alive when this happened. Yet they wait and they hope.  

I’ve been thinking about my worst experience being a Giants fan. My best is easy, being with my son in person in Glendale, Arizona when Big Blue did their version of the impossible dream, defeating the 19-0 New England Patriots, 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII.

There are several defeats that I attended that could qualify as the worst. The obvious loss was the Fumble that allowed the Eagles to win a game they were about to lose with seconds on the clock. But the one that stays with me the most was the 19-13 overtime loss to the Rams in the 1989 NFC Division Playoff Game.

The game went into overtime. The Rams reached the Giants 30-yard line. From there, quarterback, Jim Everett threw a pass down the right sideline that reached his fastest receiver, Flipper Anderson, at the two-yard line. Anderson, had a step on Giants corner back, Mark Collins, who was defending him. Everett’s pass hit flipper in stride for the winning touchdown!

Anderson knew the game was over so, instead of stopping, he ran through the end zone and into the tunnel leading to the locker room still carrying the game winning pass. The rest of us, the fans, the coaches, players, security, writers and photographs stood there in absolute silence. It seemed that our collective brains couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

Slowly, the occupants on the field and in the stands began to file out of Giants Stadium in complete silence.

A cartoonist could have drawn a full football stadium with an imaginary bubble hanging over the scene that read: “Holy shit, what just happened!”          

This story was told to me by my friend and customer, Brian, also known by his initials as, BVD.  who passed away about seven years ago. Brian was an insurance man who worked for Exxon in their Houston office. Like most of Exxon’s insurance professionals, Brian made several trips to Alaska  to administer his share of the many claims for damages brought by local businesses and individuals caused by the stranding of the Exxon Valdez.

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 and 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 a Native Alaskan 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 at a camp-ground located on the shoreline the next night. 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 you walk more than ten feet from the shore 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 or 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 of my admirers an exceptionally low bow.

There are no great men, there are only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstance to meet.

Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.

Jonathon Tennant, known as JT, made his way to the “Georgia docks” in Fancy Bluff Creek just outside of port of Brunswick, Georgia late on the night of September 7, 2019. His mission,  to pilot the MV Golden Ray to the open sea. His charge that night was a car carrier, also known as a ro-ro, that featured vast open internal spaces and ramps that allowed for the rapid loading and discharge of vehicles by “car jockeys” who drove them Grand Prix style on and off the ship. (A young man’s dream.) Ugly by design, car carriers resemble upside down bathtubs.

Car carriers are also not inherently seaworthy as the weight of most of those vehicles is above the waterline. To stabilize the ship, the correct amount of water ballast must be carried in tanks below the waterline. While docked in Brunswick, the car jockeys had unloaded and loaded enough vehicles to require new ballast calculations.

But one report I read stated someone in authority decided that the re-calculation could be put off until the Golden Ray reached its next port, Baltimore. 

JT had dreamed of being a harbor pilot since he first saw the big ships negotiating the St. Simons Channel on their passages between Brunswick and the Atlantic Ocean. The port of Brunswick is relatively unknown to outsiders as it is overshadowed by Savannah to the north and Jacksonville, to the south. But because of its excellent rail connections, by 2019, it had become the sixth largest port in the USA for importing and exporting cars, SUVs and light trucks.

JT graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy in 1997 and became an apprentice for the Brunswick Bar Pilots Association in 1998.

Over time, his skills and experience let him achieve the rank of a master pilot. He superseded the captain in navigating the ship until reaches the open sea. JT would then leave his position and descend to a waiting pilot boat that would return him to shore.

That morning, he navigated the twists and turns along the St Simon Channel as he had done hundreds of times before as he proceeded on his outbound journey, He remained in contact with fellow pilot and good friend, Jamie Kavanaugh, who was piloting the inbound MV Emerald Ace, another ro-ro, car carrier.

As JT took the Golden Ray through a hard turn to starboard, (right) the ship assumed a serious list to port (left). Tennant adjusted the turn that seemed to correct the Golden Ray, but only momentarily as the list to port became overwhelming. JT advised Jamie not to pass the Golden Ray. “I‘m losing her,”

Time had run out as the pilot’s training and instinct kicked in; the Golden Ray was rolling over. Tennant turned his charge to starboard (right) taking the ship out of the channel and onto a sand bar, grounding the ship as the Golden Ray quickly capsized.

As the ship went over, JT braced his legs around the vertical compass pedestal, braced his upper body against the windshield and managed to grab a life vest skidding off a shelf in his direction. Later, JT would testify that snagging the vest was Divine Providence, not because it saved him, but rather because it had a radio.

His cries of Mayday, Mayday, were immediately picked-up by a Coast Guard monitoring station in Charleston, South Carolina. That call, together with fellow pilot, Jamie’s calls for help, initiated a rapid response.

JT held fast to his perch on the bridge; once horizontal, now vertical.

Captain Skylar Dionne, skipper of the tug Anne Moran, on station in the harbor awaiting the arrival of the Emerald Ace, understood, Jamie’s urgent message and sped out across the sound “at best possible speed” to reach the Golden Ray. On arrival, he braced his tug against the bottom of wreck and applied the tug’s horsepower to prevent the wreck from slipping back into the channel.

If the Golden Ray had slipped into the shipping channel, it would have been blocked for months, but, more importantly, most of the crew would have drowned in that deeper water.

JT held onto his perch until nearly daylight when the rescue flotilla confirmed that they had picked up 19 of the 23 members of the crew. ( The last four were trapped below deck in an engine room. They were rescued a day and a half later after a hole was bored into the overturned hull.)

Finally, JT made his way to one of the fire hoses the crew had previously lowered to escape and  slid down to safety.

Like most ordinary men, Jonathan Tennant was reluctant to accept the credit he deserved for having the instinct and training to make a split-second decision that carried the day. A religious man, JT summed up that night’s experience:

“Above all, I would like to recognize that each of these individuals, the weather, the capsizing location, the capsizing direction that skid my survival vest with the radio to me (not away); and the successful rescue of every crew member comes down to our merciful God, our Creator.”

And this I know to be true: Captain Jonathon Tennant, Brunswick Bar Pilot No. 6 crossed over that line in the early morning of September 8, 2019 and achieved that thing we call greatness!    

Written: May2016, re-edited: January 2021

Mary Ann and I traveled to Connecticut on Christmas Eve morning to spend a COVID 19 socially distanced gathering to exchange Christmas gifts with our son’s family. At one point, Michael asked me: “Hey Dad, do you know what this coming Sunday is?’

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s the 25^th anniversary of the snowball game played on December 27, 1995.”

Being a writer of a weekly blog, I am always searching for my next piece and, thanks to Mike, here’s this week’s piece.     

The NFL decided to award the 2014 edition of the Super Bowl to East Rutherford, NJ to be played at Met Life Stadium, the new home of the Giants and Jets, then called New Meadowlands Stadium. To be sure, there is considerable speculation about the wisdom of such a decision given that the game will be subjected to the North East’s winter weather conditions.

Among the cries of doom and gloom, the May 27, 2010 Sports Section of The New York Times carried a tongue-in-cheek article by N.R. Kleinfield entitled: “Meadowlands in February? It’s Not the Cold, It’s the Snowballs.”

Mr. Kleinfield’s piece resurrected my memories from the last game of the 1995 season against the San Diego Chargers. We Giants fans inundated the field with snowballs, ice balls and chunks of ice.

 Now that the statute of limitations has run out on this incident, I feel that I no longer am compelled to reply to any questions like: “Were you involved in throwing snowballs?”

With: “On the advice of counsel, I cannot either confirm or deny that allegation.”

As usual, the NY Times got it wrong. While I have no evidence to prove exactly what precipitated the snowball assault, I am quite certain I know how it began. My son and I sat side by side in our Row 3 seats at old Giants Stadium, our home from 1976 to 2009. Those seats gave us great sight lines, especially when the teams were inside the 30 yard-line at our end of the field. Unfortunately, certain television networks insisted on using a side-line camera that traveled along the sidelines just off the field that was re-positioned as needed to be close to the line-of-scrimmage. If the offense reached the five-yard-line, the camera stopped so that the camera man or woman literally blocked our line-of-sight   reducing our view of the field from spectacular to having an obstructed view of the action.

This had bugged me for a long time, but letters to the Giants and the NFL all went unanswered.

When we arrived inside the stadium on that Sunday afternoon, we encountered several inches of snow beneath our seats as the team or the stadium authority didn’t have the where-with-all to dispatch crews to shovel the snow out of the stands prior to game time.

The Times reported that the Giants took a 17-0 lead in the first half. I am confident that at least one touchdown was scored at our end because it was at that point that my frustration with the obstructed view reached the breaking point. I directed my son, then twenty-four, to throw a snowball at the cameraman. Now Michael had been a fairly good pitcher in his younger days, and he complied, putting a snowball so close to that chap’s ear that it must have sounded like a jet going past.

That was enough for Mister Cameraman who directed his crew to lower him as he declared a personal force majeur and abandoned his post. A cheer arose from the faithful. After that, the Giants game went to hell and, as San Diego overwhelmed the home team. The disgruntled fans took out their boredom and frustration on the field, the teams, officials and other fans.

But that all came later. Let the record show, General Pershing had Sergeant York; I had Michael      

I got to thinking about this horrible year, 2020. Could I compose a story to describe what we had to endure? Not yet, and maybe never. Our ordeal remains too close to home. The battle is not yet won, we have no choice but to endure, retreat, seek shelter and protect ourselves from this second wave of the virus, a wave that seems relentless in its ferocity.

The promise of a hoped-for vaccine is now a reality. We know there is light at the end of the tunnel, but that light is still in the distance, even for us, the prioritized “so called,” elderly. And so, we wait for our turn, wait and worry. Each of us has our own demons: “Are you safe enough? Are you risking yourself? Is the vaccine safe? When will I qualify for the vaccine?”   

That is why Port Poetry and Prose is so special for us. It is our weekly two-hour window that allows us to escape those bad thoughts and present proof of our creativity, a creativity that confirms our commitment to living and our hope for better times.

This I believe to be true.     

If it had not been for Max Wheat and Taproot, we would never have happened. In thinking about Max, I realize that many of our group never enjoyed the opportunity for Max to be their mentor.

Ria, John B and I are the last writers remaining from the Port Washington Taproot group. John B is the senior member having joined in 1999.

We lost Max as our teacher in 2014 when he took a bad fall. I took it upon myself to keep Max  involved by taking copies of our pieces to his rehab home in Freeport. Sadly, Max couldn’t return as teacher and moved to California to live with his daughter. He communicated with us by mail, critiquing the pieces that I sent to him.

Teacher contracted cancer and left us in the winter of 2015 / 2016.This was my tribute to Maxwell C Wheat, Jr.:               

A Death in the Family

June 2016

Last Saturday afternoon, the Nassau County Poet Laureate Society honored my teacher by presenting members of his family with personal tributes by poets and writers. This is my interpretation of the man who taught me how to write. 

Maxwell C. Wheat Jr., poet, parent, preacher and a man of peace.

Activist, protester, man of passion, letters, understanding, but always a poet.

Teacher, facilitator, critic, editor, advisor, arbiter, encourager, friend.

Witness this excerpt from his eulogy to Pete Seeger’s genius saving the Hudson:

Now Pete Seeger belongs to his Hudson

His outreach of rousing songs

Are the frisky breezes, tall winds coming off the hills,

Touching, stroking the waved back of this 315-mile

Pleistocene invertebrate of a stream

He concluded his poem:

Pete Seeger’s song now parcel of the river’s song:

listen for his voice in the rustling of its autumn leaves,

listen for his voice in the rock slashing of the white capped waves.

Max often referred to his beginnings: reporter, New York Geneva Times Daily.

Assigned obits, his editor explained: “Human interest.”

Max never forgot. This from his poem about 9/11 he called, “Everybody Has a Story,”

Eamon McEneaney 46 in the first attack, 1992,

Led sixty-three people down one hundred flights of stairs.

Senior vice president, brokerage firm, Cantor Fitzgerald.

(On 9/11) Calling his wife at her office, shouting “Is Bonnie there?

I love her and I love the kids…”

Eamon was also a poet. Max ended “Everybody Has a Story” with Eamon’s poem dedicated to his wife, Bonnie: 

“…The end

is a bend in the road

That we’ll never find

A death I will always

Defend

You from.”

Maxwell Wheat a man of peace who served his nation in the USMC,

Did his duty and yet espoused Whitman and Melville: Do no harm.

First Poet Laureate of Nassau County, a national treasure:

Adios my teacher, my friend: Via con Dios!

Part Three of “A Foot in the Door”

Recapping last week’s piece, The Art of Making the Deal: Steve Beslity, Bill Boyle, Frank Hayes and I found ourselves at our firm’s annual Managing Directors meeting at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV when Monster Defense Corporation’s (MDC) risk manager, Bucky Bartlett congratulated Frank on successfully completing the insurance program for his firm’s MPS fleet. Typically, for Bucky’s ego, it came with the directive that he wanted to present the Broker of Record at a ceremony in his office in Tysons Corner the next day. He expected all four of us to be there.

After we finished grumbling, Steve remarked: “Hey, he’s now our client. It’s time for us to put our best foot forward.”

“So be it,” I chimed in. “Frank, tell him we will be there, but I also want Martin McCluney to join us. After all, he did one hell of a job getting this done.”  

I am not certain how it fell on me, but I was chosen to make the arrangements. First off, I called Martin who agreed to fly down on a shuttle flight the next morning and meet us at MDC’s office.

Next, I called Jack Sinnott, our president, to give him the good news and explain that the four of us would be AWOL the next day. Jack laughed and wished us well. While I had him on the phone I asked: “Jack, do you have any idea how I can arrange our flights?”

“Simple, call the Greenbrier Travel Service and have them do it.”

Smart Man, No wonder why he’s president! I called their travel service to explain our dilemma: “Four of us have to be in Tysons Corner by 10 AM tomorrow.”

Enid, the hotel’s travel specialist asked several pertinent questions and said she’d get back to me shortly. In less than a half-hour, she returned my call.  “Do you have pen and paper handy?” I did and Enid proceeded to give me the time our car would leave the hotel for the White Sulphur Springs airport and all the other details. We’d be flying to Dulles International on a two-engine, four-seater. Another car would take us to MDC’s HQ, wait for us and return us to Dulles for our return flight. Damn! I was impressed!

I gave her my partner’s names and she promised to have a written itinerary delivered to each our rooms and make sure we would all be alerted to arrange a wake-up call for the next morning.

Cups of coffee in hand, we introduced ourselves to Rob Kropeck, our pilot who explained, “The airplane has two bench seats, one facing forward and the other facing backwards.” He also pleased us by saying, “Guys, you picked a great day to fly.”

We agreed to rotate the seats for the flight out and back. Frank and I occupied the forward-facing seats for the flight to Dulles that allowed us to witness an amusing happening. Looking past Bill and Steve, we noticed that Rob had opened a road map on the un-occupied co-pilot’s seat. He kept checking it and finally, Frank couldn’t resist the temptation any longer- Frank: “ Not to worry, Rob, I know exactly where we are. Just take a left at the next mountain.”

Slightly flustered, Rob explained he loved to check the actual geography as opposed to how it was depicted on maps. Unfortunately, Frank’s ribbing backfired for me. I kept it to myself, but concentrating on that empty co-pilots seat reminded me of what our fate would be if anything happened to pilot Rob!

A limo met us on the tarmac for the short ride to Tysons Corner where we met Martin.

“Good flight in your puddle jumper?” Martin asked. We joked, composed ourselves and made our way to Bucky’s office. Give the man credit for consistency, short and somewhat sweet. “So, who will I go to when things go wrong?”

We were well rehearsed. Frank took the lead. “I’m your account executive. You can always come to me. Steve is the marine manager and Martin’s your man on the ground troubleshooter.”

“And you?” he asked as he pointed to me? “Mr. Bartlett, you have my card. This team will be there for you, but if not, as I said, you have my card.”

That was that. Broker of Record in hand, we said goodbye to Martin, piled into the limo and made our way back to Dulles. Rob surprised us with a Playmate cooler containing eight Bud Lites. “I figured you’d want to celebrate.” Needless to say, Rob received a healthy tip.

The last act:    

I didn’t include my favorite part of this story until now so as not to interrupt the narrative and give me my perfect ending.

Just before  Enid, the Greenbrier travel specialist, finished her call she asked me, “Mr. Delach, how do you wish to pay for the flight and the limos?”

“Of course, what are my choices”?

“Well, sir, you can either use a credit card or you can put it on your room bill.”

My reply was instantaneous: ‘Enid, please put it on my room bill.”

Later, when people asked me why I happily put it on my room bill, I’d explain: “Because once you put an airplane on your room, nobody will ever bother to check your mini-bar tab!

Part Two of “A Foot in the Door”

Frank and I continued our conversation on the drive back to National. “Frank, I will never take this business for granted. You never know when an opportunity will come along and you never know if it will be real or a mirage.”

“True enough,” Frank replied. “I was almost ready to give up on Monster Defense Corporation and Bucky Bartlett. Bartlett kept jerking my chain whenever I asked about getting a shot at MDC’s property and casualty programs. If it hadn’t been for MDC’s latest annual report, I would have called it quits.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well John, when I opened it up, I was staring at a page featuring a large photo of a ship. ‘Does MDC have ships?’ I said out loud. So that’s what made me make the call and here we are.      

After Frank dropped me off, I called Martin McCluney from the shuttle terminal to brief him on our meeting and ask him to call Frank Hayes: “Martin, prepare a full list of all the insurance particulars, including claims that we will need to obtain market quotations for the MDC’s fleet. Also, Steve Beslity is in London. He should be at Bowring’s office as we speak. Let him alert Bill Boyle and our other British friends to start gathering whatever information they can on a hush-hush basis. I’ll check in with you as soon as I reach home.”

As my flight ascended over the Potomac River, I thought about all the things that can go right and go wrong when going after new business. Estimating the realistic cost of insurance is anything but a sure thing. The extent of what a broker can achieve for the client is based on a combination of that brokers knowledge, experience, guts and fears. It is also based on his / her  instinct and intuition of how far that broker can push, cajole, convince or otherwise exploit underwriters to accept the risk we are offering at the price we promised to our client.

Sometimes it can border on the bizarre. I once found myself in a dicey situation where my team had to convince an underwriter to accept certain coverage wording that he found less than satisfactory. This happened in a country where alcohol is heavily taxed. I insisted that each team member buy two liters of Johnny Walker Black, the duty-free limit, on their way into the country. I reserved a suite in one of the best hotels to have a sitting room for us to use as our conference room. I ordered a continental breakfast and lined up those eight liters of Johnny Walker Black on the mantlepiece.

When the underwriter arrived, I explained: “Viktor, each time we reach an agreement for one of the disputed clauses, you can help yourself to one bottle.”

Viktor, didn’t object and the meeting went remarkably well. We reached complete agreement. In return, we were out eight liters of Johnny Walker Black.

There is rarely a slam dunk placement especially if you are the new broker in town. I have led and participated in insurance proposals where we blew the perspective client away only to have them turn our presentation over to the existing broker without apology. Other times, we connect with our prospect who likes us enough that they provide us with short-cuts to reach our goal.

One time, after winning a hard-fought battle to secure a new account, the buyer, who was a tough veteran of many a fight with regulators and unions, (I was told he was once on the receiving end of a bullet that missed), confessed to me: “Want to know why I gave you our business?”

“Absolutely, Jack”

“I decided that I trusted you enough that I’d buy a used car from you. I didn’t trust the other guy to do the same.”

A backhanded compliment for sure, but I gladly took it. You never knew how it would go.

But I digress. We all knew securing the MDC would be difficult. We had to work up solid cost estimates and be ready to get into the market as soon as Bucky Bartlett gave us permission to do so. My intuition was correct, Bartlett alerted his current broker, Jackson & Poor, (J&P) to what was going on turning the MDC competition into a dog fight. Fortunately, we opened the contest in the lead and our team worked diligently to keep us there. We made several improvements to our proposal to meet challenges that J&P made to Bucky Bartlett. For a while, it seemed that they would arm Bucky with another hand grenade to roll down the table just as we disarmed the last one.

Nearing the end of the contest, Bucky had one more card to play. He told Frank: “Your numbers are good, but frankly, my confidence level is low that you can actually do this. Therefore, I am giving you provisional approval to find the lead insurers who will agree to your proposal and you must complete at least 75% of the placement in ten working days.”

Bless, Frank’s heart, he jumped at it, accepting the challenge. What Bucky didn’t realize is that his mandate forced J&P to cease their obstructionist activity for those ten days. Using our broking techniques; arm twisting, playing one market against the other, the strength of the MDC fleet, our knowledge of those similar fleets and our clout in the insurance market,  we met Bucky’s deadline forcing him to allow us to complete our placing which we did several days later. 

Interestingly, Frank’s confirmation to Bartlett that the placement was complete coincided with the start of our firm’s annual Managing Directors Conference scheduled for the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Four of us, Steve Beslity, Bill Boyle, Frank Hayes and I were all scheduled to be there. Fortunately, we were able to maintain a war room in a vacant conference room to communicate with our colleagues in London and New York.

The next day, Bucky called Frank to inform him that we had won the contest. Frank gathered us in the war room to celebrate. He ordered two bottles of champaign and we toasted each other. “Okay, guys, and now the bad news. Ole Bucky is insisting that he wants to hand us his Broker of Record appointment in person tomorrow morning in a little ceremony at his office in Tysons Corner. He doesn’t want to have lunch he doesn’t drink so all he wants is for us to be there.”

(To be continued)

At about 5:30 in the evening on an ordinary workday in 1989, I was sitting  in my office tying up some loose ends before leaving for home when the phone rang. “John Delach speaking.”

“Hey, Delach, it’s Hayes. What the earliest time you can get here tomorrow morning?”

“Good evening to you too, Frank. Let me check the OAG book, (Official Airline Guide,) to see which shuttle gets into National first, Pan Am or Trump.” The guide revealed that the Trump Shuttle had the earliest departure from LaGuardia at 6 am with an ETA into National of 7:25.

“Great, I’ll pick you up at the airport. We’re going to Tysons Corner for an 8:45 meeting with the risk manager from Monster Defense Corporation, (MDC). He’s given me 15 minutes to pitch him for a shot at their marine operation.”

“Frank, hold on one second, I’m aware that MDC operates five pre-positioned transports, (MPS) for the navy. Do you think this is what he’s talking about?”

“Right you are, big guy. Do you need anything else? Oh yeah, before I forget, his name is Bucky Bartlett. He’s a Red Sox fan and he has the shortest attention span of any person I’ve ever met.”

I gathered up pertinent material, but before I left, I walked over to Martin McCluney’s office. Fortunately, Martin was still there. “I am going down to DC early tomorrow morning and we may have a shot at MDC’s MPS fleet. I think they are similar to the MPS fleet you place for Sea Force. Can you check for any significant differences and be here tomorrow morning by 8:30 to give me a bold cost estimate?”

“Of course, I can, John, if you can give me their values and tonnages. That’s all I need to give you a ballpark number of how much their insurance should cost.”

“Understood, thanks and, God willing, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

I left my house ahead of the morning rush hour, made my way to LaGuardia, parked and entered the terminal by 5:15. The vending machine charged my AMEX card $150 for a round trip ticket. I grabbed a bagel and coffee, cleared security and walked to the Trump Shuttle Lounge where I helped myself to complimentary copies of The Wall Street Journal and the National Review.

Frank was waiting at the curb when I exited the terminal: “Good morning, John. Good flight?”

“Indeed, a good day for flying. Hopefully, the rest of the day will be as good.” Frank gave me the skinny on Bartlett: “I have been pursuing him for months now. It was only yesterday when I pestered him one more time. Surprisingly, he gave me this narrow window if only to get me out of his hair. I meant what I said about his attention span. I’m convinced he’s playing me and this will be a waste of time if we can’t blow his socks off in those first fifteen minutes.”

“Frank, I feel good about getting our feet in the door. There are three separate MPS fleets each operated by a different contractor and we already place the insurances for two of them. McCluney handles one and Steve Beslity is the broker for the other. Steve is out of town, but Martin is only a phone call away to give us an aggressive cost estimate for Bartlett..

Frank drove to the Tysons Corner complex that included a Marriott Hotel. “We have 45 minutes to kill, John. Let me buy you breakfast at the Marriott’s buffet.”

This provided us with an excellent rehearsal and by 8:40, we were seated in Bartlett’s reception area. His assistant led us to his office.

Frank introduced me to Bucky Bartlett explaining who I was and why I was there. “ Mr. Bartlett,” I began, “ Our marine department is familiar with the MPS fleets and I can give you a realistic estimate of accurate insurance costs if you can tell me each ship’s value and gross tonnage.”

He looked in his file before replying then said: “Okay they all have the same value which is ‘X’ and gross tonnage which is ‘Y.”

I asked him if I could call our New York office. Martin answered on the first ring and I waited for his calculations. A few minutes later he produced his estimates. “ John, I am confident we can place their fleet at this price. Their values and tonnages are almost identical to the Sea Force fleet.”

I wrote down the cost estimate, thanked Martin and hung up. I passed the estimate to Bartlett and enjoyed the surprised look on his face. He pondered the estimate for a moment then looked up at Frank: “Interesting, very interesting. Please put this in writing and I will take it up with our treasurer.”

He shook our hands gesturing that the meeting was over.

“Talk about ‘slam, bam and thank you ma’am!” Frank exclaimed after we exited their building. “The S.O.B. didn’t even ask us any questions! John, he’s going to turn our estimate over to his existing broker, Jackson & Poor as soon as I give it to him in writing.”

“Frank, my guess is that our estimate is so much les than he’s paying now that his head is on fire. Jackson & Poor will have a hard time explaining away the differences and when they react, we can go lower. When we do and ole Bucky goes nuts, blame it on me. I’ll put a team together to work with you. Beslity will lead it, McCluney will be our marine expert and you will be our account executive. As for me, I’ll fade into the background. Frank, Bucky walked into a trap of his own making and we can do this”

Frank looked at me, smiled and replied: “Let the games begin.” (To be continued.)