John Delach

A Guest Blog by Geoff Jones

Ralph and I were seniors at Briarcliff High School. His family had multiple cars and his favorite was what we called a Jeepster. an elongated Jeep with a frame and canvas roof/siding. One day Ralph drove a group of us to a drag strip somewhere near Cornwall, in the hills north of West Point. On the way home, the Jeepster’s engine made a loud noise and just died as he pulled to the side of the road. We left it there and our friends drove us home. I agreed to help Ralph retrieve it the next day.

We conceived a plan to tow it back to Briarcliff using my big beat up 1954 Buick with plenty of power. The next morning, Ralph and I with another friend drove up Route 9A past Camp Smith and onto Bear Mountain Road, a curvy two-lane road that led to the Bear Mountain Bridge where we crossed the Hudson River. We continued past West Point and up a road that goes up and around Storm King Mountain, another steep, curvy and dangerous road.

I had an old but thick Manila rope which we tied between our bumpers. Ralph took the Jeepster wheel, I drove the Buick with our friend riding shotgun with me. We left about 15 feet of slack between us for safety and started out. The early towing was easy as it was level and even the uphill wasn’t bad aside from a few jolts when our speeds differed too much. We quickly realized that downhill was a problem. If I saw Ralph getting too close, I’d tend to speed up at about the same time he realized he was getting close. This produced some real snaps, but the rope held.

When we reached the Bear Mountain Bridge I remembered too late that we had to stop and pay the toll. We’d given little thought to this complication and it occurred to me that since what we were doing was illegal, not to say nutty, the toll taker could be a real problem. The bridge is in a state park, so the tolls were run by some sort of cop.

Undaunted, we coasted up and I gave the toll taker money for both of us and stuck out my hand to indicate to Ralph not to stop. Remarkably the guy did nothing. To this day I still think he was so dumbfounded he didn’t know what to do and didn’t call it in because he might have trouble explaining how he happened to let us through while collecting both tolls.

Back on the Bear Mountain Road, we pulled on to a shoulder to plan things because if you’ve driven it you know it’s tricky. We decided to tow him to the top and release him to coast down toward Camp Smith. We drove to the top just fine, found a big overlook to park in while we untied. Then we pushed him out onto the road and waved goodbye. Ralph started slowly but began gathering speed as he disappeared around the first bend. We returned to the Buick and took off to catch him at the bottom.

But we forgot something. That was just the first of several downhills separated by long enough stretches of level road that killed Ralph’s momentum. In a few minutes we caught up to him and stopped where there was no shoulder. Working in the road with nothing to alert drivers approaching from behind, we had to hook up the Jeepster again and resume towing Ralph to the top of the hill before us. We crested it, stopped, untied and pushed him off for another downhill ride.

Once again, we caught up to him in a few miles only to find the Jeepster at the bottom facing another hill. We did it all over and this time he rolled to the bottom a mile or so from Camp Smith. This was the end of Bear Mountain Road, so we hooked up and towed him from there down Route 9A to the exit before the old Putnam line railroad station.

There we exited onto the main road that led to Ralph’s garage located directly across the street from the police station. I gulped as I spied, Bob Whiting, a Briarcliff policeman standing at the front door wide eyed as we pulled in. Fortunately, Whitey knew me well from umping high school games and was one of the few nice cops on the force.

He strolled over and we tried to explain what we’d done. I remember him saying something like. “I didn’t see you, you never spoke to me and if you say anything I’ll guarantee to ticket you every time I see you until you graduate.”

We kept our word for at least for a few months by which time Whitey mentioned it to me when I came to bat in a game. He actually thought it was dumb but funny.

Step in a little closer, ladies and gentlemen and observe that I have nothing up my sleeves. I come before you today with the deal of a lifetime. I kid you not but let me warn you that I shall not pass this way again any time soon. Observe the little red card I hold in my hand. The Moviepass Mastercard. It’s a debit card property of the Fifth Third Bank but it can be yours.

Folks hear me out, this little red card is your entrance to endless entertainment on the big silver screen any day, every day at movie theaters throughout the United States of America. Armed with this little red card, you may walk into a participating theater each day of the week and see a motion picture of your choice for free. You heard correctly; F-R-E-E, free, free, free!

You ask, “So what’s the catch?” There isn’t any catch. All you need do to obtain this little red card is to have a smart phone. You download the Moviepass app, fill out the application on the app and register your credit card number with your new pals at Moviepass. They will charge your credit card $9.90 a month and send you the little red card in seven to ten days.

“I sense skepticism! Do not fear and let your hearts be glad. I guarantee your credit card will not be billed until you successfully use your little red card for the first time.

Think of the possibilities: you can see 30 movies a month for the sum of $9.90. You say $9.90 is too much, how about $7.90? No; how about $6.90? Ladies and gentlemen, you must agree this is the deal of a lifetime.

Our daughter, Beth, first told us about Moviepass in early February. We took the $9.90 plunge and received our cards later that month. My first attempt didn’t go well. The rules that accompanied my card seemed simple enough, go to the theatre armed with your smartphone and debit card. On arrival in the lobby, activate the app for that theatre, the movie you want to see, the movie start time and check in electronically. Once my app confirmed I was checked in, all I had to do was present my debit card to the cashier who will print my ticket. But when I arrived at the Stadium multi-plex in Westbury, the app would not connect. I went so far to seek assistance from the theatre’s customer service rep. without satisfaction. Humbled, I thanked her and returned home.

Rather than give up, I tried using the app at our local theatre in Port Washington where it worked just fine. I had no desire to pick the movie about to begin so I gave my ticket to a waiting customer who successfully used it. As a second test, Mary Ann and I returned to the Stadium that had defeated me. This time, she successfully used her card. She picked Peter Rabbit as her movie. She asked the next person in line if he was interested in that movie? When he said yes, she made his day by giving him her ticket.

Since then we have enjoyed the following movies on Moviepass: Darkest Hour, Black Panther, The 3:15 to Paris, Red Sparrow, Game Night, A Wrinkle in Time, Stalin’s Funeral, The Leisure Seekers, Outside, In, Lean on Pete and Chappaquiddick.

To say this is a movie goer’s bonanza is at best an understatement. Not only does it provide a ready-made incentive to see the movies we truly want to see, it entices us to take-in less desirable films that we wouldn’t ordinarily considering seeing.

It works like a charm. Are there restrictions? Of course, there are. There is limited access to e-ticketing so advance purchase from home is severely limited. It doesn’t include 3-D showings or IMAX and so-called “stadium theatres” showing block-buster movies like Black Panther. Operators who know they will be mobbed can opt out of accepting Moviepass for new openings. But other than these slight inconveniences it is swell.

Truthfully, our problem is we keep looking over our shoulders waiting for the ultimate implosion. Someone is not making money. We’ve asked ticket clerks if this was hurting them? They laugh and say, “Not at all.” They are satisfied with amount they receive and are paid immediately thanks to the debit card.

Is this a Ponzi Scheme? Does Moviepass have a complicated business model we can’t contemplate? Or is this a means to some other end?

Who knows, not me. I sense somewhere a clock is ticking but until this bomb goes off, Mary Ann and I will ride these horses as far and as long as they will take us, and should a day of reckoning come around, we’ll take solace in an old warning that we expect will be Moviepass’ epitaphic:

It was too good to be true and like most deals that appear to be too good to be true, they usually are too good to be true… and so it goes.

(I will be traveling next week so the next edition of “On the Outside Looking In” will appear on May 23.)

On April 8, 1968, New York Magazine reappeared as a new stand-alone weekly magazine. My heart leapt with joy to discover this offspring of the late, great New York Herald Tribune had sprung back to life. Prior to the Trib’s demise, New York Magazine had been their Sunday magazine section and featured the Trib’s stable of outstanding writers. I had high-hopes for this new venture, but I soon realized we had a disconnect. Their editors designed the content with an elitist Upper East Side focus that disappointed me. I also suspected that these editors would be disappointed if they knew they had a subscriber like me and so began my love / hate relationship with New York Magazine.

I first discovered the New York Herald Tribune while a student at St. Francis College in Brooklyn in 1961. My newspaper experience growing up was limited to The Daily News and Daily Mirror in the morning and the New York Journal-American at night. College opened my horizon but one look at The New York Times turned me off. All those columns and tiny headlines on the front page reminded me of a tombstone.

The Trib lived right next to The Times on every newsstand and I quickly took a liking to its off-beat approach and especially, the collection of skilled scribes, writers and reporters like Jimmy Breslin, Dick Schaap, Art Buchwald, Tom Wolf and Red Smith. These were giants who could go toe to toe with anyone The Times could bring to bat.

Little did I realize how fragile newspapers were and that their golden age was about to disappear forever. The demise began when Thomas Murphy, the head of The Newspaper Guild, led the largest newspaper union out on strike against The Daily News on November 1, 1962. The other newspapers foolishly joined ranks and ceased publishing. This prolonged the strike / lock out which still could have ended with a reasonable solution. However, on December 8^th, Bert Powers, the radical president of the NY Typographical Union, led his Local 6 out on a bloody strike with outrageous demands that would destroy the newspaper industry as we knew it.

By the time the strike ended in 1963, several newspapers were severely damaged. The loss of holiday advertisement for the 1962 season was put at over $100 million and post-strike circulation dropped by almost 12%. Powers name became a curse word outside his union, as the man who killed newspapers.

The Daily Mirror succumbed on October 15, 1963 with the remaining papers deeply wounded yet trying to continue.

The post-strike Trib gave birth to New York Magazine in 1963 as a new concept to enhance its ability to compete with The Sunday Times Magazine. It did enhance my love for The Trib. Breslin and Schaap’s columns regularly ran as did Buchwald’s giving me an extra dose of their journalistic ability. Unlike the later magazine, it had a man-on-the-street approach to covering the city. (Then again, with Jimmy Breslin, how could it not have had this approach.)

The Trib soldiered on for three more years before raising a white flag. That was when a grand merger of three of the traditional but ailing newspapers was announced early in 1966. The Herald Tribune, Journal-American and the World-Telegram & Sun would combine operations producing two daily newspapers, the morning Herald Tribune and the World Journal in the afternoon.

The new entities were scheduled to debut on April 25^th, but several newspaper unions went out on strike against, “this cost-cutting consolidation (that) also meant the loss of many jobs for typographers, reporters and editors.” A settlement wasn’t reached until September 12^th, 140 days later.

These strikes gutted the new entity, reducing it to a single evening newspaper now christened as the World Journal Tribune. The cripple lasted just over a year until Friday, May 3, 1967. The headline on the last night of business proclaimed: “World Journal Tribune Ends Publication Today.”

I’m not sure how many times I re-subscribed to New York over the years but my M.O. was consistent. I’d see an issue with an article that reflected the city that I believed in. I’d sign on, once again only to be disappointed and turned off by the glut of opinions counter to my own. My last renewal began several years ago. Somehow, I signed on for a perpetual subscription. I kept looking for renewal notices, but none were forthcoming.

Granted, occasional pieces were noteworthy, but it was a slog. Meanwhile, New York, like many other magazines suffered under E-commerce and subscription rates fell off over the last few years. Eventually, they reduced their frequency to two issues a month which extended my subscription. Last fall I received notice that my subscription would expire in the spring.

Any consideration that I would possibly renew ended when they ceased mailing the magazines and bought into a cheaper delivery service. Their magazine would be delivered by the same drivers who brought us Newsday, our local morning newspaper. Delivery has been haphazard at best. I estimate that I have missed at least half of the editions since they began using this service.

I kept waiting and finally the day of my salvation arrived. I received the March 19-April 1 issue clad in a red cardboard jacket that proclaimed: “LAST ISSUE: RENEW NOW!”

No phone calls, e-mails or telegrams.* Perhaps they finally had enough of me too. Whatever:

Adios New York Magazine, I’m free of your clutches at long last!

*Does Western Union still send telegrams?

This is a follow-up to the piece about my rookie trip. Several of these stories have gone unreported since 1976.

Although we arrived on a Sunday morning, our room was ready. We were able to nap, shower and eat before being picked up by a CT Bowring chauffer who drove us together with Ed Kettle from Chevron and his wife out to Roger and Irene Tyndall’s suburban home. (Ed seemed perturbed at having to share a car with us interlopers.) I remember a pool in the Tyndall’s back yard with a mechanized removal cover and little else.

Monday night belonged to Bland Welsh. Tony and Johan Tisdall and David and Mary Hussey met us at the Shakespeare Tavern near Downing Street for drinks. (Tony managed to spill his drink down Mary Ann’s back although he never acknowledged this.) Dinner was a blur, but they took us to the Mermaid Theater off the Thames River to see “Side by Side by Sondheim.”

Hartley Cooper hosted a curious dinner. Eddie Norris and his wife took us to the Ritz Hotel on Green Park first. (The Ritz was then on its heels and this was prior to its re-birth as a luxury hotel that befitted its famous name.) Norris introduced us to Powell Watson a major marine client of Hartley Cooper based in Norfolk, Virginia.  Norris had put Watson up in an enormous suite which was obviously to Mr. Watson’s liking. Although it was shabby, his suite was a throwback to a more elegant era. We sat in their living room where Eddie ordered champagne and hors d’oeuvres via room service. I remember observing the state of the room but being impressed by the display of intercom buttons on an old telephone that included one for a maid and another for the butler.

Norris’ working brokers, Chris East and Ian Wallace and their wives joined us for dinner. I recall Wallace’s wife, Jane, a raven-haired beauty and Watson explaining to the table that he had recently purchased a Cadillac Eldorado for his widowed mother living in Florida. Powell noted: “Mother’s sight is poor, and this car will protect her when she crashes.”

John and Jan Bremner of Baines Daws together with John’s deputy, Bill Boyle and his wife, Janet, met us at a dock near the Tower where we boarded a Russian built hydrofoil for a fast ride down the Thames to Greenwich. We visited the museum dedicated to the world clock and home of Greenwich Mean Time. The museum also had an exhibition explaining America’s revolution and our Bi-Centennial. Dinner followed in a Greenwich restaurant and I presented each of their wives with a mint-condition bicentennial two-dollar bill.

Dennis and Connie Mead had us to their first home in Nazing. I don’t recall who else joined us, but I’ll never forget how warmly they treated us. Connie Mead presented Mary Ann with the large bouquet of flowers she picked from her garden. (That was the infamous night when, on our return to the Carlton Tower, we encountered Chuck and Ann Marie Sabatino.)

One morning, we took the train to Windsor where John and Brenda Shapiro met us, and we enjoyed a tour and a splendid lunch before they arranged for a car and driver for the ride home.

Being a veteran of NYC’s public transit, I actively sought out different ways to travel from the Carlton Tower to the City of London. The Underground was my first choice and I mastered the Circle and District Lines from Sloan Square to various stops in the business district. My next conquest was the Central Line from Marble Arch and I walked from the hotel through Hyde Park to utilize this line.

A word about the Underground circa 1976. Except for the Circle and District Lines that originated as steam rail lines built close to the surface, most tubes were accessed by long escalators. Unlike 1976 New York, I quickly learned that when you just rode the escalator, you always stepped to the left allowing those in a hurry to walk on the right. (Note: In New York, it’s opposite: walk on the left, stand on the right that is when we abide by this courtesy.)

Framed advertisements lined the walls that included rather risqué lingerie ads. One of the brand names for these women’s panties was “Loveable.” (The British called them knickers.) Their ad showed a woman police officer from behind. One view showed her wearing her utility belt, flashlight, club and other equipment. Next to it, a second view without her uniform wearing just panties with the caption: “Underneath it all, they are just loveable.”

One free and clear morning, Mary Ann and I had a leisurely breakfast before I kissed her goodbye and began my journey to the city by bus. Armed with a map of London routes, I made two or three changes to reach my destination. I could have travelled the same distance in less than an hour on the Underground that took almost 90 minutes by bus. But my convoluted journey was a learning experience of Central London congestion. I never ventured on a London bus again.

Coffee was awful, afternoon tea was a daily ritual served from a trolley wheeled by one of the women who also served lunch in private dining rooms. Those lunches began at one pm with drinks usually gin and tonic (G&T) followed by an appetizer like smoked salmon or prawns accompanied by white wine. A main course, a roast; beef, pork or poultry followed accompanied by white or red wine. Next, dessert, then cigars port or cognac and coffee. Lunch ended at three with brokers going back to work. I did too but I am not sure how I did it except I was young.

This was my first of almost 100 trips I would make to London during my career. I learned three important pieces of advice that I went on to share with those who came after me:

1. Look left.
2. Most things in London are on a 4/5^th size scale. If you are tall, prepare to duck when entering trains, buses, cars and rooms.
3. The queen is none of your business. If you think you have something to say to a Brit about Her Majesty be it good, bad or indifferent; shut your mouth and keep it to yourself.

Guest blog by Peter King

Recently, SNY, the N. Y. Mets sports network featured the award-winning documentary about Sunnyside Gardens, the old fight club the famous Queens arena and for many years, the home of the Golden Gloves Tournament sponsored by The Daily News. (I was given an advance viewing of the documentary and think it is terrific. Admission — I make several appearances throughout the documentary.)

Boxing and horse racing were the kings of sports in New York from the turn of the Twentieth Century until overexposure by television killed the old fight clubs. Clubs proliferated in New York City. The granddaddy of them all, St. Nicholas Arena located on West 66^th Street and Columbus Avenue reigned supreme from 1896 to 1962.

Eastern Parkway Arena deemed “House of Upset” held forth in Brownsville, Brooklyn from 1947 to 1958. Located at 1435 Eastern Parkway it was the setting for a national boxing show on the DuMont Television Network from May 1952 to May 1954. Teddy Brennan, later of Madison Square Garden fame was the matchmaker who featured up and coming talent like Floyd Paterson who fought there six times during that period.

Other venues included Jamaica Arena on Archer Avenue, the Broadway (Brooklyn) Arena, 1920 to 1951and The New Ridgewood Grove on the Brooklyn / Queens border from 1926 to 1956. These venues hosted their own televised boxing nights on the DuMont Network beginning in the late 1940s. This led to over-exposure as the ever-expanding television coverage of local boxing killed the gate and doomed these arenas. By 1956 most of these arenas had ceased to exist as had the DuMont Network.

Sunnyside Garden was the last of New York’s neighborhood fight clubs. A ramshackle, weather-beaten old building which stood stolidly on Queens Boulevard between 44th and 45th Streets in the shadow of the massive concrete el that carried the elevated Flushing subway line. It was about one mile from the 59th Street Bridge, three blocks from Manufacturers Trust Bank where Willie Sutton pulled his last stickup and four blocks from St. Teresa’s Grammar School where Dominican Nuns threw left hooks that rattled kids’ heads like trash cans full of broken toys.

I lived in an apartment house on 44th Street between Skillman and 43rd Avenues about 2 1/2 blocks from Sunnyside Garden and passed it each morning on my way to school. Next to the fight club was Robert Hall’s clothing store which was always good for a cheap suit. Inside the arena the air was a perpetual thick haze filled with cigar and cigarette smoke. There was a bar just after the front door and beer sales were always heavy. Since there were only a few hundred ringside seats, most of the always boisterous crowd crammed into rickety wooden bleacher seats.
Sunnyside Garden was all real with no frills. It didn’t attract Hollywood, Broadway or political celebrities. More likely to be seen were numbers runners, bookies or nondescript ward heelers. What it did attract were tough local fighters and the occasional top ranked fighters like Hurricane Jackson and Nino Valdez or even an ex-champ like Harold Johnson. One local guy who qualified on both counts was Levittown’s Irish Bobby Cassidy who fought countless times at Sunnyside against other club fighters and went on to become a top light heavyweight contender and a member of the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame.

Sunnyside Garden held its last boxing show in June 1977. Just six months later the fabled arena was torn down to be unceremoniously replaced by a Wendy’s! Today the only indicator of what went before is a monument outside Wendy’s honoring the arena and the gladiators who fought their hearts out there.

The SNY documentary with its vintage footage and insightful interviews captures Sunnyside Garden’s proud boxing history of grit, sweat and blood — as well as the neighborhood spirit of the times. Definitely worth watching!!

My first experience arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport was humiliating at best. Mary Ann and I arrived on a Sunday morning having flown overnight on British Airways. The seal on the bottle of Johnny Walker Red had come undone somewhere during the flight. I had bought it at the Duty-Free Shop at British Airways’ JFK Terminal on the advice of my boss, Charlie Robbins. Enough whiskey leaked onto my sports jacket that I’d stowed beneath it in the overhead to make me smell like the town drunk.

“What should I do?” I asked Mary Ann as we prepared to de-plane.

“You don’t smell as badly as you think you do. You’ll be fine.”

Perhaps she was correct, but, from my end, I swore I stank. Curiously, nobody mentioned it, not Chuck or Ann Marie Sabatino, our traveling companions, none of the officials at Customs and Immigrations nor the snotty driver from Bland Welsh who drove us and the Sabatinos to the Carlton Tower. The staff at check-in nor the bell-hop who took us to our room didn’t seem to notice either, still…

The year was 1976 and Chuck Sabatino and I both had reputations as “wise asses” at Marsh & McLennan, he on the cargo side, me on the hull side. Despite this, both of us had been promoted to Assistant Vice Presidents and our bosses decided that it was time for us to be make our debut in the London market. Whoever decided to send us over together insisted that we bring our wives for obvious reasons. We had both been prepped by various bosses on how to behave including what to say to our wives. Our prep went so far that our supreme leader, John Buzbee, invited us to his office after five pm on the Friday before we left. We were heavy with cash advances both in Dollars and Pounds as credit cards were not yet universal. We both had the traveler’s high, the combination of excitement about our coming adventure and money to burn.

John’s purpose was to take us down a peg by warning us about the impressions we would make; “Don’t be frivolous, lose control (see drinking) and be respectful and serious.” I expect his lecture would have gone on longer, but Chuck cut him off with this: “John, I know this drill. When I was in the Marine Corps, we made a trip to Japan, but before they let us off the ship for liberty, our Captain gathered us in formation and said: ‘Men, Japan is an ally: Keep it in your pants!”

What a week, what a time and what a city. London was fabulous. Mary Ann and Ann Marie’s days were free, and they had a grand time both sightseeing and more importantly, shopping. But London was a dangerous place that spring. One of the IRA’s bombing campaigns had just ended. Posters lined the underground, buses and public places warning citizens to report any unattended items.  The Carlton Tower had a security desk just inside its lobby entrance manned by uniformed guards. Mary Ann and Ann Marie befriended the guards, but they still inspected the contents of the ladies shopping bags every afternoon as they did our briefcases when we returned from the city.

At night we went our separate ways as the cargo scene and the hull scene encompassed different casts of characters. In those days, we placed business with several different Lloyds brokers, so each couple had a full dance card for the entire week.

Each night revolved around a big dinner proceeded or followed by an event, the theater, a cruise down the Thames on a hydrofoil, a trip to a country inn or a concert.

We did manage one serendipitous late-night encounter where we could be ourselves and blow off steam. That night, we all arrived on our floor at almost the same time. Mary Ann and I had just started toward our room when the next elevator arrived. We both turned around and out came Chuck and Ann Marie. Mary Ann carried a large bouquet of flowers presented to her earlier that evening. Chuck took one look and sprinted toward her blowing by me. I watched as he jumped into her arms as down they went flowers cascading in every direction; one of the funniest sights, ever! We all exploded in laughter then retreated to our room where the four of us drank my bottle and the mini-bar dry as we let loose.

God knows how many rookie mistakes we made. The most common, when taking a ride with a Brit in their company Jaguar; automatically walking over to the left-hand door. The Brits loved it and always asked, “Oh, I didn’t know you were driving.” I can’t tell you how long it took to break that instinct.

Private lunch clubs prevailed, all of them position or class oriented. If I went to lunch with the, “so called, ‘boys,” the senior boy hosted the lunch at the firm’s pub. (Yes, they all had their own pubs and luncheon clubs and, in those days; men only.)

Lots of pretensions, many lunches were command performances for us to present ourselves.  That’s why lunches with those boys were my favorite. They were ambitious wise asses just like me and we could get on using guile and humor. Many of those boys became lasting friends.

My rookie lunch reckoning came at a more upscale lunch in the executive dining room belonging to Mead, Shapiro and Tyndall, a small firm, now long gone. The meal began with fried prawns as the appetizer, one of my favorites. I looked around for salt and spied a bowl that I assumed was what I sought. I spooned some on my dish and Giles Bly, a junior broker, admonished me my saying, “John, I didn’t know you liked sugar on your prawns.”

He deliberately compounded his slight by demanding that the waiter replace my ruined prawns immediately loud enough for all to hear.

To this day, Mr. Bly doesn’t realize how close he came to death for doing that.

Guest Blog by Phil Brown

John’s articles about the airplanes/airports sure brought back a flood of memories. I went to school in Bonham, a small North Texas town with a population of about 7,000. Dallas was home of most of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. When I would visit, (if lucky) one of my uncles would drive us out to Love Field to watch the action. Security didn’t really exist. We would park where planes taking off flew right over us. So exciting for me! We could also go into the terminal and up to an observation platform where we could watch the action and hear the tower. I was in love with the idea of flying and dreamed of being a pilot. After reading stacks of pulp fiction I envisioned a long white silk scarf, dashingly worn around my neck, a form fitting helmet with dashing Ra-bans carefully shooting down those damn Nazis and Japs!

Prior to the war the Army Air Corps began to expand. They did not have enough instructors nor training fields. A program was started that enabled civilians to establish a training fields for the Air Corp. These contractors provided the actual airstrip, barracks for cadets and everything necessary to house and feed them. They also provided the flight instructors. When these instructor pilots hit town they really made a stir, young, handsome, dashing with lots of money; they were paid as much as $200 per month!

I was working at Saunders Drugs, the most popular of three drug stores spread around the town square. I was a soda jerk and none of the other stores had fountain action like we did. We were THE place for the local high school crowd to hang. The food (breakfast and lunch) was quite good. The owner of the store had a cook who had previously been a Pullman dining car cook. The cook prepared the pimento cheese, chicken salad, tuna salad and other dishes at home that he brought to the store.  We were about the only hot spot in town and the flight instructors jumped all over our food and fellowship. Can you imagine how bored those guys were?

Since several were in the store regularly I made particular friends with two or three of them. As we became better friends I shared my dream to become a pilot. Two of them volunteered to give me free lessons. The closest field where a trainer could be rented was about 35 miles away in Sherman, Texas. There you could charter an Aeronica K for $8.00 per hour. The plane had a 45-horse power engine. In a strong headwind it would just about fly backwards! The instruction was free, I only had to pay for the plane. At that time my hourly income at the store was ten-cents an hour. Just think…I only had to work my a… off for 80 hours to get one lesson! Simply put, they were out of my reach.

One day my sister told me that I had a call from one of the other drug stores. I returned the call with hesitation and the owner, Mr. Jackson, asked me to come by his store. Mr. Jackson was very dour and intimidating. He told me that he was well-aware of the dominant business we had built up. He explained that he wanted to get something like that going. After some very flattering remarks he asked if I would consider coming with him. He said he would be more than willing to invest in whatever new equipment I thought we would need. I thanked him for his confidence, but I was happy where I was. He cleared his throat and told me he knew how much Saunders paid and he was willing to pay me 25 cents an hour. I nearly fainted. The old man had lost his mind. Since he was a pharmacist I thought he had been dipping into his own stuff: Twenty-five cents, holy cats, Great Scot or even caramba! I tried to look cool and only somewhat impressed. He said take my time to think about it and let him know in a few days.

I staggered out of the store and on to my regular job. I sweated over the offer for several days, planned to accept the fantastic offer but didn’t have guts enough to tell Mr. Saunders. We were paid in cash each Saturday night after closing. I thought that would be the proper time to tell Mr. Saunders the devastating news that his Cracker Jack soda jerk was moving to greener pastures.

Saturday night rolled around to find me sweating bullets. I went to the office for my weekly pay but also to resign. Saunders handed me the envelope and I stuttered and stammered as I gave him notice that I was leaving. He calmly asked why and where. He asked how much I would be paid? He cleared his throat and told me how much he liked me personally and that he would hate to lose me. If I would agree to stay with him he would immediately raise my hourly rate 50%.

I nearly fainted. That sounded like all the money in the world. Wow!!! 50%. Of course, I agreed to stay. It did not occur to me how much 50% was. All I saw was my rate would now be – just think of it – 50% more. I had the miserable task of going by Mr. Jackson’s store to tell him the bad news. Thankfully, he didn’t ask how much Saunders would now pay. Next Saturday night I took my money home and dumped it on the bed. It was certainly an improvement. However, I thought it seemed a little light. I then multiplied my hours by 25 cents and realized I had been given a math lesson that I never forgot.

But never mind, the raise gave me the money I needed to train to be a pilot. In those days you were required to have eight hours of dual instruction prior to your solo flight. Even so, the expense turned out to be too rich for my blood and I finally folded after six or seven hours. My log book has long since gone the way of the buffalo…wish I still had it. It was exciting, particularly for a boy of 15/16.

You can imagine how primitive the instruments were, a compass, altimeter, bank indicator, magneto meter which I think was it. The engine was started by twirling the propeller being very careful to step back and not forward. The flights we took were of course at low altitudes. In stiff winds cars on the roads below could easily out pace us. If we became careless and somewhat turned around, we would head for one of the towns and circle the water tower to see exactly where we were. I became adept at take-offs, but landings were a bit dicey. The plane was a taildragger and prone to stalling making low speed landings tricky.

My dream of being an ace did not come true. When I enlisted in the Navy my recruiter agreed that I could join the Navy’s V5 program meaning I would attend flight school. About the time the ink was dry on my papers he advised that the program was full…the Navy had more aviation trainees in flight school than they needed or wanted. Instead, I was sent to amphibian warfare school where I became a scared swabbie, probably a good break since I made it home safely!

Item One: Chuck Schumer is a Putz

I do appreciate that I may have already annoyed those of you, dear readers, who appreciate the senior senator from the Empire State. So be it because he’s a putz and here’s why. Chuck Schumer, like him or dislike him, you have to admit he is a naked publicity hound who never met a camera or mic he didn’t like. Granted, that alone doesn’t make him a putz.

However, Chuck arranges his own fake news releases just to earn free camera moments and sound bites. He often uses props like an e-cigarette in a shoot about smoking or luggage to make a point about baggage fees and a location to make his point. Still not a putz but getting closer.

Recently, he held a self-made news conference in the shadow of the USS Intrepid to announce that the navy has agreed to name a new-building Arleigh Burke class destroyer after an Irish immigrant and hero, Patrick Gallagher who died in Viet Nam. Gallagher’s Long Island family gathered around the senator for the announcement and Chuck proudly presented a model destroyer with Gallagher’s name painted on the side to Patrick’s brother-in-law, Jack Walsh, who is confined to a wheelchair.

Memo to Chuck: If you are going to use a ship, airplane or railroad engine as a prop, get it right because experts take these things seriously and will pounce on errors.

In this instance, Newsday received a ton of angry mail decrying our senator’s insensitivity that they dedicated their Sunday’s editorial to reveal Chuck’s model was not an Arleigh Burke destroyer. Worse yet, it wasn’t even a US Navy destroyer. Nope, worst of all, it was a Russian destroyer, a Sovremenany Class ship built for the old USSR. That makes Chuck a putz!

Item Two: Can The New York Times Still Kill a Play?

Escape to Margaritaville opened on Thursday night, March 15. Jesse Green’s NY Times review noted in part: “If ever there was a time to be drunk in the theater, this was it. And that’s the good news… The bad news is you still have to see the show.”

(Shall I continue?) “Mr. Buffett’s denatured country calypso ditties and horndog swarm seem awfully lowbrow even in a Broadway environment debased for decades by singing cats and candlesticks. It is quite a comedown in the sing-to-me-of-romance department from “Shall We Dance” to “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw).”

Mr. Green’s less than subtle put-down climaxes with: “Escape to Margaritaville’ a paean to the pleasures of zipless debauchery is pitched so low it will temporarily extinguish your I.Q.”

Barbara Schuler saw it differently. Writing for Newsday, her review noted: “Frothy drink of a musical celebrating the music of Jimmy Buffett.” “The delightful, energetic…show.” “Buffett fans…are out in force, enjoying the inside jokes…dancing along to fins…and joining in on the singing when invited and when not.”

We can only hope there are enough Parrotheads willing to travel to Broadway to save this show.

Item Three: The New York Times Really, Really Hates Trump

I’ve never been a Trumper and never will. Being a New Yorker, I know only too well his schemes, manipulations and questionable behavior. What makes the Donald tick? I believe the answer is simple, he grew up with Roy Cohn as his mentor. If you know anything about the life and crimes of Roy Cohn, you will understand. If not, may I suggest the one word that describes him; despicable.

But Trump learned how to fight from Cohn. Trump is a natural counterpuncher. He has a hair-trigger temper so he retaliates instantaneously against all slights real or imagined. Combine this with Cohn’s strategy to hit one’s enemies with overpowering retaliation, Trump’s responses are nuclear. They have a lawyer, hit them with ten lawyers. They claim an amount of $140,000, sue them for twenty million. Failing that, deny, deny, deny. Most rationale people, don’t get his counterpunching style and find themselves spinning in circles trying to make sense of what makes no sense. Start with this: It’s a temper tantrum.

Instead, the media led by the Old Grey Lady, as spokesperson for the liberal community, can’t keep up with Trump’s temper. This fills them with angst and a continuous state of panic. Since they can’t keep up with him, they attack him unceasingly…he can do no right, none, nada, nyet, zip, nothing. Everything is suspect and must be torn apart. They probe, and they probe in hope of finding the smoking gun that will bring him down or the silver bullet that kills him politically. He’s in bed with Putin, he’s Putin’s puppet, he’s reckless, he treats our allies badly, he’s  un-presidential, he’s a moron, incompetent, he’s unfit for office, he’s a womanizer…

Their barrage is so continuous that it has become mostly noise. And still they throw more s*** against the wall in hope this batch will stick.

The latest missile appeared in their book review of March 18. In a review, Andrew Sullivan prophesized that the Donald is well on his way to subverting the Constitution by becoming The Authoritarian President, one step short of a totalitarian despot. I kid you not.

The thought occurred when I read this; Perhaps Sullivan had a bad dream about China and Russia and confused Xi and Putin with the Donald?

Item Four: Bitcoins and Blockchains

Bitcoins and blockchains,

they drive me insane.

Bitcoins and blockchains,

overwhelm my tiny brain,

fill my head with terrible pain.

Bitcoins and blockchains,

Instead, I’ll have a drink if it’s all the same.

Guest Blog by Mary Ann Delach

The spring of 1971 was a stressful time in my life, trapped at home with a toddler and a new born on a bare-bones budget. Imagine my delight when Helen asked me if we’d be interested in vacationing with them at Journey’s End. Having the opportunity to get away with Helen who had become a good and supportive friend was special but when John lost his job, not having him for most of the week was a bummer. I cajoled my mother, Dorothy, to join me and help care for Beth and Michael. Dorothy drove but that also meant my grandmother, Catherine, who lived with Mom would be part of the entourage.

We had to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Rilling that we had two additional adults with us plus our dog. The ladies only cost us an additional $10 each but the bounty on Woofie was $20.

Catherine slept in master bedroom, while the rest of us shared the living room. Dorothy slept at one end on a Murphy bad, Beth and Michael in two cribs and I was consigned to a narrow single bed in the corner that doubled as a sofa during the day. Are we having fun, yet?

Helen’s fourth, Karen was also an infant just a couple of months older than Michael. Ann, her oldest, was eight, Bill, seven and Rita, three. Beth adored her cousins and couldn’t get enough of them. During the day, we would put the two babies to sleep in carriages under a tree near the pool while the older kids played. This gave us the chance to talk while smoking cigarettes and keeping one eye on the pool and the other on the babies. Our mothers would help by pushing carriages along the dirt “country road.”

Helen’s mother, Helen, aka, Big Aunt Helen, lived with the Markey family and it was not uncommon for the mothers to escape for a civilized lunch away from the fray providing us with a new sin of envy / hate. Some of the time they left Catherine on the front porch to her own devices. That didn’t sit well at all. Catherine enjoyed a drink now and then, especially Cold Duck or Southern Comfort. Dorothy decided to appease her with a couple of miniature bottles she bought at a souvenir store. My mother took the label to read Southern Comfort. Unfortunately, the look-alike label was for Northern Comfort, 100% Vermont maple syrup. She served it to grandma in a glass over the rocks. Catherine took a taste and exclaimed, “It’s a little sweet, Dorothy.”

One day Helen, Don and I ferried the six kids to Santa Land. What could go wrong, did go wrong. They sold animal feed from machines where one put in a quarter and turned a knob that dispensed animal food into a hopper that you caught with your hand. It seemed like a good idea at the time but, as usual ended in tears as feed spilled on the ground, animals were aggressive or the older kids threw it at the younger ones.

What stood out that visit was this chap, a total stranger, who saw Michael asleep in his stroller. He came close to look at Michael and exclaimed to me, “That is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.”

Times were beginning to change but shopping and the choice of take-out remained limited. Few fast food outlets had yet to arrive but there was a Howard Johnson just across the river and their ice cream was a major treat. Back in the day, Howard Johnson was the nations eatery on the go and in many ways, they were the king of the road. By the early Seventies, they were losing their edge. Their food remained decent, but their service was awful.

There was a store in town called “Shop-o-rama.” We used this name to coin a new expression to describe bad days when we were at our wits end and the whip was flying. “This place is like being in a whip-o-rama.

Because Howard Johnson continued to operate more like a restaurant with take-out limited to ice cream, meals on the go weren’t yet available. Margaret Rilling ran a weekly spaghetti dinner that guests had to sign up for in advance, so she could have an accurate count. Besides the pasta, it included hamburgers, hot dogs, corn, Cole slaw and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Washing was a must and the coin operated laundry was at the south end of Brattleboro, VT just across from the railroad station and bus terminal. The Giant Store, an early supermarket, became the place where Helen and I did most of our shopping.

On my own, without John, I had to exist only on the money he left me (setting aside what I could cajole from my mother.) Without a local bank account, the money you had in your pocket was all there was: no super market cards, no debit cards and no ATMs. What you had was all you had.

The electronic age was light years away. None of the cabins had phones and God forbid anyone asked the Rillings to use their phone unless it was a matter of life and death. The only place where I could call John was from a pay phone at the Sand & Sea Motel on Route 9 at the end of the dirt road. We had to agree on a set time for these calls otherwise making contact would be a disaster. Fortunately, we both kept the schedule, so I got through. If not, it was impossible to let him know I was trying to contact him.

Living with a toddler and an infant, my mother and grandmother made my head spin and it is safe to say that I was thrilled when John arrived early on the next Friday morning bearing a box of Dunkin Donuts.

All and all, despite the whip-o-rama, it was a wonderful experience making me look forward to a less hectic return visit.

I was delighted when Mary Ann told me that Helen had invited us to join them for a week’s stay at Journey’s End. We had heard nice things about this collection of cabins on the Connecticut River, the cost was reasonable even for us in our salad days and we had no other plans. We jumped at the chance and Helen contacted Mrs. Rilling to introduce us.

That Spring of 1971 was one to remember. Mary Ann was pregnant with our second child, Michael, who was born on April 30^th. Two weeks later, I lost my job as a cargo surveyor. This blow, shocking as it was, didn’t blindside me. I saw it coming but I hadn’t prepared for the obvious until it happened. Business had been slow for some time but ignorance is bliss.

The culprit was the advent of containerization. For generations, cargo arrived at ports like New York on wooden pallets that were unloaded and stored on piers until delivery. Containerization changed that forever and so rapid and so thorough did it happen between 1969 and 1971 that the number of surveys our firm conducted throughout the port of New York was halved from the number we conducted in 1969. There just wasn’t enough damage to cargo being discovered before the goods left the pier for delivery. My boss, Don Lamont, gave me two week’s pay and agreed to pay me for two additional weeks if needed to find another job.

My top priority was a cash and carry job to put money in our pockets while I sought a change in careers. A short search secured me employment as a claims adjuster for Boyd, Weir and Sewell who represented a German steamship company, Meyer Lines. I interviewed with the claims manager, Henry Meehan, a nice enough chap who was being swamped by a backlog of claims. My background fit but first, I had to meet with the principal of the firm, Mister Strauss. Strauss sat me down in his office but ignored my resume. He removed a yellow legal pad from a desk draw and began to ask me questions without looking up, jotting down my answers on the pad. When he finished, he put down his pen, looked me in the eye and asked, “Do you have a drinking problem?”

I told him that I did not, and I was hired. Of course, I had no vacation days so, as our scheduled week at Journey’s End grew near, I confessed my dilemma to Henry. Henry was nice enough to give me off the Monday of the weekend we were to arrive and the next Friday when we would return home. Henry’s offer exceeded anything I could have hoped for. I decided that I would clear up as much of their claims backlog as I could in my hopefully short time at the firm.

Meanwhile, I had already begun my search for a real position. I applied to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PA) for a position in their ports and airports division, the newly minted Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Marsh & McLennan as a hull insurance broker. The first two never panned out but I did secure a position at Marsh where I began the last week in August.

Mary Ann and I headed north in our Dodge Dart with Beth, then twenty-months old, Michael, an infant of two months and change and our four-year-old mutt, Woffie. The ride was not without drama. Mary Ann made an exciting discovery as we headed out of Springfield, Mass when she realized Michael’s first tooth had popped through his gum. Not to be outdone, Beth put her hand in her mouth causing self-induced chocking followed by vomit. Once things calmed down and we cleaned Beth, she announced that she could be sick again by saying, “Uh-oh, more schokin.” Fortunately, it was only a scare.

We settle in to Cabin No. 4, the Oriole and I joined Don for a booze run to the Vermont and New Hampshire state package stores for price comparisons and to the beer and soda distributor.

The weekend went by in a flash. Mary Ann’s mother, Dorothy arrived on Monday together with her grandmother, Kate to help with Beth and Michael in my absence. I reluctantly hit the road home Monday at mid-afternoon after their arrival. My ride was uneventful except for the number of young semi-hippie hitchhikers who had taken to the road in that era as part of the so-called “summers of love.”

But a strange thing happened just after I left as I headed across the Connecticut River into Vermont and the southbound entrance to Interstate 91. The local AM radio station began playing a song I had never heard before. Its lyrics matched my mood just as I was about to begin my southbound journey:

Would you care to stay till sunrise?

It’s completely your decision,

it’s just that going home is such a ride.

Going home is such a ride,

going home is such a ride,

 going home is such a low and lonely ride.

I didn’t know the song was Dory Previn’s “The Lady with the Braid” that had just been released. It would haunt me for years to come until I finally rediscovered it on one of Ms Previn’s CDs.

I left Middle Village at four in the morning the following Friday and arrived a little after eight with a box of fresh Duncan Doughnuts giving me a full last day less a nap before we headed home on Saturday.

That Saturday was brutally hot, our Dodge Dart was without A/C and I still remember that long, hot ride through an oven called Connecticut. The only folks noticeably more miserable than us were motor cyclist in their leathers. Any breeze they found felt like a blow torch.

Then and there I vowed our next car would have A/C.