John Delach

Jim Taylor died on October 13^th in a hospital near his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of 83. If you were interested enough to read any of the obituaries or commentaries dedicated to his life as a Hall of Fame NFL running back, you’d have noticed that Taylor’s greatest attribute was being one tough S.O.B.

I witnessed his determination on a bitterly cold afternoon in Yankee Stadium on December 30, 1962. The Green Bay Packers beat the New York Football Giants that day: 16-7 in the NFL Championship Game. Lacking today’s winter wear, I endured 17 degrees coupled with a 40 MPH wind only to suffer through my Giants inability to best Coach Vince Lombardi’s superior team.

Taylor was the key to the Packers success. This I can testify to as I watched, hid every carry up close and personal looking through my powerful 7×50 binoculars.

Robert Riger reported from the game:

“The Giants defense was mean and fiercely aggressive. They gave Jim Taylor the same treatment they had given Jimmy Brown over the years – the maximum physical effort on every play. ‘It was terrible,’ Bart Starr, the Packer quarterback confided, ‘The huddle would form, and I would watch him come back after Huff, Grier, Robustelli and the rest of the Giants defense had hit him, and he was bent over holding his insides together. I didn’t want to give it to him so much, but I had to. He’s our best man and I needed him and the 31 times he carried the ball was more than he has all season. But I’ll tell you something, if there were six downs instead of four I would have given it to him all six times and he never would have complained. He has never given anything less than his best.”

1962 was a vintage year for the both the Packers as a team and for Taylor as a player. The Packers won the Western Conference with a 13-1 record, Taylor led the league with 1.474 rushing yards and was the named the NFL’s MVP.

Richard Goldstein reported in The New York Times obituary: “Taylor engaged in a private war that day with Sam Huff the Giants middle linebacker and the leader of their vaunted defense. Taylor confessed:

‘I don’t ever remember being hit so hard. I bled the whole game. My arms bled from hitting the frozen dirt and my tongue bled after I bit it in the first half. “

Taylor’s 31 carries in the championship game netted him an additional 85 yards but Genaro C. Armas pointed out how difficult these yards were to gain: “Taylor sustained a gash to his elbow that required seven stitches at halftime and cut his tongue during the game.

“If Taylor went up to get a program, Huff was supposed to hit him. Wherever Taylor went, Huff went with him. (Taylor’s teammate,) Jerry Kramer told The Associated press in 2008, ‘I remember sitting next to Jimmy on the way home (on the flight to Green Bay) and he had his topcoat on. He never took it off. He had it over his shoulders and the guy was shivering almost all the way home. He just got the hell beat out of him that day.”

Goldstein continued: “After the game, Taylor accused Huff and some of his teammates of piling on after stopping him.”

‘Taylor likes to crawl,’ Huff responded. ‘The only way to stop Taylor is to make sure that he’s down.”

Taylor’s toughness was personified by his instinctive running style. Other premier backs like Jim Brown and Gale Sayers used finesse to make potential tacklers miss while they hurried by these frustrated opponents; but not Taylor. Lombardi explained: “Jim Brown will give you that leg to tackle and then take it away from you. Jim Taylor will give it to you and then ram it through your chest.”

Abe Woodson, the premier 49er’s defensive back also explained Taylor’s M.O.: “Most people run away from a tackle, not Taylor, even if he had a clear path to the goal line, he’d look for a defensive back to run over on the way.”

The longer I watched Taylor on that frozen afternoon, the more I became in awe of him. By the fourth quarter, the winter sun had settled and a mind-numbing cold had enveloped the playing field and we, the faithful fans, Taylor was hunched over, reduced to hobbling back to the huddle like a cripple, bent over and spitting up blood. Still, when Starr called the next play, Taylor, lined up in the “T” formation behind Starr and charged ahead at the snap of the ball either to carry it or to block for Paul Horning, his running mate. He did this repeatedly with the same ferocity until the referee fired the shot that ended the contest.

Taylor scored the only offensive touchdown in the game and this is how he described his score, a seven-yard run, and rest of the game:

“It was the only play of the game they didn’t touch me. But they made up for it the rest of this miserable afternoon. It was the toughest game of my life. They really came to play.”

Jim Taylor: RIP

I would not have discovered the existence of Gulliver’s Gate had it not been for a letter from an old colleague and model train enthusiast, Fred Fort. Fred has experienced the ultimate HO model train exhibit in the world, Minatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany. When Fred’s daughter alerted him that a similar exhibit is on display in Manhattan, Fred passed this news to me knowing I shared his love of model trains.

It’s true, both as a kid and a young teen, I made an annual pilgrimage to the Lionel layout located at 15 East 26the Street just to the north of Madison Square Park. I traveled there with my cousins, Bill and Bob on a given Saturday between Thanksgiving and Christmas during the mid-1950s. O Gauge ruled s kid’s world of trains making Lionel the king of electric trains far more important than American Flyer or Marx. The release each fall of their annual catalogue was a national holiday in Lionel’s kid’s kingdom and the Lionel layout was our Mecca.

Most of us grew out of our trains. Lionel itself went out of vogue, their layout closed, and we too, ceased to build our Christmas layouts. Trains were boxed and put away, plywood boards were relegated to garages, cellars or basements and we moved on with our lives. Having children brought about a resurrection. Now mature adults (more or less,) we added switches, elevated routes, bigger transformers and the capability of running multiple trains at the same time. Some converted to HO, but I added to my O Gauge motive power and rolling stock.

A second resurrection followed the arrival of grandchildren. I joined the Train Collectors Association, (TCA) and journeyed to York, Pennsylvania where I gladly joined an army of old men ogling over various locomotives, diesel engines, rolling stock and accessories. We justified all the stuff we bought by telling ourselves, it was for the grandkids.

What a seasonal layout I created in our family room. A town trolley, an elevated subway train, a long-distance passenger train and a grand and varied freight all running at the same time. Mary Ann created the scenery that gave it class. We proudly watched as each child took it in for the first time with eyes wide open and disbelief at this miracle of electric technology.

How dated. How obsolete, one by one, each of the five outgrew interest as new electronics accelerated their loss of interest. It ended one season when the only times I turned them on and ran them was for my pleasure…sad, and so it goes.

Now I attend train shows when convenient, so the knowledge of Gulliver’s Gate was a welcomed invitation to enjoy one close to home. My companion, my youngest grandson, Cace, eleven. Tickets in hand, we set out on the last day in August for 214 West 44 Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. I’d watched several videos about this exhibit and I warned Cace: “I think there’s a big difference between this layout and the one in Germany. The one in Hamburg is train-centric and this one is architecture-centric with the trains playing a secondary role.

However, I was perplexed about its location. How did the designer find a space big enough in mid-Manhattan to build an exhibit as large as I imagined this one must be? As we walked east from Eighth Avenue, I had my answer. “Of course, it is domiciled in the vast second floor of the old New York Times printing plant.” The exhibit partially fills a vast space once filled with old linotype machines and other equipment that printers used to publish the daily paper.

As soon as we entered the space, I knew my observation was correct. If you plan to see Gulliver’s Gate, leave your engineer’s hat at home. It is a terrific exhibit, but trains are a minor part and many of them were not operating. I don’t believe they were out of order. My impression is that the operators choose which trains will run that day. Nonetheless, the builders have created excellent renditions of important structures from all over the world. New York City has received the prime focus that includes the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, the World Trade Center Memorial and all the major sky scrapers. The High Line Park is included, and Grand Central Terminal has trains running in its basement (not operating that day.) The exhibit is capped off with a working model of the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The exhibit took us to London, Rome, Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow Beijing the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Mexico and South America. Panama included two working locks from the canal. Model ships enter the locks, the gates are closed, water is either pumped in or pumped out lifting or lowering the models to the correct level. Cace and I thought this was the best working feature of the exhibit until we visited the airport located in a separate space.

The Airport has timed takeoffs and landings. Before the takeoff, a model airliner taxies out to the end of the runway. First, white Take off lights come on, then, they intensify just before the aircraft begins to move. The sound of jet engines fills the room as the plane accelerates, rotates and climbs with the assistance of a rod connected to the belly. It stops on a metal platform above the end of the runway where the rod is disconnected, and a device transports it into a passageway out of sight behind a wall.

The plane reappears and enters a second platform at the other end of the runway. A rod is re-connected that brings it in for a landing and a final taxi to the tarmac.

Pretty neat and worthwhile seeing. But, and there is always a but: From the videos I’ve seen, I truly doubt if it competes with the airport operation at Minatur Wunderland.

Minatur Wunderland is the major leagues and Gulliver’s Gate is AAA minor leagues, the best of the minor leagues but still the minor leagues. Then again, taking a train ride to Midtown Manhattan from Port Washington is considerably easier than making a flight to Hamburg.

“On any given Sunday, any given team can defeat any other given team.”

Bert Bell: NFL Commissioner 1945-1959

February 7, 2008; my son and I witnessed our 12-7 Football Giants take on the 18-0 New England Patriots whose fans expected victory and the Pats coronation as the greatest NFL team ever.

The Giants started the game by keeping the ball for 9:59, a Super Bowl record for an opening drive. It ended with a field goal; Giants 3-0. Michael and I decided to forego our seats at the top of the upper deck to stand behind a handicapped seating area considerably closer to the field. A security guard confirmed we could stand there. “You just have to stay three feet from the last row of seats.” So that’s where we stood for the rest of the game.

Tension filled the day as the first half continued. Even though the Patriots scored in the second quarter; the score was only 7-3. It remained fixed at this number when the Giants forced Tom Brady to fumble at the end of the first half. I said to Michael, “I’m glad that we are standing. I’m too stressed to sit. This is insane. I think the key to this game will be the Patriots opening drive in the second half. If the Giants stop them, we have a chance.”

I looked around Phoenix University Stadium during halftime. The girders supporting the closed retractable roof are impressive, the sightlines were good and the field; first rate. But the scoreboard was garish and so busy with junk that it was hard to find the score, down or yards to go. The P.A. announcer was awful. His voice was a far cry from Bob Shepherd’s melodious voice.

What I saw in the Giants so far was complete focus and intensity. They retained it as the third quarter began, stopping the Patriots and forcing them to punt. And they accomplished this despite having a penalty called on them for having twelve men on the field for a previous punt gave the Patriots new life on that drive.

The score remained 7-3 at the fourth-quarter began. That was when the Giants seized the moment and scored on their first drive on a 5-yard pass from Eli Manning to David Tyree that Tyree caught in the end zone right in front of us; Giants 10-7.

Oh boy, oh boy. I thought I was going to explode. The Patriots stalled and punted on their next possession as did the Giants. Now 7:54 remained in the game as the Patriots started their next drive at their 20-yard line. Brady finally got his act together and engineered an 80-yard drive scoring on a third-down pass to Randy Moss with 2:42 left in the game, Patriots 14-10.

A Patriot fan standing near us pulled out a cigar held it in the air and announced, “This game is over.”

“I’m not so sure.” I said to Michael. “There’s a lot of time left on the clock and the Giants have all three time-outs.”

By now many of the stadium employees had stopped working and were watching the game. A big, bald security guard stood next to me. As the Giant offense returned to the field after they had run the kickoff out to the 17-yard line, I turned to him and said, “What do you think?”

He replied, “I think the kid can do it.”

And so, he did.

Manning put together a 12 play, 83-yard drive highlighted by his great Houdini-like escape from the Patriot linemen when they had him on the brink of ending the game. Manning escaped their clutches, sprinted away from them, turned and flung the ball 32-yards. At the receiving end, Tyree made an impossible one handed catch off his helmet. A few plays later, when Plaxico Burress put a move on Ellis Hobbs, all he had to do was catch Manning’s lob and get two feet inbounds – he did, Giants 17-14.

I kissed the security guard on the top of his head.

The Patriots had one last chance with 34 seconds and three time-outs left. When rookie tackle, Jay Alford, nailed Brady on second down, I had the hope that the Patriots wouldn’t reach field goal range, but I held my breath when Brady tried to hit Moss on a pass he must have thrown 75-yards. Corey Webster knocked the ball away at the last second. Ten seconds left on the clock and I was still holding my breath. When Brady’s next pass went incomplete, I lost track of the downs and Michael had to remind me that last pass was on fourth down and the Giants now had the ball for the one second remaining on the clock.

When Michael lifted me in the air, I knew the Giants had won. The fellow with the cigar stood in stunned silence. Michael yelled to him, “You know where you can put that cigar now.”

We couldn’t hear the trophy presentation and we were too far away to watch it, so Michael and I jubilantly exited the stadium to meet the drivers, wait for our mates and enjoy victory beers.

As we filed out past a sea of ticket hawkers now trying to buy used Super Bowl XLII tickets for souvenir re-sale, I asked Michael: “If we had to play these guys ten times, how many games do you think we’d win?”

“We just saw it, Pop.”

Our mates arrived in short order. We didn’t stay long and began the crawl out of the parking lot. The mood was overwhelmingly joyful. We had just seen the greatest football game any of us had ever seen. Then Michael noticed a young woman wearing a Brady jersey walk by. He leaned out the window and said, “Don’t worry, Tom, 18-1 ain’t bad.”

“F**k off.” came her reply.

Brilliant, Michael had nailed her!

(On the Outside Looking in will publish on Thursday next week.)

Not too long ago, my grandson, Matthew asked my assistance with a report he had to submit for a high school class. The subject was should we have a military draft? “What do you think, Grandpa?”

Matt knows I’m an old Goldwater conservative, so he did not expect my response: “Absolutely! Citizen-soldiers protect the armed forces from being over used.”

Today we have professional, all-volunteer armed forces including the reserves. The patriotic men and women who choose to join the service want to be there and they bring a degree of commitment and professionalism to all the branches that would be watered down by draftees.

Draftees just want to do their time and get out. Army Reserve and National Guard units would revert to the days when individuals opted for six months of active duty and a six-year reserve commitment to fulfill their required service.

I accept that the commitment and dedication of our professional armed service would surely suffer, especially the Army, but I believe that such a downgrading is a price worth paying to offset the downside of an all-volunteer Army.

Our all-volunteer service has created a new form of separation, not by race, religion, background, education or nationality, but one that basically divides America. We have the few who serve while the rest of us go on with our lives completely removed from their sacrifices as if our endless wars don’t even exist.

Of course, there is public recognition of those who serve. Cosmetic recognition in the form of staged events such as honoring service members at sports events, football and baseball games, the Super Bowl and the World Series. We honor them during Fourth of July patriotic concerts and with pre-planned scripted TV moments showing returning troops surprising spouses and kids (usually at school.) We are conditioned to thank troops for their service and object to any behavior that could disrespect these men and women. They fight while we sprout feel good platitudes.

Meanwhile, we live our lives, attend births, holidays, graduations, marriages and funerals. Life goes on while far in the background, mostly soldiers and Marines suffer and die in lonely places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and hot spots in other Middle Eastern and African locations. We have been engaged in “War Without End” since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and nobody screams, “Isn’t enough, enough?”

We protest if someone slights the flag or football players kneel at the playing of our National Anthem, but our leaders don’t seem too give a damn that we are engaged in two wars, both longer than the sum of all the wars we fought in our nation’s history.

The clock on the Afghan War will tick over to 17 years this October. Iraq, in all its gestations, is right behind it. To date: “More than three million Americans have served in uniform in these wars. Nearly, 7,000 of them have died. Tens of thousands more have been wounded.”

Where is the outrage? Where are the protesters? I find it strangely sad that the old Viet Nam War protesters who I watched fill the green at the top of Main Street in Keene NH, to protest W’s war against Saddam don’t bother to picket any longer. They gave up during Obama’s reign or just became too old.

Instead of outrage over the death and maiming of our greatest national treasure, our young patriots, the protesters march against ICE, the World Trade Organization, Civil War Statues and other causes too stupid to mention.

Meanwhile, soldiers and Marines continue to give their lives for real estate that their bosses abandon in six months. Sadly, they are called on to do this repeatedly. Six month or one-year tours in “the sand box” until they get out, break down, or return maimed or in flag draped coffins.

How many times can the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe they can send these brave men and women into harm’s way repeatedly before they break down? Enough is enough! Stop the madness!

The draft would re-establish a basic tenet of our Republic. Historically, a citizen army fights our wars and we need a citizen army to end this abuse of power.

No president since FDR has asked Congress for a Declaration of War. Our Constitution mandates that only Congress can declare that we are at war. Congress, long ago abdicated their authority and signed off on various Executive Orders taking us to war. Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and whatever heroic name we use for that Afghan mess were all mandated using smoke and mirrors.

Presidents and the Congress realize that we, the American public, are content with our all-volunteer armed forces as we abhor the thought of little Johnny or Suzie being drafted and being killed in a war. Those we can’t trust exploit the volunteer army. So long as patriotic men and women volunteer to serve, the beat goes on

During the eight years when Dwight David Eisenhower was president, we had the draft and we didn’t lose one service man in combat. Ike detested putting his soldiers in harm’s way.

Today, we allow our leaders to thoughtlessly discard our sons and daughters, our greatest generation, because we don’t hold these leaders accountable. Shame on us! A draft would re-establish an army of citizen soldiers like our Republic meant it to be.

With a draft, if a future president attempted to dispatch Johnny or Suzie to China or Lower Nowhere without cause, we’d take to the streets for the real deal: “Hell no, we won’t go!.”

The Wall Street Journal recently published a piece about the next America’s Cup challenge. The Kiwi’s wrested the cup away from Larry Ellison in 2017 and brought it back to New Zealand. The next challenge is scheduled for 2021 and Ellison’s defeat opened a run by the New York Yacht Club to represent the United States in that challenge. So far, no other American challengers have appeared and “New York Yacht Club’s American Magic,” is backed by a $100 million fund. Granted, they have a long way to go but, if successful, they would return the Cup to 37 West 44 Street where it resided from 1851 to 1983.

Geoff Jones drew my attention to this fact and when Geoff asked me if I had interest in reading this article, my first reaction was to tell him my experience in 1984 while waiting for my overnight flight to London at JFK. I had made my way to the Ambassadors Club, TWA’s pay-to-play private club that catered to frequent flyers by providing a quiet oasis.

Enjoying a pre-boarding Jameson on the rocks, I found myself in a conversation with an Aussie enjoying his Beefeater Martini. The Royal Perth Yacht Club had wrested the cup from the New York Yacht Club that past September. A momentous achievement as the New York Yacht Club had successfully defended it for 132 years, ending the longest winning streak in sporting history.

He asked what my thoughts were on losing the cup and I cavalierly replied: “You have to understand that ocean racing is an elitist sport and most Americans don’t pay much attention to it.”

I should have realized that he must have been involved with the cup victory and measured my responce accordingly. He confirmed this by explaining that he was a member of Alan Bond’s syndicate. I congratulated him but didn’t apologize for my remark.

Alan Bond was a bigger than life rouge, a phenomenon who went from rags to riches to disgrace in a mercurial manner. Bond recalls other rogues that populated the planet in the late Twentieth and the early Twenty First Centuries. Bernie Cornfeld, who created International Overseas Services, (IOS) with his evangelical command: “Do you sincerely want to be rich?” When IOS crashed and burned, Robert Vesco, another rouge, resurrected it until the SEC chased him into exile in Cuba. Bernie Madoff, who engineered the largest Ponzi scheme of all times, Crazy Eddie Antar whose pitchman guaranteed that “His Prices Were Insane” as was his business plan and Sean Quinn who rose to become the richest man in Ireland worth $6 Billion in 2008 only to declare bankruptcy by 2011.

Bond paved his way to success by using the tired true M.O. of most great rogues, “OPM,” Other Peoples’ Money. “Bond was a skilled salesman with a knack for coming up with cash. He never worried about whether he’d get credit. His early business partner, Cam McNab, (said) that Bond would often buy something that they could refinance on the occasions that they couldn’t pay their wages bill.”

At the time Bond first began his quest to take control of the America’s Cup in 1974, the Bond Corporation was already seriously in debt. Between 1971 and 1974 it had grown 12-fold, but its borrowings had grown 20-fold. accumulating $100 Million in debt.

He chose to win the cup to showcase his mega real estate investment, Yanchep Sun City, a luxury lifestyle for 200,000 people. Potential owners and investors were not exactly flocking to Sun City and it badly needed a boost.

When asked by a reporter if he entered the quest for the sake of sport, Bond erupted: “Anyone who considers racing for the America’s Cup isn’t a business proposition is a bloody fool. There can be no other justification for spending $6 Million on the Australian challenge unless the return is going to involve more than just an ornate silver pitcher.”

It took Bond four attempts to do it. The first three failed, Southern Cross lost 4-0 to Courageous in 1974 as did Australia in 1977. In 1980, Australia lost to Liberty, 4-1.

God only knows how much money Bond spent in 1983. The new boat, Australia II, was shrouded in secrecy and literally kept under wraps to hide its winged keel, designed by Ben Lexcen. Bond attacked the cup with military precision complimenting Lexcen’s genius with the superb sailing ability of skipper, John Bertrand. Still, Dennis Conner made it close losing the Cup, 3 to 4.

Bond was a national hero, and his empire seemed to prosper. It wasn’t until 1987 that it began to implode hitting bottom in 1992 when he declared bankruptcy with a debt of $1.8 billion. His marriage collapsed, he was convicted of fraud for syphoning off $1.2 billion from Bell Resources and sentenced to four years in prison.

Paul Barry, a reporter, was incensed by the shortness of his sentence. Barry noted that a 22-year-old Aboriginal man was given a mandatory penalty of a year for stealing $23 worth of biscuits.  “Had the same formula applied to Bond, he would have been imprisoned for 50 million years,”

Bond died in 2012 at 77.

Prior to 1983, the America’s Cup was proudly displayed mounted on a large table in the foyer of the New York Yacht Club on West Forty-Fourth Street in Manhattan. I was invited to lunch shortly after Bond won the cup and it was as if it was never there. Even though the United States has regained the cup twice since 1983, the winning boats did not fly the pennant of the NYYC, so the cup has never returned to the club.

New York Yacht Club’s American Magic may be their great WASP hope.

Although my 57^th year being a Football Giants season ticket holder began on Sunday September 9 with a 20-15 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars my hope is they recover and press on. Meanwhile, I’d like to reflect on some odd experiences and thoughts about the mostly enjoyable but sometimes frustrating journey of being a season ticket holder.

Mike Francesca, the top-rated sports talk guy on WFAN in New York once described Football Giants season ticket holders as white-male, mostly middle aged or older who believe all home games should begin at 1 PM so they can return home in time for their evening martini. He almost hit the nail on the head, but I see no reason why the games can’t start at 2 PM as they did in 1962 and my cocktail of choice is 12-year old Red Breast in a short glass with three ice cubes.

I define the end of summer as the first morning that I step outside to retrieve the newspapers and sense the rising sun has yet to cut through the slight chill from the previous night. I never cease to thrill at the feel and smell of such a morning when I think to myself: “Ah, football weather.”

The best Sunday of the year is opening day when everything is possible. The second happiest day of the year is when the season tickets arrive in the mail. So, help me, I still get charged as I open the envelope. (Unfortunately, NFL teams are encouraging fans to download game tickets electronically to their smart phones, the Giants included. This year the powers that be referred to my cardboard printed tickets as “souvenir tickets” a portent of things to come and so it goes.)

I no longer attend night games although, playoff games may be exceptions.

Worst three defeats I witnessed. Number One: The loss to the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game in Yankee Stadium, the coldest I have ever been. At 18-years old, I was crushed as my new love, the Football Giants lost 16-7. Number two: Super Bowl XXXV. In Tampa. The Ravens cleaned our clocks and the money I pissed away ticked me off, big time. Number Three: The overtime playoff loss to the Rams in Giants Stadium in 1989 when Flipper Anderson caught the winning pass right in front of us and just kept running off the field and into the tunnel leading to the visitor’s locker room. We were stunned, and I’ve never witnessed a packed stadium being that quiet. (Honorable mention: The Fumble on November 19, 1978 against the Eagles.)

Top three victories: Super Bowl XLII. (I will cover this in a separate piece, but the Giants won, and I traveled to Arizona to see the game with my son.) Number two: Super Bowl XXV. This came about by chance; my mates discovered a pool of tickets available for the taking at a reasonable price and four of us jumped on it. The Big Sombrero in Tampa versus the Buffalo Bills with the war in Iraq as a backdrop. Long story, short; Scott Norwood missed a 45-yard field goal letting us celebrate a 20-19 victory. Number three, the 1986 NFC Championship Game vs. the Redskins in the howling winds of Giants Stadium. The hawk was blowing that day allowing Sean Landetta, the Giants punter, to be the hero that day and send Big Blue to SB XXI.

I’ve rooted for the Giants at home in Yankee Stadium from 1962 to 1973, Yale Bowl in 1973 and 1974, Shea Stadium in 1975, Giants Stadium from 1976 to 2009 and now Met Life Stadium. Frankly speaking, Giants Stadium was a brilliant facility for football and head and shoulders above the abomination that is Met Life Stadium.

We began to tailgate in the early ‘80s and although the cast of characters has changed and evolved, the energy, team loyalty and our joy has been an enormous factor for many of us to continue attending games. Even in bad years we persist. Few summer soldiers in this group. We persevere through the heat of September, the great football weather of October and most of November, but also in the rains of late fall and that hawk that blasts cold Canadian wind through the Meadowlands with a vengeance in December and, God willing, during the playoffs.

To be a fan also means struggling to return home. For reasons, too numerous to enumerate, the options available to cross the Hudson River have been reduced to only the George Washington Bridge. Traffic is a nightmare just to reach the bridge where we only face several bad alternatives to cross the Bronx and make our way to Long Island. At seventy-four, I concede my alpha male role as driver to Joe M, my long-time mate, contrarian and resident cardiologist.

Since 1990, my son and I have enjoyed multiple out-of-town trips. We have been to the homes of the Bills, Patriots, Steelers, Bengals, Bears, Packers, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Saints, Cardinals, Rams, Chiefs, Cowboys, Texans, Seahawks, Forty-Niners and Chargers.

My personal favorite was visiting Lambeau Field, the NFL’s version of Mecca. This trip was made special by including my two oldest grandsons, Drew and Matt.

The worst experience was in San Diego. We were a group of ten. Unfortunately, most of us became involved in a short-lived altercation with local Charger fans. (Two of our mates were absent having left to make a pit stop.) Security guards broke it up with the aid of a San Diego patrolman. It appeared we were going to get the worse of the blame when our two mates, Tom C. and James B. re-appeared not knowing what had happened. “Seeing them, I exclaimed to the cop: “Wait, wait, my attorney is here.” (James B.)

James spoke to the policeman then came over to me and said: “He is willing to let us go if we let him escort us out of the stadium right now.”

Aware of our peril, I announced to the group: “On the advice of counsel, we are going to get the f*** out of here right now.”

As we exited each one of us thanked the officer and shook his hand.

John McCain received in death honors and accolades on a scale that makes me wonder how Bob Dole, another war hero and a senator of even greater accomplishment will be honored when he meets his demise. Will he lie in state in the capital rotunda and be remembered by congressional leaders and past presidents? And what of George Herbert Walker Bush and Jimmy Carter? I am not suggesting that the respect and admiration that McCain received was undeserved. I am asking instead; will these heroes be treated likewise?

The McCain men can truly cast their family shield with the motto: “Honor and Devotion to Duty.” Both principles are difficult to abide by even in the best of times. The late senator remained true to duty, country and the navy a code he inherited from his father and his grandfather. They all steadfastly stayed the course despite troubled waters and great storms.

We all know the story of his ordeal in the Hanoi Hilton, the infamous North Vietnamese prison and how he refused to accept an early release.

McCain spoke of this in a recent documentary. About a year into his captivity, the NV powers realized that he was the son of the admiral in charge of the navy’s forces in the Pacific. McCain recalled being led into a room where an interrogator who spoke perfect French and English explained to him that he would be released shortly on humanitarian grounds. McCain replied that the service didn’t allow for that and the interrogator countered that it didn’t apply because of the extent of his injuries. McCain again refused and explained his injuries weren’t that severe. The interrogator grew angry and said: “Things will be very difficult for you from now on.”

And they were; torture and solitary confinement. But McCain endured and remained captive for five years until all his mates were also freed.

His grandfather suffered a different ordeal at the hands of the US Navy and his son, Senator McCain’s father, became caught up in it.

During World War II, operations of the Pacific Fleet were so complex and the fleet so large that it was treated as two fleets, the 3^rd Fleet and the 5^th Fleet. It operated as the 3^rd Fleet when under the command of William F. Halsey and as the 5^th Fleet when under the command of Raymond A. Spruance. While one admiral and his staff commanded the fleet for approximately a six-month tour, the other admiral and his staff planed future operations for their next tour of duty.

The same ships but two different command structures. Halsey’s second in command was John S. McCain who commanded Task Force 38 that included most of the fighting ships in the fleet; the aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and escorts.

On May 17, 1945, Halsey relieved Spruance and the 5^th Fleet became the 3^rd Fleet. At that time the fleet was still supporting the invasion of Okinawa, preparing further strikes against Japan and the upcoming invasions of the home islands that fall. Early the next month, a typhoon was reported heading on a course to intercept the fleet. Based on inadequate forecasts, Halsey and McCain made several changes in course that led to a substantial part of the fleet sailing directly into the eye. Fortunately, no ships were lost but many suffered damage and lives were lost. Several aircraft carriers lost airplanes and the forward parts of their flight decks. Smaller ships suffered hull damage and the USS Pittsburgh, a heavy cruiser, lost its entire bow.

A court of inquiry found Halsey to be primarily at fault and McCain secondarily at fault. The court recommended that consideration be given to assigning both men to other duty.

Senator John McCain published a memoir in 1999 called “Faith of my Fathers.” In the book’s opening chapter, he relates that his father, then commander of a submarine met up with his grandfather in Tokyo Bay. The book contains a famous photo of the two men standing side by side in kaki uniforms on the deck of a submarine tender. The senator’s father stands erect with folded arms looking fit and ready. His grandfather is leaning against a rope barrier with his arm on the top rope. He slouches and looks weary and drawn.

Senator McCain recalled that his grandfather didn’t want to stay for the surrender and asked Halsey to allow him to skip it and fly home. McCain writes: (Halsey replied,) “Maybe you do, but you’re not going. You were commanding this task force when the war ended, and I’m making sure that history gets it right.”

The senator doesn’t explain with any detail why these two admirals had this debate. But his grandfather left for home following the surrender and the meeting with his son only to collapse and die the evening he arrived home during a house party held in his honor.

The admiral was furious, depressed and suffering, Upon the fleet’s arrival in Tokyo Bay, Halsey was ordered to tell McCain that James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy, had relieved McCain  of command of Task Force 38 because of his actions and errors during the typhoon.

Halsey only received a slap on the wrist, not because he wasn’t responsible, rather because Halsey, who was known to the American people as, “Bull Halsey,” was a national hero who stopped the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the war’s darkest days. McCain was just another admiral, relatively unknown, so Forrestal handed him Halsey’s gilded lily and it killed him.

I don’t know if the senator’s father knew this when he last saw his father and the photo was taken but he continued his brilliant naval career and both the late senator and his son, John, followed. The son is now a naval lieutenant.

The McCains’ have kept that faith. Honor and devotion to duty above all else and protect the Navy at all costs.

RIP John McCain

When my cousin Bob, offered me a new book on the loss of the cruiser, USS Indianapolis, I groaned at the thought of reading another account of this tragedy. This cruiser’s sinking resulted in the greatest loss of life by a US Navy ship while at sea in the history of our Republic. Only the battleship Arizona suffered a greater loss of life while moored in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. One thousand, one hundred and seventy-seven, (1,177) men died when a high-altitude bomber dropped an armor piercing naval shell fitted with fins above the ship that scored a one in a million hit. The bomb penetrated several decks before it exploded in the number two main gun turret magazine. An incredible explosion followed that literary blew the battleship apart instantaneously.

When the Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine, I-58 in the early morning darkness of July 29, 1945, approximately, 900 crew members of the 1,195 on board managed to escape their dying ship that sank in twelve minutes. Some found rafts or other floating material to climb aboard, but most went into the fuel saturated water with only life vests. A series of stupid, sad and, yes, negligent events bordering on being criminal allowed the ship to become invisible to naval operations on its voyage from Guam to Leyte. Survivors of the sinking spent four to five days adrift before being rescued. Exposure, depleting body temperature, lack of food and fresh water, oil and salt water poisoning, the sun, dehydration and the greatest and most feared enemy, sharks, took their toll repeatedly.

The authors quoted Robert Shaw who played the shark hunter, Captain Quinn, in the movie, Jaws:

Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes…Very first light, Chief, the sharks come cruisin’. So we formed ourselves into tight groups …And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man, and then he’d start poundin’ and hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the shark would go away…Sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.  Seem to be livin’ When he comes at ya, he doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then…ah, then you hear that terrible high-screech screamin’, and the ocean turns red, and in spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and rip you to pieces.

Nine hundred went into the water and only 317 came out.

Despite my hesitation to take on Lynn Vincent’s and Sara Vladic’s new book simply called, Indianapolis, I came away with praise for their thorough re-telling of the saga and updating the final vindication of Charles B. McVay III, the persecuted captain of the Indianapolis.

In one of the most blatant acts of “Cover your own ass,” Admiral of the fleet, Ernest J. King, insisted on McVay being court marshalled for failing to zig-zag during a night passage and leaving hatches open at the time of being torpedoed. Curiously, Chester Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet and McVay’s boss, disagreed.

McVay lived an agonized life after his conviction. The survivors loved him culminating when he and his wife, Louise, attended the first reunion of the crew in the cruiser’s name-sake city in 1960 where he gave a moving and heart felled speech. Still, he suffered hate filled letters from those who lost family. In 1963, eighteen years after his command was lost, McVay walked out behind his Connecticut home and ended his torment with a bullet from his revolver.

The point MS Vincent and MS Vladic make in their book is King and co. chose to protect the Navy at McVay’s expense. King’s miscarriage of justice wasn’t exonerated until July 1999 when a compilation of evidence reached Senator Bob Smith of NH. (Read the book for the details.)

It proved that McVay was set up. Long story short, the evidence was a slam dunk in McVay’s favor, but John Warner, the committee chairman and former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan was too loyal to the Navy, so he blocked publication of the findings by his committee. Finally,  late in 1999, Warner received a letter from Mochitsura Hasimoto, commander of Submarine I-58 who sank Indianapolis.

In 1947 when the expression “optics” that describes how something will be received by the public was unknown, the Navy flew Captain Hasimoto to Washington DC to testify against Captain McVay! Not only was McVay the only captain court marshalled, much less convicted for losing his ship in World War II, the Navy had the audacity to present the enemy submarine captain as their witness.)

In a turn around that struck Warner’s soul, Hasimoto wrote:

“I have met many of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain’s name. Our Peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your people forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.”

Warner was blown away and released the committee’s findings to the Senate floor on October 12, 2000. Both houses passed the resolution and then Secretary of the Navy, Gordan England, formally and forcefully entered a two-paragraph addendum into McVay’s record totally exonerating him.  Finally, justice was served.

I watched my first close call while riding north on the Van Wyck Expressway years ago. A brightly painted Braniff 727 flew over me on its approach to LaGuardia Airport. Quickly, I knew something was wrong. The glide path was too shallow for a landing. Then the airplane began to climb and veer to the left. Up ahead, a second Braniff 727 rose into the air from the same runway banking hard right as it climbed.

Since that day I have witnessed or been involved in several near misses and close calls during the almost thirty years of my life as a frequent flyer. I have been on two flights where the pilot flew into dead air, once somewhere over the Carolinas on a flight from Jacksonville and the other over the Hudson River approaching LaGuardia. The first incident happened during meal service launching trays, meals, flight attendants, carts and unbelted passengers into the air. They retuned thanks to gravity with remarkably no worse for the experience except for spills, stains and a few bumps and bruises. The second was more dramatic being that much closer to the ground. Fortunately, we had prepared for landing and everything and everyone remained in place. The pilot quickly accelerated as he banked over the Meadowlands where he found good air. We passengers maintained complete silence until the wheels hit the ground.

Two aborted takeoffs, one in St. Louis and the other in Bermuda. In both instances, somebody had wandered onto the runway. I also witnessed a similar near miss at Houston (now Bush) Intercontinental Airport. An Eastern 727 about to land had to abort as a single engine prop plane crossed the runway in front of it.

I also lived through two near miss collisions while in the air. The first happened over the Alps on a clear morning. Alan Gardiner and I were heading to Paris from Kula Lumpur on a MAS 747 when I saw a dot on the horizon. The dot grew into a Swiss Air DC-10 that was desperately climbing as it crossed over us. I joked that it was so close that I could read the pilot’s name tag. His name was Hans. The second happened over New Jersey on an outbound flight from JFK. We were still climbing as I gazed out a window. Suddenly, the entire window was filled by a turbo-prop commuter airliner that crossed over my jet. Seconds later, it was gone.

I have lived through two touch and go aborted landings. The first happened in the late fall of 1990 on a flight from Copenhagen to Oslo on a SAS MD-80. Oslo was socked in as the pilot began his approach on instruments. I watched as we descended but saw only clouds. Down and down we went for what seemed to be forever. Finally, we broke through the cloud cover and to my shock, all I saw were houses. Almost immediately, the crew accelerated and quickly climbed out of there. Nothing was said until we reached cruising altitude when the pilot advised that we would shortly attempt a second instrument landing. His explanation for aborting the first was, “They brought us in too close the first time.” This begs the question, “To close to what?”

The second was my closest call of all. I was on a trip to visit Waterman Steamship in Mobile, Alabama and I traveled on American Airlines with my colleague, Louise Varnas. American was a new player on the route to Mobile having established a new hub in Nashville. We changed gates and MD-80s there. Before the airplane pulled back from the gate, the pilot announced: “Right now we are being held here because rain and fog conditions in Mobile are below the acceptable minimum. The airport does expect to re-open in less than an hour and I believe we will go tonight. But, if you feel uncomfortable, you may disembark and try again tomorrow.”

The airplane was less than half full and about a third of those on board decided to deplane. Louise and I discussed our alternatives knowing that we had a meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. the next day. I decided to put my trust in the pilot and Louise reluctantly agreed to join me.

As promised we left a bit over an hour later for the relatively short flight to Mobile. Conditions while now acceptable were almost down to the minimum and the pilot made sure the airplane was buttoned up for this instrument landing. Like in Oslo, it seemed to take forever and I’m not sure I saw the ground just before the wheels hit the runway or vice versa. Either way, we were too far down the runway to commit and the pilot hit the throttles to climb out of there.

Once at altitude he explained what had happened then advised: “I am going to give it one more try and if it’s too dicey, I’m calling it off and we’ll return to Nashville.”

Take two, this time he touched down where he wanted to, (more or less,) and slammed on the brakes and reverse thrusters pulling us away from our seats so only the belt stopped us from catapulting forward. I still have the imprint of Louise’s nails on my shoulder. Needless to say,

we both enjoyed a stiff drink once we reached the hotel.

When we related our experience at the meeting the next morning, Bob Parker, Waterman’s Risk Manager, looked at us quizzically. He shook his head and explained: “You don’t know how lucky you are. They just completed a long-planned runway extension last week.”

It occurs to me as I write this, the number two is prevalent throughout this piece. Whatever that means.  

Happy flying.

On board Holland America’s MV Massdam, July 23, 2010:

Today, our ship is scheduled to cross southern Greenland from west to east through Prince Christian Sound as part of our trans-Atlantic cruise deemed: “Voyage of the Vikings.” We had been warned this passage could be cancelled at any time, so I was totally attentive when shortly after nine, James Russell-Dunford, the ship’s information director announced in his booming voice:

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

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

I return to my book continue to read while glancing out over the bow. When the electronic gong sounds signaling another announcement. I look up and there in the distance breaking through the mist directly in front of the ship I spy a mountain at least 2,000 or 3,000 feet high. “Where did that come from?” I remark to the woman in the next seat. As I rise to leave, the captain announces we were going to start a passage. “I may have to turn around if conditions deteriorate, but right now I am satisfied with visibility and ice conditions.”

I hurry to our cabin to don protective clothing, rain pants over my jeans, sweatshirt, wind breaker, wool vest and a new waterproof rain jacket. A Tilley’s rain hat tops off my outfit and to the bow I rush. I stay only long enough to photograph the entrance to the straits then move to the stern out of the wind and rain; away from the crowds. Here I stay for the entire passage except for lunch in the Lido and a camera battery change. A cold rain persists but, not only do I survive, more importantly, so does my camera.

My reward; some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever witnessed. It may have been more pleasant had the sun been out, certainly far more colorful, but the low clouds and mist add drama that, in my opinion, trumps color. Mountains exceeding 4,000 feet line the sound towering over the ship, as close as 500 feet on either side of the channel. At times, layers of clouds wrap around their faces, clinging to the sides obscuring them, but allowing crags and peaks to poke through. Other times, the drab gray, brown and green formations break free of the mist. Countless waterfalls drain pockets of ice and snow while seven different glaciers descend from the mountains, one directly into the sound. Icebergs of all sizes, shapes and colors drift by. The captain’s enthusiasm grows as we continue and, at some point he silently decides we will complete the journey including a side-trip to a lone Inuit village that clings to a flat, rock plateau.

Approximately 150 men, women and children inhabit Aappilattoq, (Ap-pil-at-tog) an isolated hamlet of small pre-fabricated houses perched at a junction of canyons. Once again, my senses are jolted by the exterior colors of the Inuit’s homes; bright and vivid reds, greens, blues and yellows.

The natives fish for sustenance and hunt seal to make a living. The captain sails Maasdam past the village into a wide basin where the ship makes a 180-degree looping turn to continue east along a different passage. The ship’s horn bellows as we complete the turn calling out skiffs from the village. Four appear, a single man in the first, two villagers in the second, six in the third including at least three children and three in the last. The boats are similar, white open skiffs with huge outboards. Two of the drivers stand steering by means of long handles attached to the motors. They wave and take photographs of us as we wave and take photos of them.

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

We exit the sound just after 4 pm. I took more than 250 photos over the seven hours that I spent on deck which I edit down to 100.

What a fabulous day!