John Delach

Robert McCallum is an engraver for the Granite Industries of Vermont located in Barre. “McCallum has been making headstones for over 18 years. He has nine years to go before he can retire with a union pension.”

He leaves his home in darkness every working day so he can clock-in by 6 AM, for his eight-hour shift that allows him time to pick up his daughter when school ends. Each shift, he first applies stencils on approximately 30 tombstones that he uses to engrave the particulars of the fallen

Asked if a tomb stone stands out in his memory, he mentioned Ross McGinnis who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2008. “McGinnis was only 19 when he threw himself on top of a grenade that was thrown into his Humvee in Bagdad. His body absorbed most of the blast, saving the other men inside. I feel sad that McGinnis and these others couldn’t live their lives. They died for their brothers. In my eyes, they did their duty to the fullest.”

Last fall, The New York Times profiled families who lost loved ones on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan during our wars without end.  The essay by John Ismay about McCallum, “Carving Thousands of Headstones,” was the exception. McCallum survived his stint in Iraq with the Charlie Company, 368^th Engineering Battalion of the US Army Reserve. He was a construction supervisor, paving roads during our invasion.

The 368^th is housed in armories located across southern Vermont and New Hampshire and Charlie Company is based in Londonderry NH. Units like the 368^th have been regularly called-up to active duty several times to serve in these perpetual conflicts that ensued following the slaughter of the innocents on September 11, 2001. It is a fact that the Regular Army cannot function without these reservists. McCallum retired from the reserves in 2011 with the rank of staff sergeant.

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After Fort Sumpter fell on April 13, 1861, the Union War Department was remarkably prescient that the ensuing conflict would produce massive casualties. The army issued General Order 75 on September 11, 1861 making commanders responsible for burials and marking graves. Quartermaster General, Montgomery Meigs chose to appropriate Robert E. Lee’s estate to establish Arlington National Cemetery. Wooden headstones that averaged a cost of $1.23 were used to mark the dead, but the life-expectancy of these boards was no more than five years. With the total recovered dead estimated to be around 300,000 the replacement cost would exceed $1 million over a 20-year period.

In 1873, the Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, set the first standards for stone markers. Made from granite or other durable stone, each marker would measure four inches thick, 10 inches wide and 12 inches high. Above the ground the stone was polished and the top slightly curved. Each stone displayed its number, the soldier’s rank, name and the state he served. In 1903, the height was increased to 30 inches, the width to 12 inches and the thickness to four inches. Over the years everything about these tombstones evolved as we evolved.

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Like Robert McCallum, Eddie Puckett was a modern-day stone cutter employed by the Georgia Marble Company. “Eddie figures he’s made 300,000 to 400,000 headstones for soldiers and their spouses during nearly 40 years of work.” So wrote Anna Varela for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“For most of my career I made replacement tombstones for the ones that wear out after 50-years or updated existing ones to include spouses. The past few years have been different, though. With the war in Iraq, there are more names and death dates for soldiers recently fallen. These are most bothersome. I’ve done headstones for all the other wars that you can name – from the Revolutionary War on up. But you kind of feel for the Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers because it’s an ongoing thing.”

Arlington is a solemn oasis across the Potomac from DC.  I witnessed the formality, respect and precision of the service there during my father’s internment. From start to finish every aspect of his service personified our nation’s honor and respect.

Arlington, of course, is where John F. Kennedy was laid to rest. Nobody described it better than Jimmy Breslin in “Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor:”

Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on his khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hattie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. “Polly, could you please be here by eleven O’clock this morning?” Kwalchik asked. “I guess you know what it’s for.” Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When Pollard got to the row of yellow wooden garages where the cemetery equipment is stored, Kawalchik and John Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, were waiting for him, “Sorry to put you out like this on a Sunday,” Metzler said. “Oh, don’t say that,” Pollard said. “Why it’s an honor for me to be here.”

Pollard was 42 a veteran of World War II. Breslin concluded:

One of the last to serve JFK, who was the thirty-fifth President of this country, was a working man who earns $3.01 an hour and said it was an honor to dig the grave.

On a cold Thursday afternoon in early March, Bob Christman and I drove out to the AMC movie complex in Stony Brook, about one-hour from our homes to see the documentary at the only IMAX presentation on Long Island. Our journey didn’t disappoint.

Apollo 11 is an extraordinary documentary that gives the audience a cinematic opportunity to experience mankind’s greatest achievement in the Twentieth Century, the first manned mission to the moon, as it unfolded.

It stars Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin as heroic, competent and well-trained test pilots and engineers; men who had the “Right Stuff.” Apollo 11 delves into the difficulties anticipated and the total effort needed to achieve success. Not just by the astronauts but collectively by NASA’s leaders and engineers at Cape Kennedy and the Houston Space Center. The documentary gives credit to the four different teams each led by a giant at NASA, Clifford Charlesworth, Gerald Griffin, Gene Kranz and Glenn Lunney. Their teams shared responsibility for the critical phases of the mission; launch and EVA maneuvers, the Luna landing, ascent, rendezvous, Luna burn and splash down.

Apollo 11 opens with the sights and sounds of the huge crawler hauling the Saturn V rocket topped by the Apollo capsule on its journey from the assembly building to the launch pad. Our first look at the engineers in launch control follows. We become familiar with these people at the Cape and Houston as the mission unfolds. It is disconcerting to realize that NASA was almost exclusively white and male, reflective of our society circa the late sixties. Nevertheless, we bond with them and share their anticipations, tensions and triumphs.

A second shock was remembering that this was filmed in 1969 when the counter-culture, the Vietnam War, political violence and dissention, racial strife and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr were tearing our Republic apart. NASA existed inside a bubble frozen in 1959. The grooming, dress and demeanor of the astronauts, management, the engineers and technicians reflect a by-gone era. Their white business shirts, dark, narrow ties and short haircuts scream IBM. The only exception; the eloquence of Kranz. (The Tom Hanks movie, Apollo13, provides a close-up of Gene Kranz’s style as played by Ed Harris.)    

Apollo 11 reminds us of how risky this mission was, and the many things that could go wrong at any stage. To succeed, everything had to work when it needed to work, sequentially before the next thing that had to work could work. Thousands and thousands of little things had to perform over the course of eight days or else the mission would fail.

It has been said that our scientists and engineers conceived and constructed the atom bomb using slide rules but needed computers to make the moon landing possible. Fair enough, yet those 1960s main-frame computers had a just small fraction of the power in an iPhone 4.

The producers had an enormous amount of 16 mm film at their disposal shot by NASA and the astronauts during their flight. They edited this stock to heighten the tension. The producers didn’t use narration, relying on actual NASA announcements, and a few broadcasts from Walter Cronkite and others to enliven the documentary.  Simple graphics followed by actual 16 MM movie footage carries the day.

Of course, the documentary includes the familiar excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s brilliant “Go to the Moon” speech given on September 12, 1962 at Rice University:

“We choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the Moon… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…”

Apollo 11 is “a must-see documentary” From countdown to lift-off and launch, to stage separation, to hook-up with the LEM, to the voyage to the moon, orbit, separation, descent and landing.

Tension and triumph run high from the moment that Apollo 11 separates into Columbia, the capsule where Collins would remain solo and the LEM named Eagle that carried Armstrong and Aldrin to the Luna surface where it became Tranquility Base.

Tension continues with each decisive stage; firing the upper part of the Eagle to propel it back to mate with Columbia reforming Apollo11, jettisoning the LEM, the Moon burn to bring these heroes back to earth, ditching the command module leaving just the capsule for the insertion and landing.

I lived and died with all those engineers as they worried through each critical function that could result in failure or a “Good to go” and on to the next decision.

Apollo 11 ends with the successful recovery, our three heroes in isolation, their release and nation-wide celebrations, parades and awards.

Brilliant!

As we walked out of the theater, Bob turned to me and asked, “Were we really that young when this happened and was our country that daring and able?”

December 2015, Revised March 2019

There is nothing that excites or thrills politicians more than the opportunity to puff up and express righteous, unabashed, and nationalistic indignation against evil forces encroaching upon the American way. This opportunity to express indignity is especially satisfying when they can unleash it after discovering the culprit is a big bully, like Amazon, Google or Boeing especially if caught with their hand in Uncle’s till. Never mind these politicians own soiled reputations for not always doing the right thing; they either forget or down-play their own or fellow colleagues’ foibles in the pursuit of publicity.

Such political fodder provides representatives and senators with the opportunity to demonstrate displeasure and outrage without consequence allowing them to attack like a pack of mad dogs. Better yet, going off against powerful, rich and arrogant organizations, grabs the ever-hungry activist press and a little leak here and there sets off a feeding frenzy; forget the dogs, the sharks have taken control and there is blood in the water.

This incident broke when a New Jersey newspaper reported in the spring of 2015 that the New York Jets received $377,000 from the New Jersey National Guard for ceremonial events saluting the military during several their home games. This led to a Senate investigation chaired by Jeff Flake and the late John McCain, both the representing Arizona. The investigation revealed the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) had spent $6.8 million in 2014, “…on questionable marketing contracts with sports teams, including events to honor American soldiers at games…”

The sum of $5,400,000 was paid to the biggest sports bully in the known Universe, the National Football League. Fourteen of the NFL’s 32 teams participated including the Jets, the Atlanta Falcons ($877,000), Buffalo Bills ($650,000) and the New England Patriots ($700,000).

Of course, the D.O.D. spent the bulk of their money with NFL teams. That’s where every smart advertiser goes to get the most bang for their buck. Even so, the NFL was not the only venue. Various entities within the D.O.D., mostly state National Guard organizations, paid money to teams for promotional consideration from Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association. Teams that profited included the Atlanta Braves ($450,000), Boston Red Sox ($100,000), Arizona Diamondbacks ($40,000) and Minnesota Wild ($500,000).

The Boston Globe reported: “The Boston Celtics received $195,000 in part to spotlight soldiers at home games. The Boston Bruins received $280,000 for national anthem performances, color guards and reenlistment ceremonies.”

Senator McCain opined: “It is hard to understand how a team accepting taxpayer funds to sponsor a military appreciation game, or to recognize wounded warriors or returning troops can be construed as anything other than paid patriotism.”

Senator Flake added: “These tributes are as popular as the kiss cam. But when people assume this is a goodwill gesture and then find out the heart-felt moment is part of a taxpayer-funded marketing campaign, it cheapens the whole thing.”

Bloomberg News reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pledged to conduct an audit of all contracts between NFL teams and the military promising: “Any payments made for activities beyond recruitment or advertising will be refunded in full.”

God knows, Goodell has every incentive to be proactive and corral bad publicity as quickly as possible. Goodell has already been suffering through a series of annus horribilis as he bumbled through a multitude of NFL issues like domestic abuse, head injuries, and concussions, kneeling during our National Anthem and the machinations of the New England Patriots. If it isn’t Tom Brady having footballs deflated, it’s Bob Kraft personal deflation in the Orchards of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida.

Two footnotes:  

1: The amount involved ($6.8MM) doesn’t exactly impact on the D.O.D. budget of $619 billion as it represents .00001% of this amount.

2: Note, the New York Football Giants, New York Yankees and New York Mets remained clean.

I first became acquainted with Linda Ronstadt’s music in 1978 due to a minor hiccup involving a new car. I had just taken delivery of my first company car, a navy-blue Chevrolet Caprice Classic four-door sedan. The model included super-extras like a power radio antenna, wire-wheel hub caps and a tape deck.

That Chevy turned out to be one of the best cars I ever had but the factory did get one thing wrong. Instead of having a tape player, my Caprice arrived with an Eight-Track player. (I suspect many of you have never heard of Eight-Track, so I ask that you look it up as it is too difficult and archaic to describe.)

Since we didn’t have an Eight-Track player at home, I asked my children, Beth (9) and Michael (7) to accompany me to Tower Records in the nearby Miracle Mile shopping center in Manhasset to pick out two Eight-Track tapes. They selected Simple Dreams and Heart Like a Wheel, and so began my love affair with Linda Ronstadt’s artistic ability.

I have already written about, Dedicated to the One I Love, and how Linda’s “lullaby album” gave me wonderful opportunities to gift that CD to women I knew when they announced they were pregnant for the first time.

My Ronstadt collection grew over the years, albums, tapes and finally CDs and culminated when my son-in-law, Tom, was able to secure her four-disc Box Set.

One morning, my colleague, Lisa, came into my office to tell me about the fabulous Linda Ronstadt concert she and her husband, Steve, attended the previous night at Radio City Music Hall. “John, she was amazing, it was a wonderful show. Linda belted out a sensational repertoire of her hits and her band and backup singers were fabulous.

“But the best part of the show was her encore. She came out alone onto an empty stage, just a baby grand piano, a single spotlight and Linda. She sat down and unaccompanied, Linda presented a thrilling and moving rendition of Desperado.”

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to see her in concert. From time to time, a friend or acquaintance fresh off a Ronstadt concert would seek me out knowing how big a fan I was. He or she raved about their experience. I waited for them to reach their climax and tell me about her encore. Rightly or wrongly, I chose to cut them off at the pass with, “I know she sang Desperado alone, just a baby grand, a single spotlight and Linda.”

Each time this happened I recognized that the person relating this experience was clearly moved by it. Still, I never found the occasion to pull the trigger and join these select fans who experienced a Linda Ronstadt concert.

How sad, when MS Ronstadt announced that she could no longer sing because of Parkinson’s disease and the realization of having to accept, her ship had sailed, or so it seemed.

Last summer, I needed an MRI and when the technician led me into the room, he said, “You’re in luck as you will be inside our newest machine that has Pandora. Who would you like to listen to?”

When I answered, “Linda Ronstadt,” he replied, “Can you spell Ronstadt.”

I tell you youth is wasted on the young!

As if by Divine intervention, a minor miracle. Recently, John Boylan, Linda’s management consultant tracked down the long missing master tapes of her 1980 HBO concert in LA. MS Ronstadt had never released a CD recorded live before. This time she agreed to release Linda Ronstadt, Live in Hollywood.

She selected 12 songs from the master including a 6:12 minute version of You’re No Good and, of course, her encore performance of Desperado. When I told Beth about this, she found it Spotify: “It’s such a good song. Reminds me of being in the back of the Caprice and listening to it on Eight-Track.”  

For those of you who never saw Linda live in concert, I recommend that you find this rendition.

Picture if you will, one baby grand, one spotlight, one woman, no back-up singers, no strings, no horns and no orchestra; just Linda and the song she owns.    

Let not your heart be troubled, dear reader. I want you to enjoy this piece, so I promise it doesn’t concern protests during the playing of our National Anthem before the start of NFL games. I task that to others who choose to comment.

Instead, I offer a couple of anecdotal musings on the “Star Spangled Banner” and a piece I originally wrote in 2002.

First off, an odd fact. Baltimore Orioles fans add a single word to our anthem when played before the start of home baseball games at their beautiful ballpark, Camden Yards. When the rendition reaches:

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free?…

The crowd adds “Here” in recognition of their location, across the harbor from Fort McHenry.

Second, the football writer and expert, Paul Zimmerman, a.k.a. Dr. Z who died last year had some quirky habits. Admittedly, timing the length of each rendition he witnessed and keeping a record was a peculiar one. Yup, he used a stop watch!

Dr. Z’s goal was to experience it being played in under two-minutes. He accomplished this once. An organist at Fenway Park played an instrumental rendition in one-minute, fifty-eight seconds. The organist admitted to the pleased Dr. Z that had receive several complaints that he played it too fast. Alas, Dr. Z was never able to duplicate this feat when the anthem was sung. He speculated that singers just couldn’t get over the hump of the anthem’s center in a timely manner.

Unlike Zimmerman, all I ever wanted from a performer was a clean, honest rendition by an artist able to conquer the difficult High C note at, “…the land of the free.”

This didn’t happen often. Most singers fudged it, double clutched, threw in a pause or let a band play over them. From time to time over 20 years, Martha Wright, a Broadway stage star, and the wife of Mike Manuche, a Midtown restaurateur, rendered her interpretation on the playing field before football Giants home games. Accompanied only by a trumpet, Martha mastered our anthem and effortlessly blew through the High C.

Martha was magnificent!

And now may I present Darrell Luckett and The National Anthem (originally penned in October 2002.)

Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, is a Twenty-First Century football factory featuring blaring noise, strobe lights, female cheerleaders dancing and prancing in provocative attire, fireworks, male cheerleaders waving team battle flags and face- painted fans wearing steer-horn hats.

Noise and distractions abound so it was a pleasant surprise when a solitary individual strode up to a microphone positioned at the 50-yard line to sing, a cappella, our National Anthem. The program identified the soloist as Darrell Luckett.

Mister Luckett rendered our anthem in a traditional style with confidence and precision. When he reached the penultimate line, he stopped; creating a pregnant pause designed to signal to all who were paying attention that he intended to conquer:

O’er the land of the free

Did he do it? He nailed it! The late Robert Merrill couldn’t have climbed that mountain with greater élan.

The game was not an artistic delight. My New York Giants lost a game they should have won. Down, disappointed and disgruntled, my son, my friend, Dave, and I found a downtown Houston restaurant where we bemoaned our fate. Returning to our hotel, we encountered a stranger who approached us as we walked along Louisiana Avenue. He noticed the team logos on our shirts and asked, “Were you at the game today?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I replied.

“Then you heard me sing the National Anthem.”

I mumbled something stupid like; “You’re kidding me?”

When he insisted, he was serious, we introduced ourselves and shook hands. I told him how impressed we were with his interpretation, his pause and how he nailed the High C note. He beamed until I voiced doubt and asked, “Did you really sing the Anthem today?”

Instead of answering me, right there in the center of Houston, he belted out:

O’er the land of the free

And the home of the brave

We cheered. He bowed, turned away, waved arm extended over his back and walked off

Part Two

Someday a Clipper flight will be remembered as the most romantic voyage in history.

                                                                                                 Clair Boothe Luce 1941

June 28, 1939 on board Pan American’s Boeing’s B-314 flying boat Dixie Clipper:

At 1:59 PM, external generators brought the Dixie’s four 14-cylinder double-row Wright Cyclones to life, the first airplane engines to require the use of 100-octane fuel. Stephen Kitchell, the flight engineer switched on each engine’s starter permitting external generators to power up each of the reluctant engines. One by one, they emitted a hesitant, whir-whir sound as the propeller slowly rotated until a spark caught. With a blast of black smoke, each engine caught allowing the propellers to spin in response with a deafening cacophony of sound and power.

Captain Sullivan, his co-pilot, Gilbert Blackmore and Flight Engineer, Kitchell, sailed their charge north through Manhasset Bay and out into Long Island Sound. Sullivan turned his craft into the wind as Kitchell, gave the engines their richest fuel mixture possible. Sullivan and Blackmore performed their pre-flight check-list, set the flaps and steered their boat on a take-off path through the waters of the sound. As the Dixie Clipper accelerated, it ceased to be a boat and morphed into an airplane as it broke free from the sound’s suction to soar into the sky.

The B-314 didn’t have a cockpit. Instead, it featured a flying cabin located above the forward cabins and its massive wings. The captain sat in the left seat, the second pilot (co-pilot) in the right seat. Going aft, a spiral staircase on the right (starboard) led to the passenger deck. A large navigator’s table occupied the left (port) side.  The radio operator and the flight engineer sat facing their equipment further aft. The rear led to a door leading to the navigator’s observatory.

Life on board moved at a leisurely pace. Betty Tripp recorded the following in her diary:

“At dinner…everyone was in high spirits and we enjoyed gay and interesting conversation. The tables were set with white tablecloths. The dinner was remarkable and beautifully served. Some contrasted this trip with the days of sailing ships which took two or three months to cross the ocean…yet we were crossing it in twenty-four hours. Captain (R.O.D.) Sullivan came down from the control room to smoke a cigarette and visit with the passengers. He was grand, patient to answer questions and inspired real confidence by his cool cheerful manner. Everything seemed so routine and matter-of-fact that we almost lost sight of the fact that this was an airplane flight to carry passengers to Europe.”

The menu began with the choice of a Martini Cocktail or a Clipper Cocktail. (A bracing mix of apple brandy, lime, grenadine plus a dash of absinthe.)

Appetizers included Canapes Pate De Fore’s Gras, Chilled Celery, Crystalized Ginger or Mixed Olives. Main courses included Steamed Spring Chicken, Roast Prime Ribs and Baked Virginia Ham. Desserts: Neapolitan Ice Cream and Pound Cake. Dinner was served on PAA China brandishing the airline’s logo.

Emily C. Dooley a reporter for Newsday with her feet firmly planted on the ground pointed out the inadequacies of the B-314 in a 2011 piece about this flight:

“While the planes were luxurious, with dressing rooms, a dining room and lounge – even a honeymoon suite – the flights were not. Planes at that time were not pressurized, the trips were long. ‘Many passengers fell sick from turbulence,’ said Atlanta resident, Dan Grossman, a former pilot on ClipperFlyingBoats.com.”

Me thinks MS Dooley doesn’t get it. Pre-war passengers didn’t know any better. Despite this fling boat’s limitations, it was state of the art for airplane travel in 1939. Beyond that simple fact, I’d venture a guess that many of today’s seasoned air travelers would gladly go back in time for the opportunity to experience a clipper flight in a New York Minute.

On that day almost 80 years ago, Port Washington achieved a significant place in aviation history, but the world was on fire. Less than six weeks later, World War II began forcing Britain and France into mortal conflict with Nazi Germany. America remained a neutral nation as flights were restricted to the southern route truncated in neutral Lisbon.   

Port Washington operations ended the following March when the brand-new Marine Air Terminal opened at LaGuardia Airport. The first flight to Lisbon from LGA left on March 31, 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor Uncle Sam requisitioned all twelve Boeing B-314 Clippers for military use. Pan American continued to operate the Clippers but stripped of most romantic trappings.

By the time of Japan surrendered in August of 1945, the era of the flying boat was over, and Juan Tripp retired all the B-314s in 1946. Most were sold to airlines operating in South America where adequate runways were still scarce. Removed from Pan American’s T.L.C. they didn’t last long, and none survived.

Juan Tripp moved on to iconic piston powered land airplanes like the DC-4, DC-6 and DC-7, the Lockheed Constellation and the Boeing Stratocruiser, airplanes that populated the world’s post-war airlines until the birth of the jet age in the late 1950s.

Those heady days of romance, those survey flights, the commercial service to Bermuda beginning in 1937 and those inaugural trans-Atlantic flights: all originated from Manhasset Bay

Amazing! Still, it all happened as if in a blink of the eye of aviation history.

June 28, 1939 – a clear and bright early summer’s day, a crowd of several thousand New Yorkers gathered on Manhasset Isle, a waterfront community of Port Washington to watch history in the making. The largest airplane any of the spectators had ever seen rode easily on the gentle swells of the bay while moored to a boarding gangway. The flying boat’s captain, Robert Oliver Daniel Sullivan carried official papers proclaiming him, “Master of Ocean Navigation.” This title recognized his competence to cross the Atlantic developed on several trans-Atlantic survey flights he had successfully flown.

Speeches were made, bands played as the crowd watched in wonder as Captain Sullivan led his crew of twelve men all outfitted in crisp navy-blue nautical uniforms in a “crew march” along the dock in formation and onto the airplane. Pan American Airways promulgated high discipline and spit and polish. Each crew participated in a crew march wearing their formal uniforms before every flight, even for a test flight. These were the dangerous early days of commercial flight and PAA believed this show of discipline would inspire confidence of the traveling public.

Twenty-two passengers, sixteen men and six women followed the crew inside the cabin of the Dixie Clipper where first class ruled. A one-way ticket cost $375. Four stewards accompanied these luminaries to one of the six cabins they had reserved or to the single cabin suite furthest aft in the cabin. Being 1939, none of the accommodations included cabins en suite, but the clipper had three lavatories, one forward and two aft, a separate ladies powder room. And a men’s retiring room.

The list of passengers consisted of mostly VIPs making this inaugural flight. First among equals; Elizabeth (Betty) Stettinius Tripp, wife of Juan Tripp, Pan American’s founder and chief executive. Joining Mrs. Tripp were William J. Eck, an executive with Southern Railway who had made his reservation years in advance. John M. Franklin, president of United States Lines, Torkild Rieber, chairman of Texaco who would be forced to resign months later due to his close association with Nazi Germany, Louis Gimbel the president of his name-sake chain of department stores and Mrs. Clara Adams, of Maspeth, Queens, a veteran of history-making flights. Mrs. Adams made the flight with greater ambition, her goal being to fly around the world in 16 days.

Without a doubt, the most intriguing passenger was William “Wild Bill” Donovan, FDR’s man to be our top spy during World War II. Donovan founded and ran the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. His biographer, Douglas Waller, explained: “He took Pan American Airways first transoceanic flight to Marseilles…dining on turtle soup, steaks, and ice cream and receiving a silver cigarette case to commemorate the maiden trip.” Mr. Waller noted: “Before he boarded the plane Donovan had a rigger come to Beekman Plaza to show him how to use a parachute.”

Pan American never invested in a proper terminal building on Manhasset Isle. Departing passengers lined up in front of several 4’x 8’ plywood boards mounted on wooden saw-horses inside the same hanger where they serviced their clippers. Rudimentary at best, but Pan American knew this was all temporary.

Designated Clipper Flight 120; the schedule called for a noon departure with a flying time of 19 hours to Horta in the Azores, a distance of 2,375 air miles. Following a one-hour re-fueling layover, the flight would proceed an additional 1,057 miles to Lisbon, Portugal with an ETA of 1700 hours (5 PM). Passengers would overnight in Lisbon and be back on board for a 0700 take-off for Marseilles, France.

Although the Spanish Civil War had ended in April when the Republican forces capitulated to Francisco Franco, Spanish air space remained closed forcing Captain Sullivan to fly around the Iberian Peninsula, through the Straits of Gibraltar and north across the Mediterranean to Marseilles, a ten-hour flight that covered 819 miles.

Total elapsed time including the Lisbon layover, 44 hours. The estimated total flying time was 37 hours and the distance; 4,251 miles.

On the same day that the Dixie Clipper began its epic flight another Boeing 314, Pan American’s Yankee Clipper Flight 101 under command of Captain Arthur E. LaPorte completed the first round-trip mail flight from Southampton. Captain LaPorte’ outbound flight left Port Washington on May 20^th, twelve years to the day Charles Lindberg crossed the Atlantic. Both flights, outbound designated Flight 100 and the return flight used the northern route. The return flight stopped in Foynes, Ireland on the River Shannon, Botwood, Newfoundland and Shediac, New Brunswick before landing on Long Island Sound. Total distance, 3,411, flying time, 26 hours with three layovers lasting five hours.

At 1:59 PM, external generators brought the Dixie’s four 14-cylinder double-row Wright Cyclones to life, the first airplane engines to require the use 100-octane fuel. Stephen Kitchell, the flight engineer activated each engine’s starter motor permitting external generators to power up all four of the reluctant engines, one at a time. Each emitted a hesitant, whir-whir sound as the propeller slowly rotated until a spark caught. With a blast of black smoke, each engine caught forcing the propellers to spin rapidly creating a deafening cacophony of sound and power.

To be continued

Superbowl LIII finished with a thud late in the evening (EST) of Sunday, February 3^rd. I found the best account inside the pages of National Review in a piece by Kyle Smith written before the game was played.  Early on in his piece, Mr. Smith telegraphed his position on the game by explaining he had ceased drinking for the month of January… “until Satan’s children the New England Patriots won the AFC Championship” forced him to become…” reacquainted with a bottle of Whistlepig Straight Rye.”

Smith continued: “So the Patriots are in the Super Bowl for the 112^th consecutive year and will win it for the 77^th time. A poll before the match against the Kansas City Chiefs showed every state outside of New England was rooting for the Chiefs except Michigan, where Tom Brady played college ball.”

“Watching the Patriots is a useful lesson in the ingenuity of evil.”

But enough, already. The season is over, and it is time to move on…or is it? Good grief, can’t we have the dead month of February to let go and stand down from our NFL addition?

Apparently not, enter the latest manifestation of a recurring phenomenon, the professional spring football league. This year’s gem wears the moniker: The Alliance of American Football (AAF) and it kicked off its premier season last weekend with two games on Saturday night broadcast on CBS and two more on Sunday, an afternoon game on the CBS Sports Network and a night game on the NFL Network. Other games will also appear on TNT and B/R Live, a streaming service.

Eight teams in two divisions; Atlanta Legends, Birmingham Iron, Memphis Express and Orlando Apollos in the Eastern Conference and Arizona Hotshots, Salt Lake Stallions, San Antonio Commanders and San Diego Fleet in the Western Conference. Each team is scheduled to play ten regular season games. Four teams will make the playoffs with the Championship game to be played on April 27, the final day of the 2019 NFL draft.

Charles Ebersol, son of Dick Ebersol, is the bullish co-founder of the AAF. He believes that the AAF will succeed where others failed because of legal sports gambling. “He’s hoping to land in a right-place-right-time moment in which sports betting is now legal and expanding in the United States.”

Joe Drape reported for The New York Times: “Eight states already offer gambling on sports contests and by next year, sports betting could be legal in at least a dozen more.”

“Among the AAF’s early investors (is) the gambling and entertainment powerhouse MGM Resorts International. ‘It’s a technology play,’ Scott Buttera, MGM president for interactive gaming said of the AAF.

“MGM executives said they were most taken by the AAF’s app. which can provide a host of data in milliseconds. The information arrives so fast…that it could eventually allow in-game betting on play outcomes – like pass or run and a host of other propositions.”

All well and good, but ratings and even home attendance will still determine the success or failure of the AAF. The number of people who gamble on the games doesn’t matter at all if fans don’t tune in. In my opinion, Ebersole’s business plan is ass-backward. Without ratings, the betting action on the games is meaningless.

The track record for professional spring leagues is awful. Since the NFL-AFL merger in the mid- 1960s four different spring leagues have been launched with the following results:

The World Football League (WFL) created in 1974, failed in 1975.

The United States Football League (USFL) came next in 1983. The USFL completed two spring seasons then announced a fall schedule in 1985 to directly compete with the NFL. Instead, the USFL sued the NFL for monopolistic practices. A Brooklyn jury found the NFL guilty, but a single juror manipulated the other seven jurors to limit damages to one dollar. She fibbed that the judge could change the amount if he wished. He can but only downward. (The amount was multiplied to three dollars for treble damages.)

Next, the XFL for one year in 2001 and the United Football League (UFL), 2009-2012.

Hope and / or greed must spring eternal as in addition to the AAF, another new entrant, the eight-team American Patriot League (APL) is planned for this spring playing from April 6 to June 23.

Insanity rules supreme, in 2020, Vince McMahon, plans to re-launch his WWE’s XF,

a complete failure the last time around. Will the madness ever end?  

Football without end, Amen. 

The Chrysler Building is up for sale. The Abu Dhabi government fund that bought our iconic skyscraper at the height of the real estate market in 2008 wants to recoup as much of the $800 million they paid to Tishman Speyer for a 90% share in this art deco sky treasure. Tishman retained 10% that is also on the block. Real estate brokers differ widely on the estimated selling price but note Abu Dhabi paid top dollar in 2008 and they doubt the fund can sell without taking a loss. True, the market has re-bounded with a vengeance, but the tower is considered an obsolete relic unable to offer amenities and the work environment of our throw way office concepts. If true, this makes me sad.  

My first encounter with the Chrysler Building came at a Christmas Party held for the staff and their families when I was four or five years old. Back then I was a carrot top with a face full of freckles. Our downstairs neighbor, Bill Sleazak, invited my Mom and me to join his family at the party. Mr. Sleazak was an elevator operator in the tower, a job that I considered as important as a subway motorman or an airline pilot.

At some point during the party, a master of ceremony announced that there would be a freckle contest. Several kids came forward to be judged but I didn’t because Mom chose to keep me out of the contest as we weren’t real family. Nevertheless, some fellow standing near by took one look at my face and announced to the crowd, “I have the winner over here.”

With that, he propelled me through a sea of people right up to the judge who declared me the winner. I recall being showered with gifts and Mr. Sleazak being none too pleased that I received all this attention.

The Twenties were still roaring in 1928 when Walter Chrysler set out to build his namesake skyscraper determined that it would be the tallest in the world. (The Empire State Building was not his rival. Its conception was a year away)

His competition was a Downtown giant, 40 Wall Street, then sponsored by the Bank of Manhattan Trust. Originally conceived as a 47-story tower, the plans were altered, first to 60 floors and eventually; to 77 floors. The height of 40 Wall climbed to 927 feet.

Chrysler decided to top off his building at 72 floors at a height of 925 feet but with a secret plan.

Forty Wall was finished first taking the title as the world’s tallest building on May 1, 1930.  But Walter Chrysler had already unleashed his architectural addition, a 125-foot long spire assembled inside the building and hoisted to the top of the building in 1929, giving him the title On May 27, 1930 when the tower was deemed to be completed.

The howl from downtown could be heard everywhere. Cheat, fraud, charlatan, etc., etc. Still the architectural societies who govern these things deemed the Chrysler Building to be tallest in the world. Eleven moths later, the Empire State Building took the title.

_____________________________________________________________________________

I encountered a close-up view of the spire at some point in the 1980s. My firm had bid on the world-wide insurance needs for Freeport-McMoRan, a global mining conglomerate head-quartered in the Pan Am Building, (now Met Life.) I participated in our bid, preparing the proposal for their marine risks, a minor part of their insurance program. We have a sixth sense in the insurance brokerage business anticipating when we are being used to force the existing broker to hustle. In other words, the fix was in. Every other executive who worked on this proposal made themselves scarce the day Freeport-McMoRan called with the bad news that we had not been selected. I alone was available to accept the gilded lily.

When I arrived at their offices in one of the uppermost floors in the Pan Am Building, I was told to cool my heals. I thought of telling the receptionist to f*** off and leaving but the view from the lobby had grabbed my attention. From where I sat, I looked down on the base of the Chrysler Building’s spire. Not a great view on this murky, overcast morning, amazingly, I realized I was witnessing activity that nobody else could see. Three workmen had loosened a hatch at the base of the spire, where they were performing dangerous maintenance work. One workman stepped out into space roped to the other two. I looked on open mouthed and in fear for their safety.

Absorbed by what I was observing, the receptionist had to shout to jar me from my concentration. “They will see you now,” she explained. I hesitated, took a last look and let her usher me into a conference room where I listened as some assholes preached to me about the deficiencies of our proposal. I made no response, asked no questions and left at my convenience.

Returning to reception, I saw the men were gone and the hatch had been secured. I assumed all had gone well and thanked the Lord for their protection.

From 1992 to 1999, my office at Marsh & McLennan was on the 39th floor at the eastern side of 1166 Avenue of the Americas. I had an unobstructed view of the Chrysler Building, three blocks away. What a hoot!

My beautiful skyscraper: The first thing I saw in the morning when walked into my office and the last thing I saw at night before I left. Some nights, those rare times, usually after a significant rainfall washed away all the pollutants, those special nights when Manhattan sparkled like a thousand jewels, I would close my door, turn off the lights and admire my magnificent neighbor. Just the Chrysler Building and me.

Each year, thirty-two NFL teams set their sights on winning the Super Bowl and the opportunity to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Thirty-one fail. Worse, success is fleeting and usually deserts the champion team the following year. Last year, the Philadelphia Eagles erased 58 years of misery by winning SB LII. They made the playoffs this season but lost in the second round.

There is one exception, the New England Patriots organization. The Patriots rolled through the playoffs winning their tenth consecutive AFC Championship Game. They established an NFL record – one that will be unmatched for a long time, if ever. Quarterback Tom Brady is the Patriots field general who has led the Patriots to all these appearances. Brady is truly the greatest quarterback of all times.

So too and more important to the Patriots success is their head coach, Bill Belichick. Vince Lombardi, the legendary head coach of the Green Bay Packers and the Super Bowl Trophy’s namesake, once said: “The only thing I want (in a football game) is my unfair advantage.”

Belichick is an evil genius who manipulates the NFL to his own unfair advantage. He finds flaws in the rule book allowing him to design plays here-to-fore untried because everyone else thought they were illegal. His goal is to attack the other team’s strength by doing the unexpected and reducing the opposition’s offense to becoming one dimensional. He even keeps a sharp eye on the other team with an uncanny record of catching them with too many men on the field. His genius is without parallel.

He almost pulled off a new wrinkle in this year’s AFC Championship Game. He had Brady line up the team on a fourth down play, then, run off the field as the Patriot’s punting team ran onto the field. The Chief’s coaches tried to respond, but when the Pats snapped the ball, the Chiefs had 12 or 13 players on the field. This would have given the Pats a first down, but Bill’s machinations took too long resulting in a Pats penalty for delay of game.

A genius, yes, but he crosses the line. If you think Dick Chaney was an evil manipulator, Ole Doctor Death can’t hold a candle to Big Bad Bill. Belichick has been caught time and again as a cheat. He spied on the Rams stealing plays prior to SB XXXVI in 2001. Found guilty in spy-gate, where he filmed Jets practices and deflate-gate where the Pats underinflated game balls, Belichick alone knows the extent of his life of crime. Caught, fined, punished; the beat goes on and on February 3^rd, his Patriots will play in their ninth Super Bowl since 2001. His record so far, 5 and 3.

The mere mortals running the other 31 teams have found Super Bowl appearances and victories to be elusive. No wonder, Joe Benigno, a WFAN radio guy and consummate Jets fan refers to the Super Bowl as the “Patriots Invitational.” 

The list of NFL teams frustrated by their ability to take home the Lombardi Trophy is sad and ugly. Worst off, The Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns, two historical franchises who have never appeared in a Super Bowl. The Lions last won an NFL Championship in 1957 and the Browns, in 1964. Two expansion teams, the Jacksonville Jaguars (1995) and the Houston Texans (2002) have yet to experience playing in a Super Bowl.

Who deserves greater pity, the three teams that lost their one and only appearance or the five teams who appeared multiple times without claiming a single Lombardi Trophy? I believe it’s the later, particularly the Minnesota Vikings and the Buffalo Bills, each with four appearances and nothing to show for it.

Two Bills fans die and go to hell. Having been cold their entire lives, the devil can’t make it hot enough for them to suffer. Undeterred, Satan turns off the heat and refrigerates hell to break these two. After a week in sub-zero freezing cold, he checks in only to find them celebrating. “Why are you happy?” He asks.

“Because Hell froze over; the Bills must have won the Super Bowl.”

How long does it take for the happiness and joy of winning the Super Bowl to fade away? The New York Football Giants last won the trophy eight years ago. Since then they have fired two head coaches and one general manager.

The New York Jets have waited 50 years and counting. So too, the Kansas City Chiefs (49) now that their dreams for 2019 are broken. The Dallas Cowboys are 24 years from their last trophy, the Miami Dolphins, 35 years and the Washington Redskins, 28 years.

Miami’s been to five winning two. The Redskins, five winning three. The Packers and the Giants have each won four of five, the 49ers, five of six, the Broncos, three of eight, the Cowboys five of eight, the Steelers, six of eight and the Patriots five of ten.

The poor KC Chiefs came so close to returning to Super Bowl LIII before losing to the Evil Empire, aka, the Patriots. The Pats won the coin toss and went the length of the field in overtime to win the AFC Championship Game, 37-31.

The Saints lost at home to the Los Angeles Rams, 26-23, also in overtime. God bless the Rams who haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2001 when they were domiciled in St. Louis. However, let the record show that their victory came on the heels of one of the worse not-called pass interference penalties, ever.

The Pats are favored to win SB-LIII. So what else is new?