John Delach

Owning a vacation home is like owning a boat; it’s both a luxury and a burden. A happy house leads to great times with friends and family, a place to experience precious moments. Yet, it’s still a house where things go wrong usually at the most inopportune times. These random crises remind me of the boatowner’s slogan: “The second-best day in the life of the owner is the day he bought his boat. The best day is the day he sold his boat.”

Since we purchased “Little House” in the fall of 1984 it has been a treasure but not without problems. For many years I opened and shut down the plumbing system all by myself following detailed instructions I wrote down from the first owner and its builder, Joe C. Joe and his wife had built it ten-years previously and for us it was love at first sight.

That first opening in late November 1984 brought with it our first crisis. Little did we know the consequences of winter conditions. I turned on the power to the hot water tank before it had filled destroying the heating element. This led to our first plumber’s visit. That happened a second time several years later but even when winter openings went well, they were still a bitch.

 When Joe C. built the house, he decided to go with electric heating assisted by wood burning stoves. Our power provider is New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, (NHEC) whose rates were only second in the nation to Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO,) our provider in Port Washington. Both had been players in nukes that failed to open, NHEC is Seabrook and LILCO is Shoreham. Their customers were left to pay off the debt and lucky us, we drew both.

As we aged, weekend trips to Marlow over the Martin Luther King birthday holiday became too much of a burden to open and close the house. Our season evolved into ending our visits after the Christmas holidays without re-opening until late April.

This didn’t prevent its own list of crises culminating in the closing of 2017 and the opening in 2018. Just our luck, a Polar Vortex enveloped Marlow, a town that already had the reputation of being, “The icebox of Cheshire County.”

It was so cold that even with the fireplace and wood stove blazing and the electric heat cranked up we could feel the cold seeping through the walls. We bailed and shut it down as best we could. Our plumber did his best and yet, that spring one toilet was lifted six inches off its base by a frost heave and the water pump quit. $3,500 later we were back in business.

This year, our opening was uneventful. We made three trips, two in May and one in June and Little House hummed. Our first extended stay would be for the 4^th of July and for the first time in a long time everyone planned to be there.

Mary Ann and I arrived on Saturday, June 29. We brought our two granddaughters, Marlowe (yes, named after the town but with an “e”.) and Samantha. Sam’s mom, Jodie, met us there having deposited her son, Matthew at a rugby camp at Dartmouth. We picked Matt up on Monday and settled in awaiting the onslaught of our other family members late on July 3^rd and early on the 4^th.

About noon on Tuesday our collective experiences with using the two toilets forced the realization that they were not emptying. “Houston, we have a problem!”

Two possibilities; the septic tank was full, or we had a blockage. Better to go down both roads, call our plumber and the septic company. We couldn’t contact, John, our plumber either by phone or text, but the septic company dispatched, Dan, their technician to evaluate the problem. Dan discovered that a coupling on the sewage line had slipped crippling the line. He couldn’t fix it, his service couldn’t fix it and recommended we call a plumber. Since John was unreachable, we tried a local firm only to be told their wait was three weeks.

Time to pull the plug but Mary Ann and I couldn’t leave until tomorrow to shut off things, take home that which spoils and dispose of garbage accumulation. Jodie headed home with the three kids, and I decided to call the Days Inn in Keene for a room in suite. When the clerk answered, he tried to sell me a package, but I cut him off with: “Do you allow dogs?”

“Yes,” he replied, “No more than two, twenty dollars per pet and you are responsible for all damages.”

I had heard all I needed to know. Reservation made, we headed to Keene for dinner then checked in to what was obviously a pet room, perfume and all. We opened a window and put on the a/c to make it bearable. Max and Tess looked at us like we had lost our minds. But when we turned out the lights, Tess jumped into my bed, Max into Mary Ann’s. Tess stayed with me the entire night.

Early wake-up, coffee, clear the room, feed and walk the dogs and check-out. I looked at my receipt; the room charge was $98.62.

Listed separately was this surcharge: Code: PET, description: PET IN ROOM: $40.00

While heading for the City of Keene waste transfer site where we prepared to pay $2.00 for each bag of garbage by check, (no cash or credit cards accepted,) John the plumber called Mary Ann. He apologized for a breakdown in his answering system and confirmed he was away on vacation with his family but that he would fix our broken line first thing next week.

We returned to Little House after the drop off to clean and pack before returning to Port Washington.

Crisis resolved; life is good.

“On the Outside Looking In” will not appear next Wednesday and will resume on July 24.      

Due to circumstances beyond my control, today’s blog was delayed until this late hour. I will relate this experience in my next Blog: “Dog in Room.”

From 1934 until 1973 when the South and North Towers of the World Trade Center were completed with heights of 1,355 feet and 1,348 respectively, the world’s three tallest skyscrapers were the Empire State Building (1,250), the Chrysler Building (1,046) and the RCA Building a.k.a. the GE Building and 30 Rockefeller Center (950.)

 Manhattan was historically the skyscraper capital of the world beginning with the completion of the Woolworth Building (792) in 1910. Completion of the Twin Towers returned the record back to downtown, but Manhattan’s dominance ended less than a year later when Chicago wrestled the title away with the 1974 completion of the Sears Tower a.k.a. Willis Tower (1,450). The title never returned to the Big Apple while the Second City and America’s run ended when the Petronas Towers (each 1,483) opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the destruction of the Twin Towers and surrounding buildings on September 11, 2001 delivered a profound blow to the psyche of metropolitan New Yorkers. Critics questioned whether people would ever again be willing to work, live or play that high in the sky. While the debate over the idea of replacing those buildings went on, both Asia and the Middle East, after taking a deep breath, decided to press on building new structures to unprecedented heights.

Taipei, Taiwan secured the title in 2004 with Taipei 101 at 1,667 feet only to be blown away by Dubai, UAE in 2010. The Burj Khalifa rose to an amazing 2,717 feet in height. More than one thousand feet higher than Taipei 101, the Khalifa Tower, as it is usually called, holds almost every superlative building record ever invented. A multi-use tower the Armani Hotel occupies floors 1 to 8 with the hotel’s resident apartments on 9 to 16, condominium residences from 19 to 37 while Armani suites fill 38 and 39. 

Additional residential apartments are located from 42 to 72 and 77 to 108. The so-called “At.mosphere” restaurant rests on 122 and the so-called “At the Top Observatory” on 124. Corporate Suites look down on these teeming mases from lofty pieds-a-terre on 125 to 135 and 138 to 147. “The New Deck Observatory” sits on 148.

The six top occupied stories, 149 to 154 are devoted to the so called, “One-Percenters,” perhaps in this instance, the top half of this elite group? These chosen few command a view so vast that on a clear day with a pair of Swarovski EL 10X42 binoculars ($3,299.00) they may be able to spot a highjacked airliner 25-miles out giving them the ample opportunity to say a short prayer.

The Khalifa Tower has rendered all other edifice complexes to shame so far. Closest to date, the Shanghai Tower in 2015, (2,073.) The Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower, (1,971) in Mecca in 2012 and The Ping An Finance Center, (1.965) in Shenzhen, China in 2017.

(A 3,300-tall tower was proposed for the UEA in 2016 but to date, with no sponsors.)

While the world moved forward, New York City remained trapped in our post- 9/11 trauma. It seemed for a time, Manhattan would not recover. The cost of locating, securing and arming One World Trade Center, a.k.a. The Freedom Tower exploded making it untenable. Any other commercial building would have been cancelled but New York proud said otherwise. The Port Authority of NY and NJ stepped in by increasing tolls on the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels to pay for it. One WTC (1,776) opened in 2014 while the tolls for the Lincoln Tunnel rose from $8.00 in 2001 to $15.00 in 2019 to pay for it.

With One WTC under construction, the shackles binding developers, builders, architects and engineers were released and new era of innovation and building is changing the Manhattan skyline once again. The Empire State Building has already dropped to third place and the Chrysler Building to eighth place and 30 Rock doesn’t make the top 10. When One Vanderbilt, under construction, occupying the entire square block; Madison to Vanderbilt, Forty-second to Forty-Third will grab second tallest at 1,401 feet when it opens.

Sadly, not all these towers deserve recognition. A combination of new technology a fluke in zoning laws, the need of mega-wealthy Russian, Chicom, Turkish, Greek, South American etc. to park some of their wealth in Manhattan towers has led to the creation of pencil skyscrapers that alter the landscape. These blights on the Manhattan Skyline include 432 Park Avenue (1.397) completed in 2015, but the worst is yet to come. Two pencil towers are piercing the skyline, both due for completion next year: 111 West 57 Street (1,428) and Central Park Tower (1,550.)

These freaks plus other more legitimate new buildings will push both the Empire State and the Chrysler out of the top ten. So far, no developer has had the chutzpah to propose a pencil tower to exceed the height of Number One WTC and recent reviews of the engineering behind the heights of these pencils may curtail future construction. I sincerely hope so. Meanwhile, perhaps I can interest these esteemed owners the same binoculars recommended for those high up on the Khalifa Tower?

My hero in this piece is Manhattan. Once again, Manhattan renews itself and unabashedly moves forward into the future. In the words of the late, John Lindsay: “It’s the fastest track in the world.”

I recently finished an excellent but curious book about Harper Lee written by Casey Cep, a young, gifted writer. Ms Cep traveled to Alabama as a reporter for The New Yorker to write about Go Set A Watchman, Ms Lee’s sequel / prequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, published shortly before Lee’s death. While researching her subject, Cep uncovered evidence of another unpublished Harper Lee endeavor, a true crime story shrouded in mystery.

Curiously, I also discovered that Ms Cep too is shrouded in mystery. This brief bio appears on the jacket of her book: “Casey Cep is a writer from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in English, she earned an M.Phil in theology at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and The New Republic, among other publication. Furious Hours id her first book.”

Another source noted that Ms Cep went on to earn a graduate degree in Divinity from Yale.

Beyond that Cep is a mystery. Her age is elusive and her identity; curious. The color photo of her inside the jacket of her book is the same as others I have found. Dark flowing hair, brushed to the left side of her face, she wears a black top with no discernable make-up or jewelry. She looks directly at the camera, tight lipped with eyes locked in a Clint Eastwood look that says to any and all intruders: “Make my day.”

Furious Hours is in many ways a biography of Harper Lee though Ms Cep doesn’t approach the story from that direction. Cep, instead takes the reader into the story of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black rural Alabaman preacher believed to have murdered five family members, all to collect life insurance money. Set in the 1970s, Maxwell eludes justice thanks to a local, savvy white lawyer who also profits from the reverend’s insurance proceeds. Finally, a cousin of his last victim takes revenge on the reverend at the victim’s wake by shooting three bullets into Reverend Brown’s face. Ironically, the same attorney who conspired with the reverend gets the murderer off on a plea of insanity.

I kid you not but take a breath to absorb all that before we continue.

Okay, if that is not enough, the murderer is found innocent by reason of insanity, remanded to the state’s mental hospital, where he is released three months later as a free man.

My purpose is not to review the book or to delve into the secrets Ms Cep uncovered about Ms Lee’s abortive decision to write this true crime story or how and why she abandoned her quest after ten or more years of research and work. Cep covers that waterfront in depth. She may not unearth all the bodies, but she uncovers many of them. Don’t expect to discover the essence of Ellie Harper Lee, but Cep opens several important and previously unknown or locked doors.

It’s the title: Furious Hours, that I found fascinating and confusing: “What furious hours?”

The sub-title is somewhat more palpable: “Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.”

Murder and fraud, I get, but last trial of Harper Lee? Hyperbole at best and unnecessary but I presume it helps to sell books.

However, the title, Furious Hours, doesn’t seem to make sense. The book spans thirty or more years and the phrase is not mentioned until Page 252 less than 20 pages from its end. Most of the book is centered around the town of Alexander City in eastern Alabama.

Cep does tell us that Nelle Harper Lee and her oldest sister, Alice, were enamored by Albert James Pickett’s History of Alabama, first published in 1851, especially the passages detailing the lives and fates of the indigenous tribes belonging to the Creek Nation who once lived in that part of the south.

Ms Cep writes: “Pickett’s history does not continue past statehood’… (1819.)  “(Harper) Lee had a theory about why Pickett had stopped writing. ‘I do not believe that it was in him,’ she said, ‘to write about the fate of the Creek Nation, of the Cherokees, of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, which was decided within his own lifetime.’ Instead his narrative concluded with the ‘engagements’ between Andrew Jackson’s army and the Creeks which Lee said, ‘began to spell the end, which came as we all know, in a few furious hours at Horseshoe Bend.’ Then Lee said something more revealing…: ‘I think Pickett left his heart at Horseshoe Bend.”

More than 800 Creek warriors were killed in six hours of fighting at the battle of Horseshoe Bend. I believe those were Ms Cep’s furious hours.

Ms Cep continues: “If so, he wasn’t the only one who left some crucial part of himself in Tallapoosa County. Lee left something there too – if not her heart, then perhaps her nerve.”

I believe Casey Cep Has constructed a premise that for whatever reason, Ellie Harper Lee lost the courage to write this crime story because, like the outgunned Creeks, she finally reached a realization that she couldn’t write this book. The essence and substance of the plot were exclusively the property of the African-American community of Alexander City. Individually and collectively, these people had been deprived, de-valued and debased by the white community, justice system and press.

There wasn’t any record of the circumstances surrounding these killings in court records or newspapers. They weren’t considered newsworthy so the only insights into the story were locked into the oral folk-lore of the black community. Harper Lee knew that her sources for her book were locked into this community alien to her as if it was on Mars. She finally conceded that a bridge did not exist for her to cross that divide between her part of the Jim Crow south and their’s. 

I do recommend Ms Cep’s book, but like Elle Harper Lee, it appears that Casey Cep may have her own dark closets.

On Flag Day, Mary Ann and I walked into the lobby of the original Terminal Five, TWA’s former Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport for the first time since February of 2001. Back on that cold Saturday morning we were catching our flight on a TWA 767 to Porto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Our purpose last Friday was to have lunch at the newly opened TWA Hotel that utilizes the soaring concrete and glass main terminal as its lobby, food court, museum and our destination, The Paris Cafe.

Philip Kennicott noted in his review for The Washington Post: “Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA terminal has always been about selling a fantasy.”  Indeed, it did back in its day and indeed it does again. As college students in the early 1960s my cousin, Bill and I would occasionally drive out to New York International Airport or Idlewild, it’s popular name, to visit the new terminals seemingly springing up out of nowhere. Seven were constructed, Number One, Eastern Airlines, Two, Northwest, Three, Pan American, Four, The International Arrivals Building for foreign and small domestic airlines, TWA’s Number Five; Eight, American and Nine, United. (Six and Seven would be built later, Number Six a second terminal for TWA as they outgrew their flight center and Number Seven for British Airways.)

Five of the seven were boring box-like structures., Only Pan American’s World Port and TWA’s Flight Center presented buildings that rivaled the innovations in design, architecture and engineering simultaneously being developed for the 1964-1965 New York’s World Fair. Those two were our favorites and we had easy access to almost all areas during those long-gone innocent days of minimal security. Only First Class and the private airline clubs, TWA’s Ambassador’s Club and Pan Am’s Clipper Club were off limits. 

The overhanging roof at Pan Am’s circular World Port was its most innovative feature It protected passengers from all precipitation as they used outside stairs to board and de-plane aircraft. Impressive, but not comparable to Saarinen’s bird-like design that rose upward and outward, creating an enormous open space unsupported by internal columns. It took your breath away or so it seemed.

Fantasy was swell, but it took until January of 1977 before I made my first flight from that magnificent edifice, a Saturday morning trip to San Francisco on a Lockheed L-1011. I made my first business trip to London in 1976, but, for several years, I preferred British Airways as they were the only carrier to offer a day flight to London, BA Flight 178 that left JFK at 10 am. I did fly TWA home several times arriving at Terminal Five. Once TWA added a day flight, I switched over to TWA for most of my trans-Atlantic flights.

I stayed the course when Carl Icahn muscled his way into control of the airline although with guilt and a bit of fear. The striking seasoned flight attendants were replaced with newbies who were heavy on smiles and giggles but short on competence. I doubted their effectiveness in an emergency. Fortunately, the veterans returned but Icahn had broken the spirit that was TWA. By then three of the legacy airlines were failing, Eastern, Pan American and TWA. To survive they gutted themselves. TWA sold off its transatlantic routes to American Airlines in 1990. They ceased all remaining operations in October of 2001 closing Terminal Five.

Even though it sat dormant, the building had a life insurance policy, the City of New York had designated both the exterior and interior as historical landmarks in 1994. Various proposals fell apart or failed and it remained in repose until 2016 when Tyler Morse, chief executive of MCR Development, owners of 88 hotels announced the plans for the TWA Hotel. Long story short, it came to pass this May.

Though I didn’t wear a tie, I felt the need to wear my blazer, Mary Ann wore a white, woven poncho over her white blouse and black slacks. After leaving her Jeep with valet parking we entered the lobby. To the left and right were tube shaped corridors once used for check-in stations. If memory serves me, international to the left and domestic to the right.

Straight ahead a wide marble staircase led to an old friend, a sunken seating plaza carpeted in ruby red, TWA’s primary color. A tall glass window framed the rear of the lounge but instead of presenting a view of a busy tarmac, taxiways and runways in the distance, that view was now blocked by Jet Blue’s Terminal Five. Morse understood the need to improve this landscape, so he bought a surplus Air Force Lockheed Constellation domiciled in Maine, dressed it in TWA colors and had it trucked to JFK. Re-christened “Star of America” the airplane restores the fantasy of flight.

And fantasy abounded; hostesses occupied a desk by the entrance wearing vintage TWA stewardess uniforms. “Behind them a reproduction of a vintage Italian hand-made Solari di Udine split-flap display board made its distinctive tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik-tik-a-tik chatter as it announced flight departures and arrivals from an orchidlike sculptural pedestal.”

Rotary pay phones. A sign read, “Make a call for ten cents or try it for free.” Mary Ann dialed our home number and reached our answering machine. An old shoeshine stood-unmanned. Morse had done his best to create a time warp. I took it all in; once this was a friendly place to begin journeys to far off places, journeys of triumph, failure, fun or boredom.

Lunch was disappointing. The write-up for the Paris Café led me to believe that with luck, lunch would feature a croque monsieur one of my favorite French inventions. Instead, the menu was anything but French. I settled on a cheeseburger, Mary Ann a tuna tartare appetizer.

After lunch we explored the old girl one more time. I led Mary Ann to the other mezzanine where the Ambassador Club was once domiciled. The bar was gone, but we did discover an alcove where VIP’s could relax in private Called the “Pope’s Room,” Pope John Paul II used it during his 1987 Papal visit to America.

The two elevated tubes that once led to the long-gone separate structures that once housed the gates now led to the two separate hotel wings. Re-carpeted in ruby red they looked much as they did back in the day.

Before leaving we explored the Connie decked out mostly as a lounge with a bar at one end. Three rows of two across seats had been installed, one, the larger first-class variety and two rows of smaller coach seats albeit larger than any coach seat in the sky today. The guide informed us that these were the actual seats TWA used to furnish their Constellations. The discovery of ash trays built into the arm rests gave him credence.

I left with mixed emotions. It was truly fun to see the terminal again in its restored condition but a bit sad too. Most of the people who come to visit or stay there won’t have a clue what TWA was like as an airline and not just a theme for an airport hotel.   

Grounded in Gravesend Bay off Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the spreading conflagration enveloping the Sea Witch and the Esso Brussel intensified.

The inferno created havoc on board the Sea Witch as the contents of the on-deck containers quickly caught fire and began to explode. Aerosols containing hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons; hair spray, shaving cream and spray paint turned into lethal projectiles that exploded through the thin aluminum skin of other containers igniting more and more cargo. The crew first took shelter near the stern, outside the aft deckhouse, but the heat, smoke and the intensity of exploding containers drove them inside. Their cabin of refuge had a ½ inch fire hose that they used to spray continuously the bulkheads, deck and overhead watching in horror as the water evaporated into steam. Without it, they would have been baked to death. The hose kept them alive, but they had to endure a hurricane of noise and pressure that assaulted their senses and sanity as containers, their cargoes and the ship’s own gear erupted at its own choosing.

By then the life and death struggle of the Esso Brussels’ crew had played itself out. Tugs rescued the survivors, but thirteen of the crew were lost.

Firefighter tackled the fire blazing on the port side of the Esso Brussels. Amazingly, despite the intensity of the inferno, none of the oil that remained in the vessel’s still intact tanks caught fire. It was only when the firemen extinguished the fire on the port side that they realized the bow of the Sea Witch was protruding from starboard side and that two vessels were involved in the inferno. Finally, they proceeded along the port side of the container ship towards her stern.

Fires onboard the Sea Witch continued to spread as the contents of containers caught fire or exploded. Breathing was an ordeal even though the trapped crew covered their faces with wet towels and knelt on the deck. Sensing that this desperate condition was not improving, Cahill took the initiative to signal potential rescuers. He grabbed a blanket, had it soaked with the hose, wrapped it around himself and stepped outside waving his flashlight toward the Firefighter. The crew spotted Cahill and, using their water cannons, fought through the flaming water to reach the stern. Two ladders were raised from the fireboat allowing the thirty trapped men to descend to Firefighter.

The fires on the Esso Brussels were mostly under control once daylight arrived and the Coast Guard and Fire Department agreed to have tugs separate the vessels. After the tanker was re-floated, the fireboats easily extinguished what little oil continued to burn.

 The Sea Witch was in a more critical condition as almost all the on-deck containers were still burning. Four fireboats were ordered to use maximum waterpower to put out the fire creating a severe list of 25 degrees forcing the authorities to reduce their efforts to two nozzles from a single fireboat. Containers burned or smoldered for several days before being declared under control.

Exxon worked with the Coast Guard and Fire Department to unload the remaining cargo from the tanker into barges that carried it to their refinery. Once empty, the Esso Brussels was towed to the Bethlehem Shipyard in Hoboken, NJ to await disposition.

The Coast Guard estimated that of the 319,000 barrels of oil the tanker carried, 16,000 barrels escaped after the collision. What didn’t burn, washed up on Staten Island, Bay Ridge and Coney Island, but the same low flash point that made this crude so volatile also caused most oil to evaporate.

Salvage of the container ship was far more complicated. It wasn’t until June 14th that a salvage crew was able to pump out enough water from below decks to bring the vessel back to an even keel. CO2 was pumped into the holds to stabilize the contents of the containers stored under deck and the remaining fires in the on-deck containers were extinguished. The derelict Sea Witch was offloaded, then towed to a pier at the former Brooklyn Navy Yard where she would remain for eight years.

Coast Guard hearings opened on Monday, June 4th and it quickly came to light that the Sea Witch had had frequent steering problems. The investigation revealed ten similar incidents had occurred since 1969. The immediate response from the Coast Guard was to advise all operators of vessels with similar steering systems to modify the mechanics to prevent a similar failure.

Exxon sold the tanker to the Greek ship owner, John D. Latsis on an “as is where is” basis. He had the vessel towed to Piraeus where it was rebuilt and sailed under a variety of names for several of his companies until she was withdrawn from service and scrapped in 1985.

Various American maritime firms expressed interest in salvaging the engine spaces of the Sea Witch. She was finally towed to Newport News Shipbuilding’s yard. All spaces forward of the engine room deck house were cutoff and scrapped being replaced by a new forebody built at the yard. Converted to a Jones Act, US flag chemical carrier, she was first re-named the Chemical Discoverer later re-named the Chemical Pioneer. In April of 2015, I saw her on the Mississippi River outbound from Baton Rouge as we passed her on the American Queen.

Government regulations, new industry standards and technology have made the transit of ships through the Narrows safer since that early morning collision in 1973. Still it should be a lasting reminder that navigating large vessels in confined waters is a difficult enterprise requiring utmost training, diligence, good judgment and luck. 

Part One

First published in 2006, this piece ran in “Professional Mariner” and was included in the author’s anthology, “The Big Orange Dog.”

Just before midnight on June 1, 1973, the CV Sea Witch left Staten Island carrying 445 containers below deck and 285 containers above deck.  Built by Bath Iron Works in 1968, she was small by today’s standards. The Sea Witch had a length of 610 feet overall and a gross tonnage of 17,902. The bridge and officer’s quarters were located forward of the holds while the machinery spaces and crews’ quarters were aft, giving the ship the appearance of a fat Great Lakes boat.

John T. (Jack) Cahill, a pilot active since 1948, took charge of the ship directing it east toward St. George, Staten Island. In addition to Cahill, Captain John Paterson, and three other members of the vessel’s crew occupied the compact bridge. As a precaution, Captain Paterson positioned the chief mate and two seamen on the fo’c’sle to help spot other marine traffic and be able to lower the anchors should an emergency arise.

Twenty-nine minutes after midnight, Cahill ordered the speed increased to full harbor speed, 13.4 knots. With the ebb tide traveling at approximately two to three knots, the Sea Witch’s actual speed was about 15 knots. As the ship crossed the ferry terminal at the tip of St. George, he directed the helmsman to bring the ship to a heading of 167 degrees to begin transiting the Narrows separating Staten Island from Brooklyn. Seven minutes later he corrected the course to 156 degrees.

The helmsman did not respond as expected. Instead, he told the captain that the vessel was no longer steering. Captain Paterson remarked, “That damn steering gear, again.” He attempted to correct the problem by transferring steering control from the starboard system to the port system. Cahill also took corrective action ordering, “Hard left rudder.”

Both the captain’s and the pilot’s attempts proved futile. The port and starboard steering units fed into a single mechanism controlled by a faulty “key”; a device like a cotter pin that had come undone. Without it, Sea Witch lost all steering control and the currents forced the vessel out of the channel towards Staten Island.

Cahill immediately ordered the engines reversed to full astern and for the crew on the bow to let go the port anchor.  He blew a series of short rapid blasts on the ship’s whistle signaling that the Sea Witch was in distress and ordered the general alarm bell rung to alert the crew, many of whom were in their quarters.

The Esso Brussels lay anchored in the southernmost Narrows Anchorage just north of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The tanker carried 319,402 barrels of light Nigerian crude destined for Exxon’s Bayway Refinery. The Esso Brussels was a handsome ship built in 1960. At 25,906 GRT, she retained classic tanker lines with her bridge and the officer’s quarters located amidships while the engines and aft deckhouse included crew’s quarters were located towards the stern.

Captain Constant Dert commanded a mixed European crew of 36 men and one woman, Gisele Rome, the first steward.

The bow crew on the Sea Witch couldn’t release the port anchor.

By now, she was closing in on the Esso Brussels and Cahill locked the whistle to sound continuously. The first mate ordered his men to release the starboard anchor. They freed the windlass, but the chain would not run. Cahill and Paterson ordered them off the bow and they retreated behind the forward superstructure. Only two and one-half minutes after the pilot and the captain realized that the ship was out of control, the Sea Witch was a mere 200 feet from the starboard side of the Esso Brussels. Cahill advised Paterson to clear the bridge allowing these five mariners to make it as far as the boat deck behind the forward superstructure when the night exploded.

About two minutes before being struck, the mate standing watch on the Esso Brussels’s bridge heard the Sea Witch’s whistle. His first thought was that the disabled ship would pass astern of his tanker, but as the ship continued to veer in his direction, he recognized the impending danger and sounded the alarm awakening the crew.

 The Sea Witch rammed its reinforced bow into the starboard side of the tanker between the midship and aft deck houses, piercing three cargo tanks. The conflagration was instantaneous and flaming oil began to spread rapidly. Captain Dert supervised the crew as they lowered the motorized aft port lifeboat. Despite the chaos, the crew managed to launch the boat, only to have trouble releasing it from its lines. That accomplished, a mate tried to turn a hand-crank to start the engine, but the space needed was filled with terrified crew making this impossible. A last attempt to row away from the advancing fire was thwarted by the engines of the Sea Witch, now in reverse, that pulled both ships down the Narrows despite the resistance from the tanker’s anchors. The movement created a suction pinning the lifeboat against the tanker forcing the crew to jump in a desperate hope of escaping the flames that rounded the stern.

The fireboat, Firefighter, based at nearby St. George, S.I.  arrived minutes after the collision. The firemen could not tell that two ships were trapped in the inferno as both vessels were enveloped in a sea of flames that extended three thousand yards in front of them.

Flames from the burning oil radiated 200 feet out from both ships and rose so high that they scorched the bottom of the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge as the ships passed underneath. Fortunately, the wreck passed under the bridge quickly, preventing the steel. from suffering heat damage South of the bridge, the ships grounded in Gravesend Bay.

The New York Football Giants 1966 season turned out to be an absolute disaster, the worst in team history. Entering Week Ten their record was 1-7-1 as head coach Allie Sherman led his boys into DC with their new back-up QB, Tom Kennedy. Three weeks earlier the Giants had plucked Kennedy from the minor league Brooklyn Dodgers of the short-lived Continental League than a stellar addition, he assumed the starters role after Gary Wood, the team’s other sub-par QB hurt his shoulder..

 Frank Litsky reported in The New York Times on Saturday, “The Redskins have lost three in a row, but Sonny Jurgensen’s passing will probably make them well.” Jurgy already had 18 touchdown passes, rookie Charlie Taylor had developed into a fast, dangerous receiver and the Giants had been reduced to playing three rookie linebackers, Mike Ciccolella, Jeff Smith and Freeman White who was supposed to be a tight end. The Skins were scheduled to start two former Giants in their backfield, Steve Thurlow, and the bizarre, Joe Don Looney.

Sunday, November 26 produced, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

The Good:

The Giants scored 41 points, the most they would score all season.

They out gained the Redskins 389 yards to 341.

They had 25 first downs to the Skins 16.

Joe Morrison caught two TD passes from Wood for 41-yards each.

Homer Jones caught a 50-yard TD pass from Wood.

Wood ran one in for 1 yard.

Aaron Thomas caught an 18-yard TD pass from Kennedy.  

The Bad:

            The Redskins intercepted the Giants five times and scored on a 62-yard fumble recovery,

            a 52-yard punt return and a 62-yard interception.

The two teams scored 16 touchdowns, ten by the Redskins and six by the Giants.

The Ugly:

Bobby Mitchell scored the final TD for the Redskins by running the ball for 45-yards. Mitchell had last played as a running back in 1961 with the Cleveland Browns. Normally a flanker back, he shifted position due to injuries to the other running backs. Redskins head coach, Otto Graham told reporters after the game, “He doesn’t even know the plays from that position.”

Kennedy started, but the Redskin defense befuddled him with blitzes and fake blitzes leading to three interceptions in the first half. The sore shouldered Wood replaced him, but finally had to give way to Kennedy again in the fourth quarter.

This opened the door for Kennedy to engineer a bizarre play that led to an all-time scoring record. With seven seconds left on the clock and with the ball on the Giant 22-yard line, Kennedy threw a fourth down pass out of bounds to stop the clock. His excuse was that he thought it was third down which begs the question: With seven seconds left on the clock and your team down 69 to 41, just exactly why are you stopping the clock?

Graham ordered Charlie Gogolak to kick a 29-yard field goal. When asked if his motive was to embarrass the Giants, Graham replied: “Hell no, I didn’t know anything about records. I wanted Gogolak to try a field goal. He hadn’t had a chance all day and he missed two against Cleveland last Sunday. I’m not one to run up the score on anybody.”

But records they did set: It is the only NFL game with a total combined score of over 100 points.

The total of 113 points was 15 more than in another game involving the Giants, a loss in 1948 to the Chicago Cardinals, 63-35.

The Redskins scored the most points ever scored in a regular season game, one shy of the 73 points the Chicago Bears scored against the Redskins in the 1940 championship game.

The 16 touchdowns scored is a record for any NFL game.

The Redskins 10 touch downs and Charlie Gogolak’s 9 PATs tied a record. If Charlie had made his first, another would have been broken.

The New York Times also reported that the Redskins lost $315 in footballs that went into the stands. In this era before nets behind the goal line, 14 Duke footballs, then manufactured by Thorp Sporting Goods costing $22.50 each, became fan souvenirs. The Times article pointed out that the Duke is named after Wellington Mara, the Giants president.

Coach Allie Sherman wasn’t happy either. “I guarantee you this is never going to happen to a team of mine again.”

He was right, but then again, that’s a tough score to replicate. But the Giants did try. The next week in Cleveland, they lost to the Browns 49 to 40. At home against Pittsburgh, they crumbled to the Steelers 47 to 28 before ending the season with a milder 17 to 7 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Yankee Stadium.

That game ended the season with a dismal record of 1-12-1. Truly, the season of our discontent.

In 2006, I decided to research a piece about a spectacular maritime accident that took place in New York harbor in the spring of 1973. The Sea Witch, a container ship was outbound from the Howland Hook, Staten Island terminal. The ship had just entered the Narrows when the steering mechanism failed causing it to veer toward one of the Staten Island anchorages and strike the fully laden tanker, Esso Brussels, igniting its cargo of crude oil. Locked together, both ships drifted under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before they grounded in Gravesend Bay off of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

My initial searches were fruitless. When I Googled “Sea Witch,” the only match I made was for the Nineteenth Century Clipper Ship of the same name. I tried several different portals, each of them a dead end. Frustrated, I decided to visit the U.S. Maritime Academy’s library in Kings Point only to find that they too had a limited collection about the Sea Witch or the collision.

Finally, on an off-chance, I contacted the National Transportation Bureau’s Accident Investigation Bureau. That led me to a U.S. Coast Guard’s site where I discovered what I was seeking, the Coast Guard’s accident report. There it was right in front of me, their accident report.  Between a balky printer and an unreliable internet connection, I worried over downloading and printing out each of those forty-seven pages until it finished.

I now had the foundation for my piece. Next, I made my way to the newspaper room at main branch of the NY Public Library at Fifth Ave. and Forty-Second Street to copy the articles that ran in each newspaper’s Metropolitan Section.  I paid attention to The Staten Island Advance that focused on the accident as a local story.

One source led to another and slowly, the details I was seeking began to assemble. Still, I wasn’t satisfied relying principally on third-party reporting. One person’s name critical to telling this tale kept appearing, the pilot in charge of the Sea Witch when all hell broke loose, John T. (Jack) Cahill.

How to find him? I wrote a letter of introduction to the New York Harbor Pilots Association, the governing body for all licensed pilots, asking them to forward a second letter addressed to Cahill. My letter explained who I was and why I wanted to contact him.

Almost a month later my home phone rang while I was sitting in the kitchen. My hello triggered a rough voice that responded, “This is Jack Cahill, I understand you are looking for me?”

A week later found me heading west on I-78 almost to the Delaware River to meet Jack Cahill and discuss my project. He lived in retirement with his second wife, Andrea, who was of French extraction. Quite a scene, Cahill had a table full of folders that he didn’t choose to open while Andrea buzzed around the table in an obvious hostile mood.

I realized my situation was in doubt. Andrea didn’t want me in her home as she perceived me to be a threat to her man. If I couldn’t win here over, my visit would be a waste of time. I had to overcome her lack of trust in me.

I turned to her and said: “Mrs. Cahill, let me be assure you, from everything I have gathered about that night, your husband, Jack, was the true hero. If not for him, the Sea Witch crew would have perished. Let me make you both a pledge that I will not submit my story to any publication until Jack signs off on the content. If Jack doesn’t approve it, I will change it. If that doesn’t work, I will scrap it. To do otherwise would be a sin.” 

Her reaction was immediate and amazing. The clouds parted and the sun shone down. Andrea offered me coffee and a tray of biscuits before she left the room. Jack opened his files, showed me his remarkable photos and told me his story.

I drove home knowing I had something special. Professional Mariner magazine bought my story and published it. I was ecstatic, my first (and only) paid published piece. Jack Cahill’s first- person account gave it wings.

Once published, a copy quickly made its way onto Wikipedia. The original listings attributed the piece to me but as time went on and different organizations picked up on it, my identity faded away.

 Recently, I Googled the accident and found a serious expansion of my piece written for the fireboat “Fighter” museum. The author took complete license with what I had written yet retained my favorite line that I used to describe the initial conflagration when the ships collided: “…and the night exploded.”

I loved that line and this S.O.B. not only lifted what I wrote but took it out of sequence at his/hers convenience. Whoever you are: please note that plagiarism is and always will be plagiarism. Shame on you!

Truthfully, I really don’t mind.

I know that it was my effort that added this story to our collective memory. My baby, no one else’s. I conceived it and I birthed it.

Now my teenager is on her own. 

Never published on this blog, In June, I will give you, dear reader, my revised edition of my story in two parts

The dictionary defines irony as: “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”

The street definition of irony is: “You really can’t make this s*** up.”

The dictionary defines Sarcasm as: “The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.”

The street definition is “Gotcha!”

This piece is a bit of both, however, before I present it, I wish to explain two relevant points:

During my thirty-year career in the marine and energy insurance business, I represented several so called “Big Oil” clients and major oil tanker fleet owners. To fulfill their insurance needs led me to develop a close understanding of how they think. The major oil and gas companies are the most competitive, competent and professionally run operations on the planet yet extremely demanding in achieving their perceived results.   

They are ahead of everybody else including Uncle Sam and like Uncle, they have all the time, all the money and all the lawyers they need. Witness Rex Tillerson’s tumultuous tenure as Secretary of State. He knew he was better than the President, but he failed to recognize he was no longer CEO of Exxon-Mobile and Trump was now the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

I lifted what follows from an article by Jesse Barron: “Hedging Against the Apocalypse,” part of a series of essays in the April 14, 2019 climate issue of The New York Times Magazine.

I accept on face value what Mr. Barron wrote and, to the best of my ability, I have not influenced or altered his message.

Barron begins with a confrontation between Tillerson, and a Capuchin Franciscan friar, Michael Crosby, during Exxon-Mobil’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Crosby deliberately set out to upset Tillerson’s apple cart by accusing him of deliberately ignoring climate change. During their exchange, the good friar gave the CEO a run for his money scolding Tillerson by admonishing him that, “You’re living in the past.”

Crosby challenged the CEO on renewables, but Tillerson came right back at him. From my own experience, I can easily picture the biggest bully in the room gripping the rostrum, steely eyes, laser focused, reply: “Quite frankly, Father Crosby, we choose not to lose money on purpose.”

Dear reader, Tillerson’s statement sums up in a nutshell what makes Big Oil tick.

Fast forward to 2018. Never mind that Tillerson retired and Darron Woods is Exxon-Mobil’s new CEO.

Declan Flanagan, CEO of Lincoln Clean Energy, a renewables company announces that his firm has partnered with Exxon…”to build a solar farm in the Permian Basin.”

If you read the book, Friday Night Lights, saw the movie or watched the TV series, you would understand that the Permian basin was in decline in the 80’s and 90’s. Its oil fields first exploited in 1921, were running dry. Drilling was at a minimum and Odessa, the heart of the basin, was dying.

There was a solution, hydraulic fracturing, a concept first reported in a 1948 issue of Oil & Gas Journal. (Ayn Rand promoted the concept in her masterful 1957 apocalyptic novel, Atlas Shrugged.) (Who is John Gault?)

But the price of crude oil remained too low and the cost of fracturing or, fracking remained too high for this technology to be cost-effective until the millennium when the price of oil and advanced technology made it profitable.  

Barron noted in his piece: “In recent years, the Permian became the most productive oil and gas field in the United States, as…fracking…made it possible to shatter the tightly packed shale. Exxon, Chevron and their peers can now access natural gas and oil that was previously unreachable…If Permian were a country, it would rank among the largest oil states in the world.”

“All well and good but what’s the point? Simple, fracking requires an inordinate amount of electricity to be effective. Though Exxon’s deal with Lincoln is one of the most visible examples of a fossil-fuel company using renewable energy, all the Permian extraction outfits consume it…to make fracking more profitable.”

Exxon, Chevron and their partners have blanketed the surface of the Permian with solar panels installed by Lincoln for the sole purpose to pay the electric bills needed to extract the oil and gas.

Save the planet? Bah humbug: Maximize profits.

Climate change is real. What Big Oil is doing in the Permian is at best, a head-shaker and, at worse, complete pervasion of why Lincoln exists and its stated goals.

Never-the-less, because of fracking, the USA has once again become a net exporter of oil and gas and Lincoln is making a handsome profit.

Note to my readers: my computer is out of action forcing me to present an abbreviated version of this piece using my IPad.

The point of my original piece was to demonstrate that Lyndon Blaines Johnson knew from the beginning that our war in Vietnam was a “Bright and shinning lie.”

In his book, Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss reproduces LBJ’s conversation with Senator Richard Russell recorded by LBJ on May 27, 1965:

(LBJ:) “It’s the damn worst mess I ever saw…and I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them, down there in those rice paddies and jungles…It appears that our position is deteriorating. And it looks like the more that we try to do for them, the less that they are willing to do for themselves…It is just one of those places that you can’t win…it frightens me…It’d be Korea on a much bigger scale and a worse scale…The French report they lost 250,000 men and spent a couple of billion of their money and two billion of ours, down there, and just got the hell whipped out of them…we’re just in quicksand—up to our very necks.”

On March 31, 1968, almost three years later, LBJ cashed in his chips finally admitting that the military quagmire he called: That “Goddam” War had destroyed his presidency.

He concluded his otherwise banal speech to his tired and spent constituents with these two pronouncements:

“With America’s sons in the field far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to nay personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country.”

“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

So marked the beginning of the end for America to lose the war we couldn’t win. Richard Nixon gave us five more years of killing fields in Southeast Asia before the house of cards collapsed in 1973,

LBJ missed the dramatic last scene, succumbing to a heart attack on January 22 of that year. RIP.

I hope you enjoy this abbreviated and early post, and, God willing, I’ll be back in business next week.

“

K