John Delach

Up until the early 1970s, ship-borne cargo was transported as “break bulk,” meaning inside the holds of freighters, stacked on wooden pallets that had to be loaded and unloaded by scores of longshoremen. These hardened workmen shaped-up every morning on the waterfront at the entrance to dozens of finger piers that jutted out into the bays and rivers separating Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Agents from the stevedoring companies that ran each pier selected who would work that day based on seniority, favoritism, the union’s orders, the mob, kick-backs or having a rabbi; troublemakers didn’t work.

Those working that day descended ladders into the bowels of these break bulk freighters in the same manner their forbearers did. Dressed in cover-all’s, work boots, tattered sweaters or sweatshirts over flannel shirts most days of the year, they manhandled the pallets, hooking them onto the ship’s cranes that lifted the contents over the side and down onto the apron of the pier. Forklift operators scooped up the cargo stacking it inside the shed that covered the pier.

The older wooden sheds were almost alive, a place that grabbed onto your senses. The wood absorbed a complex combination of aromas from the commodities stored there over the years. Cargoes accumulated waiting delivery to their destinations: bags of coffee, cocoa, chocolate and tea, bales of unprocessed gum, molds of rubber, timber of every size and description and rolls of newsprint. Some items arrived damaged, their contents staining the floor. Residues of olive oil, beer, whiskey, tomato paste and sugar, tins of sardines in oil or tomatoes, anchovies, herring and mackerel. These powerful odors assaulted the eyes and the nose of anyone entering the pier, especially first timers or outsiders.

These piers were dangerous places. Every aisle was a canyon. Stored cargo rose twenty-feet or more with pallets stacked five or six high. They were subject to landslides if uneven or if the weight of the topmost load crushed the cargo beneath. Cargo shifted and crashed to the floor without warning.

Both four-legged and two legged varieties of rats and other vermin would bite if surprised. The four-legged ones were omnipresent, the two-legged ones were rarer but just as dangerous. It was not wise to interrupt a drinking session, a craps game, or to suggest having witnessed ongoing theft or a shakedown.

Courtesy required a visitor to meet first with the Checker before entering the pier. The Checker controlled the pier and his shack guarded the entrance from the street. Today, he’d be called a fixer. The checker expedited what was needed and what had to happen to release cargo from the pier. This was his world. He knew US Customs, union rules and who needed to be paid and how much. The smart visitor came prepared, paid what was needed, followed instructions, had his cargo loaded onto waiting vehicles, tipping the men delivering it, and exited the pier only after the Checker knew he was leaving.

Nor was it wise to frequent the bars in the surrounding neighborhood. They were the exclusive realm of the longshoremen and warehousemen who were not interested in the company of strangers, especially those wearing a jacket and tie.

Many of the piers had been active since the mid-1800s. They developed their own language, customs, hierarchy, code of honor, justice and punishment. Because it was a complex society, it was hard to imagine how fragile it was and how quickly it would disintegrate. In 1969, the finger piers in Brooklyn were all active but by 1975 they were deserted except for squatters, vandals and varmints.

Cargo now arrived in steel boxes on container ships bound across the harbor for the new terminals at Port Newark and Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. The backwater infrastructure serving the Brooklyn piers ceased to exist as did the bars and sandwich shops. Fires, either accidental or deliberate, destroyed several piers and buildings. Others were torn down.

For years, the waterfront remained silent and abandoned due to archaic zoning laws that prevented anything but industrial development. Finally, Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the guise of bidding on the 2012 Summer Olympics seduced the City Council to change waterfront zoning.

As if by magic the waterfront began to transform. Real estate developers designed new apartment towers in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Industry City, those abandoned factories and warehouses in Sunset Park, have been born again into broadcast studios, think tanks, a Fairway’s supermarket, an Ikea and on it goes. The Brooklyn Navy Yard, long a backwater since the navy left, rose from the dead as did its surrounding neighborhood.

The more modern Brooklyn piers, Piers 1 through Pier 11, rebuilt by the Port Authority in the late 1960s, were converted into parks and other family friendly fun places with water taxis and ferries connecting the lot. Welcome to Twenty-first Century New York City!

No denying that, but for me, a bit sad. It is as if those Brooklyn piers, their commerce, energy and the men who made it come alive never existed.

I worked on the waterfront for two years, 1969 to 1971 especially in Brooklyn. I spent considerable time on one pier in particular, “The pier at the foot of 29^th Street.” I even treasure its peculiar name.

I was 25 the first time I set foot on that pier and I learned much there, I learned about working men, tough guys, how to get along and survive and life itself. In my mind, that pier is as real and vivid as it was back in the day.

Author’s note: An earlier version of “Brooklyn Piers” appeared in “The Big Orange Dog” my 2011 anthology of pieces I wrote between 2000 and 2010 before I began this blog. If you are interested, a Kindle version is available on Amazon. The price is right, but I have no idea where the proceeds, if any, go. 

“Your flight is delayed.” However, you discover this unpleasant news, it means trouble, trouble for you and those traveling with you. Trouble with connections, your ride home from the airport or the plans you made for the rest of the day.

Word that your flight has been delayed may reach you by way of a text or an email from your carrier, from the message board at the airport or by word of mouth from an airline employee. No matter the source, that first notice is a knife wound, a loss of heart and confidence, a silent or half whispered, “Damn,” or “Oh sh**.”

If you are a seasoned traveler, your plan of actions begins with, “How do I determine if the time of the delay is real or if it is going to continue to lengthen until it becomes a nightmare?”

Why? Because, once a delay is posted, it can only get worse. We have all suffered delays, they are part of the process. My approach is to get in front of the delay, find out as much as I can about the cause and seek out realistic alternatives before the enemy; my fellow passengers, wake-up to the problem.

On Friday, December 15, Mary Ann and I left the South Seas Resort in Captiva, Florida at 8:07 AM to begin the return journey to our home in Port Washington, NY. Mary Ann drove our rented Jeep Renegade to the Fort Myers Airport for our Jet Blue flight to JFK scheduled to depart at 11:02 AM. As we waited to check in two bags, I walked over to the departure board. To my chagrin, there was an alert that our departure had slipped forty-minutes to 11:42. “Oh sh**.” I exclaimed to myself as Mary Ann caught my eye.

Once we were at the counter I asked the agent checking us in, “Can you tell if the inbound airplane that will become our flight has taken off?”

She checked her computer and replied, “It left on time and is in the air and will land at 10:18.”

“Interesting,” I replied. “For some reason the departure board is showing a forty-minute delay?”

“That’s not unusual. We don’t control those boards, the airport does. That’s probably some other airline.”

As we walked away, we turned to each other and agreed that it was highly unlikely that two different airlines would have flights departing at an odd time like 11:02. Once we reached the central lobby I excused myself for a pit stop.

After my toilet break I wandered over to the main Departure Board while a middle school band performed their interpretation of Christmas Carols into funeral dirges. How appropriate, I thought. Looking up at the flights my mind registered that it showed Jet Blue Flight 430 departing at 11:02 AM: On Time! WTF! How can this be? My only thought was Mary Ann’s probable reaction, “Are you insane? Delays do not disappear, what did you see on the other board?”

Instead, when Mary Ann rejoined me she said, “I was looking at the board when you went to the Men’s Room. Just like that, the delay disappeared, and our original departure time re-appeared.”

We were stunned. In all of our years of travel, especially me, we have never, ever witnessed a delay reversing itself. Such an event does not happen. What the hell was going on here?

At the gate, departure time remained 11:02 and we began to board accordingly. We were in the last group scheduled to board Jet Blue Flight 430, so we had just lined up when the agent at the gate explained, “The captain has requested a rapid boarding to avoid being delayed. Once everyone is on board, the door will close and once the Jetway pulls away, your flight is considered as departed and not subject to a ground delay.”

Our fellow passengers complied, the ground tug pushed the A320 back at 11:00, we taxied out and went wheels up at 11:07. With a monster tailwind, we made wheels on the ground at JFK at 1:02 PM, less than two-hours in the air. Seriously, RSW to JFK in less than two hours flying time, OMG!

I asked one of the flight attendants just what had happened to the delay? She explained with a mischievous look in her eyes and on her face, “The delay was a warning. The airport posted it, but the Captain took it only as a warning and didn’t confirm he accepted it. He knew he had a window to get ahead of it and that’s what he did.”

Sign me up for that captain, anytime, anywhere!

Both of our children chose to spend a semester of their junior year in the United Kingdom in different colleges located outside of London. Curiously, circumstances made their experiences completely different. The good news is I was totally available for our daughter Beth who traveled first, spending her semester at Reading University during the winter / spring of 1990.

One year later, our son, Michael, was preparing to spend the second semester of his sophomore year at New England College’s UK campus in the town of Arundel when the sh** hit the fan; Desert Storm, President Herbert Walker (41) Bush’s war. The United States led a coalition of allies from far and wide in a conflict designed to kick Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait.

A daughter is a daughter and not being available for Beth would have been a disaster especially at that point in time, I seemed to spend almost half of my life in London.

In the same sense, a son is a son. When it was Michael’s chance to go overseas, few were flying. My own company, Marsh & McLennan, prohibited us from going overseas without the chairman’s permission; I kid you not!

My experience with Beth:

Reading University will never be confused with the elite so called “public schools” like Eaton, Cambridge or Oxford. They called Reading a “red brick university,” one of nine colleges established at the turn of the Twentieth Century to open higher education to Britain’s middle class. Reading was spartan by our standards to say the least, especially for a young American woman’s toilet needs.

Say no more; Daddy is on his way! Having immense flexibility at that time, I invented reasons for three business trips to London during Beth’s stay that included expanded weekend stays. My game plan was simple, I’d book the 10 AM TWA flight out of JFK on Friday mornings enabling me to make it to the Sheraton Perk Tower in the West End between 10 PM and 11PM, London time.

I booked the room for an early Friday morning arrival. This allowed Beth and her new friend, Debbie Parrot, another American girl from Indiana to check in early using my account. This way, they could enjoy the luxuries of a four-star hotel; mini bar, full bath and room service including high tea.

On arrival, I went straight to the room. First order of business was to hand Beth and Debbie treasures from America that they had requested. After I freshened up, I escorted these two pretty women to a late dinner. Our usual destination was a curious little place with the moniker “Foxtrot Oscar,” (F.O.)

To the day I die, I will treasure the leering looks I received from guests and staff as we walked through the lobby and into a taxi. As a bonus, my status and treatment at the Park Tower improved immensely. After dinner, we’d deposit Debbie at the Paddington Railway station, where she could catch the train to Reading.

Beth and I would spend the weekend together. Shopping and sightseeing on Saturday, the theatre that night and brunch and walks in Hyde Park on Sunday. Late afternoon we’d say goodbye and Beth would take a taxi to Paddington to return to Reading with a collection of the Park Tower’s bath products.

It was only after Beth came home that a friendly secretary at our London office took me aside and admitted, “Some of us thought you had a girlfriend in London because you started taking the ‘boyfriend flight.’ That’s what we call the Friday morning flight from New York. You Yanks, who had a squeeze over here took it, so you’d have a full weekend together.”

My experience with Michael

The extent of my physical contact with Michael ended when we dropped him off at the Virgin Airline check-in at the International Building at JFK. It was a cold Monday night in late January. Desert Shield, the buildup for Desert Storm, the shooting war was well underway. Super Bowl XXV would be played the following Sunday. There were only three other cars in the vast parking lot. Intense security forced Mary Ann and I to say our goodbyes outside Virgin Airline’s vestibule. The night’s chill intensified as we watch Michael walk away with his over-sized hockey bag.

Of course, we were worried by the same concerns that made my company ground all of us from flying internationally. But Michael wanted to go, and I agreed this was an experience not to be missed. We picked Virgin as they were not a high-risk target like British Airways, Pan Am or TWA could be.

Knowing that I wouldn’t see him again until he was back in the USA, I offered Michael three pieces of sensible advice for him to follow during his time in Britain: “Look left before stepping into a two-way street. Watch your head, you are a 6/5 person in a 4/5 size country. The Queen and the Royal Family are none of your business. Whenever the subject comes up, walk away.”

Fortunately, I was able to send Michael anything he needed via my company’s overnight pouch. I addressed these parcels to a friendly senior secretary and she forwarded them unopened via the Royal Mail. Michael received his goods in two days without exception. I would include a copy of a now defunct daily sports newspaper called The National. Inside, each copy I included a $20 bill with a note, “Andy Jackson says hello.” Michael’s school was in the town of Arundel and he and his mates made additional spending money by participating in lineups for the local police.

I also had him bring most of his belongings up to our London office, so he didn’t have to lug them home. I was glad to see him when I met him at JFK in late May, even after I realized he was sporting a pierced earing with the skull and crossbones.

“On the Outside Looking In” will not publish next week as I will be traveling.  

Max turned seven on September 9, 2017 He came to live with us on November 10, 2010. He and his sister, Ruby, came to us via truck from their birthplace in Missouri. The delivery service with the unlikely name of PetEx Express transported these sibling Golden Retrievers in one travel crate as part of a shipment of puppies going to various destinations on the East Coast. Fortunately, both Golden Retrievers arrived clean and in perfect health. Mary Ann and our daughter-in-law, Jodie, lifted both pups up to tell who was the boy and who was the girl.  The boy, already named, Max, stayed with Mary Ann and me and Ruby went to her new home in Connecticut, a birthday gift for Jodie.

In many ways Max was great from the moment he arrived. Housebroken from day one, he never cried during the night and took to his crate like it was his second home. He was so laid back that when one of us went down to open his crate in the morning, he went through a series of stretches before deciding to begin a new day.  Feeding was easy; Max was born with a food alarm clock. Since we fed him both breakfast and dinner every day, his breakfast gong rang as soon as he was up, and his dinner alarm went off between 4 and 4:30 PM. Max loved treats, any time and all the time.

…And now for the bad news, Max was hell on wheels as a pup. He was all teeth wasting anything in his path. Fortunately, he never took to furniture, but he did take to objects made of cloth or fabric. This boy could destroy a tee-shirt, jacket or towel in the blink of an eye, but he was a hard-wired natural retriever. No matter what he stole or destroyed, he insisted on displaying it in front of us, so we could see how well he retrieved stuff.

His behavior became serious when he decided that kids were playthings and separating them from their shirts, sweaters and jackets was his retriever mission. He favored kids wearing sweatshirts with hoods, so called, “hoodies.” Give Max a kid running with a hoodie and he was off. (He now weighed about 50 pounds and he was young, determined and fast.) He’d come up behind his designated play toy, time his leap and grab onto the hood dragging them down. “Gotcha!” Now he tried to retrieve them by dragging them where he thought they should go. The poor kid now on his or her back usually didn’t take kindly to his shenanigans nor did their parents.

Not good, not good at all!

We had a serious problem. In so many ways, Max was a great dog, but kid tackling was clearly unacceptable. We were proactive, trainers, shock collars and anything that seemed to work. We even hired teenagers to act the part of, “flopping children.” Under the supervision of a trainer who used a shock collar they allowed Max to attempt to retrieve them so that our trainer could electronically reel Max in when he went after them. Our grandchildren, dog lovers all, volunteered to play the part for a price with mixed results. Finally, a dog-whisperer type trainer advised, keep up the work and he’ll outgrow this and turn his attention elsewhere.

He did finally outgrow this awful behavior, but it took five years before we no longer had to be on guard ready to leash and remove him when flopping children came to his dog park. Max will always be nose and tooth sensitive. But we cater to his need with treats and toys. Treats are easy, he’s a food hound. Toys, not so easy. One problem solved, replaced by a new problem, toy destruction.

Remember, he’s all nose, all teeth; give Max a toy advertised as indestructible…life expectancy, ten minutes. Absolutely indestructible; 12 minutes and, absolutely, positively indestructible with a money back guarantee; 15 minutes. I kid you not. We have bought toys in stores, on line, garage sales, and charity sales. Old toys from grandkids, used athletic articles; tennis balls, baseballs, footballs, hockey pucks, whatever; ole Max made short shift of their existence. The only object that he cannot destroy is not really a toy. It is a rubber coated solid steel door stop we use in New Hampshire that he steals when all else fails. We call it, “Max’s indestructible toy,” and his teeth marks on the rubber surface attest to his endless battles with it for dominance.

Last Christmas, we finally found a toy that he absolutely loves called Outdoor Dog by All For Paws (AFP.) Simple but hardly indestructible, it is a canvas covered tube 11 inches long with a diameter of three inches. Inside is a large plastic squeaky bladder with approximately the same dimensions as the canvas cover. Max instantly took to this toy constantly carrying it around in his mouth. After about a week, he bit the canvas seam opening it and over the next few days, he carefully extracted the bladder. He loved this plastic tube even more than the original toy and proceeded to carry this bladder everywhere while at home squeaking it as he walked along. We expected he’d bite a hole into it in a few days, but weeks went by then months and he left it in tact. Finally, one fateful day, visitors came and in a frenzy, he destroyed it.

Off to Pet Land, I purchased another and he was thrilled when he heard the familiar sound it made. His squeaky had been resurrected! This one lasted longer as we hid it out of sight whenever we expected company, but eventually the plastic wore thin and succumbed to his teeth. Obviously, this toy had a finite lifetime. Sooner or later Max would bite too hard or it would just give out.

We ordered five more from Amazon and when this supply fell to three backups, we tried to order more only to discover that it had been discontinued. Since then we have tried many different sources without success. Desperately, I contacted All For Paws and I hope to hear from them as Max has been reduced to one working Squeaky but only one left in reserve.

Otherwise, we are doomed. So now let us pray that we find a solution.

Two months ago, I vented my frustration with Jet Blue for radically changing the Estimated Time of Departure (ETD) for my family’s flight from Tampa, FL from 11:06 AM to 6 AM. A letter to their CEO followed by a complaint to their Customer Commitment (Center) rectified much of my misery. We re-booked on a flight out of Orlando leaving at 12:15 PM providing us with a civilized wake-up call of 8 AM as opposed to one of 3 AM.

My son rented a car from Hertz using his corporate discount and I made the case to my Customer Commitment Crewmember, Janet, that Jet Blue should reimburse me for the rental cost as part of our inconvenience. Without commitment, she asked me to submit my proof of expense.

Long story short, I submitted both the Hertz receipt for $132.60 and the itemized Amex charge for the same amount. Jet Blue responded promptly agreeing to reimburse me with a pre-paid Visa card in that amount. Game set and match!

So why the title? True, my Jet Blue blues have been lifted, but I like this title and it leads into the second part of this story.

When Michael, Drew, Matt and I made our fan trip to Tampa, our beloved, Big Blue, the New York Football Giants, were a dismal 0-4. They lost that game against the Buccaneers dropping to 0-5. Since then, Big Blue has lost four more games while winning only one making their won / loss record a horrendous 1-9.

On November 5^th, the wheels fell off the wagon as Big Blue was obliterated by the LA Rams 51 to 17 on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Met Life Stadium in the Meadowlands. Brutal, a disgrace, players gave up, quit; shamed themselves. I have been a season ticket holder for 56 years, so I have seen more than my fair share of lousy football. Once, Big Blue’s unexpected collapse this season would have had me going berserk, acting like a lunatic. Fortunately, at 73, I take Big Blue’s triumphs and failures in my stride, calmer, much calmer than ever before. But, still, when it becomes obvious that the team is a train wreck, it’s time to let ownership know. This is what I wrote to John Mara, President and CEO of the Giants following the Rams debacle:

Dear Mr. Mara,

When my mates and I gave up the ghost and left the Rams game early in the fourth quarter we encountered other Giants fans burning their game tickets in the parking lot.

I believe that tells you everything you need to know.

Sincerely, John J. Delach; Football Giants Season Ticket H.O.F. 2013

Unfortunately, the following week Big Blue traveled west to play the winless San Francisco 49ers. How’d that work out? The Giants cratered once again losing by a score of 31 to 21 in a fiasco that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated.

On November 17, I received the following reply signed by Mr. Mara and dated three days earlier:

I have your letter. I feel worse than you do. When you are 1 and 8 there is not much you can say. We will evaluate everything after the season and make a decision about how to move forward.

Thank you for your many years of loyal support.

Next up, the Kansas City Chiefs at home in Met Life Stadium on November 19 at 1 PM. Ugh! Everything being equal, I’d stay home and skip it. But neither my friend Dave or his son could make it so he offered me his tickets. I asked my son if he thought grandsons Drew and Matt wanted to go and the answer was a resounding, “yes!”

Fine, count me in. Another quirk, my other buddy, Joe, couldn’t make it either so I chose to go by train rather than drive alone. The LIRR to Penn Station, NJ Transit, one stop to Secaucus then the dedicated shuttle to Met Life Stadium. Upon arrival at Penn Station, my heart dropped when I realized I had left my game ticket on my dresser. I texted Michael already in the parking lot: “All F***** up. Left game ticket at home! Do your best to scrounge a ticket for me. Worst case, I’ll enjoy tailgate and return home.”

Upon arrival at our tailgate, Joe Daniels, a regular greeted me with: “John, not a problem. I did the same thing two weeks ago only to discover that we have access to E-Tickets. Do you know your password?”

I did, and as if by magic, Joe downloaded my e-ticket to my phone.

Sunday should have been the Chief’s day. Ten points favorites, The Chiefs were well rested having had a week off and Andy Reid, their coach had a record of 16-2 coming off byes.

Once upon a time when the NFL was about to explode from an obscure after-thought to college football to the America’s top rated sport’s league, Bert Bell then the commissioner, made this remark: “On any given Sunday, any given NFL team can beat any other NFL team.”

New York and Kansas City went at it, going east and west in the swirling winds. NY went up 6-0 on a TD with a missed PAT. The Chiefs tied the contest, but late in the game the Giants kicked a field goal to make it 9 to 6. The Chiefs scored with two seconds left to make it 9-9.

By that time, I was on the train heading back to Secaucus. After boarding the connecting NJ Transit train headed to Penn Station, I discovered the Giants had grabbed their second victory of 2017 beating the Chiefs, 12-9 in overtime.

I was stunned. Overtime! I expected Big Blue to quit and KC to prevail. Make no mistake, the Giants are a bad team but for one autumn afternoon in November they upset a better team. There is a wonderful expression that gladdens rooting hearts and souls belonging to loyal fans. It explains how their underdog team can defeat the prohibitive favorite:

“And that’s why they play the game!”

The rustic charm of Journey’s End spread by word of mouth. Young families mostly from Boston and New York City flocked to this unique country retreat for their two-week summer vacations. In some ways it became a middle class “fresh air” experience. Popularity grew and families began to book their next year’s stay during the two-weeks they were there. As families became comfortable with their cabins, they booked them for the same two weeks the following year. Margaret Rilling began her annual ritual of marking these reservations on a large piece of oaktag that she divided into a grid. Across the top, each square designated a different cabin and on the left side, each week was listed in a separate square from July 1 to Labor Day.

The price was right and remained so. Helen found a price list from about 1950. The smallest cabins, the Chickadee, Bobolink and Oriole cost $45 per week for two people, $50 for three. Three family-size cabins, the Robin, Cardinal and Swallow went for $60 for a family of four, $65 for five. (The Bobolink and Oriole would subsequently be enlarged to family size.) The price for the two big cabins, the Raven and the Whip-poor-will, that could accommodate six to ten was “based on size of party.” For the odd person who desired to stay in the main house, the price was $35 per week.

During those early years, guests were encouraged to swim in the Connecticut River where they had a dock and a diving raft anchored to the bottom. Fortunately, the current moved slowly because the river was dammed in the village of Guilford just south of Brattleboro. Bob recalled that the path down to the river was via a thousand-slate staircase difficult to walk on. “One year, we found some trees had been cut and Mr. Rilling had made a trail from the first cabin parallel to the river through the woods down to the dock. I think you just had to go down a few cement stairs, but it was shorter, and you didn’t have to go up or down all of those slate steps.”

Bill recalls that Helen was a good swimmer. “I remember the float as being off the end of the dock, somehow anchored to keep it in place. I knew for sure I was not going to attempt going out to it even in the inner tube I used as my personal floater.”

Helen respone, “I can’t believe I swam to it. Despite swim lessons, I could barely stay afloat for more than a few strokes. I do remember waving to the passing trains on the other side of the river.”

Bill, “Yes, I too remember the train crews waving back to us from the engine and caboose, as well as passengers from passenger trains particularly during afternoons when we were all on the dock swimming.”

Eventually, the Christman family discovered a beach on Lake Spofford open to the public. Spofford was about ten miles east of Rillings via Route 9. But that beach wasn’t nice and had a rocky bottom, not much of an alternative from the river. Bill recalls that it was Helen who found Ware’s Grove Beach. Both the beach and lake bottom were sandy and offered a gentle slope into deeper water making novice swimmers more comfortable. The large dirt parking lot was home to a drive-in movie by night for many years. The order of the day was pack up the car with kids, food, drink, blankets and floats to spend the better part of the day there. (The beach at Ware’s Grove is still in business but the drive-in is long gone.) At some point Charles and Margaret Rilling added a full-size pool that included a diving board and a separate kiddie’s wading pool, virtually ending river swims. But Ware’s remained a welcome alternative for adults and kids.

Rituals and traditions were quickly established. Fathers were relatively young and in good shape. So was Charles Rilling and this led to almost nightly spirited softball games on the grass field behind the cabins. Fast food was far from common and a Howard Johnson’s was one of a few alternatives, close by, just across the bridge in Vermont where Route 9 met Route 5. Margaret established a weekly spaghetti dinner on the handball court near the main house. Burgers, hot dogs and spaghetti with strawberry short cake for dessert.

Bob remembers the heavy brown cooler. “We had it for umpteen years. It weighed a ton and hurt your hand to carry. My father also brought his ‘portable’ radio so he could listen to NY Giants baseball games. It also weighed a ton. Two batteries powered it, one was 69 ½ volts. Of course, it had vacuum tubes as transistors were not invented yet.”

Somehow, their father fit the cooler, his radio and an outboard motor into the car. Helen reported, “Dad enjoyed attaching the outboard to one of the rowboats Mr. Rilling had tied to the river’s edge. Once or twice he took the boat down to the junction where the West River flowed into the Connecticut River, a place where cattails grew. He’d bring back a bunch. He’d take them home to dry out so that they would be ready the following year, dried out so he could get them smoking so we could enjoy keeping the mosquitoes away with last year’s cattails.”

“Dad also used his power boat to make ice cream runs.” Bill continues, “Once or twice during our vacations, Dad would motor to the Dairy Bar by the West River Bridge, climb up from the river, get plenty of their home-made ice cream, climb back down and motor back to the dock with a treat for everyone.”

Bill, “There were grocery stores in Brattleboro where we could re-provision as needed. But shortly after we checked in on Saturday, a local milk man came to the cabin to ask if we wanted delivery. Mom always said ‘yes’ as she didn’t drive back then. The milk came in glass bottles and unlike at home, the bottles had to be manually shaken to mix the cream on top. As kids, we didn’t realize the milk was not homogenized and thought of it unique to Journey’s End.

Bob, “One year, I was flying a kite in the ball field with my father and mother. The kite took a dive and tangled in some wires above the field. I remember my parents yelling, ‘Don’t pull the string.’ So, you know what came next, I pulled on the kite pulling two uninsulated wires together. Bingo, I knocked out the power for the town of West Chesterfield. The power company was happy that Mr. Rilling reported it as they did not have to search out where the problem was. I feared the police would be called.”

Bill provided a final thought regarding their packed car: “However cramped we might have been on the trip up, we could always count on at least two boxes of liquor from the cheap state liquor stores being added to the load on the return trip.”

We took delivery of our red Pacer on a cold night in early March of 1976 from an American Motors Dealer (AMC) located on Metropolitan Avenue less than three miles from our Middle Village home. After a flurry of last minute salesman mumbo jumbo, attempted add-ons and proposed warranties, we finally signed the paper work, made the deposit and were handed the keys.

Before we left the dealer’s lot, I handed Mary Ann the paperwork bundled in an AMC folder to put into the glove compartment. Mary Ann flipped the opener and the glove box proceeded to fall to the floor. Even though Mary Ann quickly re-seated the box in its proper place; we should have quit right there and then.

We’d traveled no more than a half-mile in our spanking new Pacer when the heater motor went bang in a puff of blue smoke. The smell of burnt electrical equipment filled the air confirming the death of the Pacer’s heater. The dealer deftly pronounced his “mea culpas” and managed to find a replacement for our new car and sent us home in a well-used Matador courtesy loaner. For the next week all the king’s horses and all the king’s men tried to replace our heater. Airplane mechanics call planes that are in constant state of repairs, “hanger queens.” This was our first realization that our Pacer was a lemon and a garage queen.

“Why a Pacer?”

It was different, quirky and neat. The contours from every direction were curved making for a friendly look. From head on, it looked like a big dog except for floppy ears. The grill’s horizontal bars looked like a smile and, it seemed to say, “Hello.” Huge windows, lots of light, wide, big doors and a hatch back providing even more light; Mary Ann and I fell for this curious car. In other words, we were young and stupid.

Several design flaws soon became apparent. We knew the passenger side door was four inches longer than the driver’s side door to facilitate back seat entry from the curb side. What we didn’t realize was the problems a door this big could cause. The Pacer was short but wide, intentionally so to retain roominess. But that passenger door turned out to be a weapon that would cover a wide swath of territory capable of striking unsuspecting people, other cars, garbage cans and trees. It also could dig into lawns if the surface was too high. We quickly discovered that our Pacer was terribly under powered making acceleration from a dead stop onto a highway a frightening adventure. Climbing hills was a losing crap shoot and we quickly learned to move into the slow lane sooner rather than later. Lastly, lack of power and all that glass negated any chance that its puny A/C could be effective. Despite the inadequate engine power, with all that weight, miles-per-gallon were horrible.

It was only when I set out to write this piece that I discovered why the engine was so awful. It seems, the then AMC chairman, Roy D. Chapin Jr. had become enamored with the Wankel Engine then all the rage. He committed AMC to equip all its vehicles including the Jeep division with this rotary engine at the time the Pacer was being engineered. This grand scheme never worked out leaving the Pacer left with a hand-me-down GM six-cylinder engine.

Our Pacer suffered numerous breakdowns, big and small. One of the more curious defects involved the internal handle on the driver’s side used to exit the car. A simple steel device common to almost all automobiles; you pull the handle toward yourself with your left hand to close the driver’s side door. A basic tool, one we should expect to be free of failure. Not our Pacer, on two different occasions, this handle and its replacement broke in two as I pulled on it. I recall those visits to an AMC dealer, once in Queens and once in Manhattan. Both seemed to be expecting me, had the handle in stock and neither asked what had happened.

Under big problems, I submit the following: One Sunday night we were returning home from Mary Ann’s mother’s home in Flushing on the Long Island Expressway. I was in the left lane as we passed Flushing Meadows Park when, with no warning, the engine quit. Somehow, I kept my wits, shifted into neutral, turned the key and the engine restarted.

It turned out this was just the first of several stalling repetitions. That’s probably when we decided to rid ourselves of this cursed car.

We replaced it with a 1981 Ford Escort station wagon. I recall the sales man making conversation asking about the Pacer:

“My brother-in-law needs a car; do you think this Pacer would be right for him?”

I replied: “It depends on how you feel about your brother-in-law.”

For the record, he didn’t question my reply.

We also heard from the new owner who found a gasoline credit card receipt buried under the folding back seat. He called us in desperation…Mary Ann took the call. He asked if it was a bad car. She could think of nothing to tell him that would offer comfort.

My friend Geoff Jones and his wife also had a baby blue Pacer that worked alright until it wouldn’t start on the day they were trading it in. Geoff explained: Our local mechanic decided it was the solenoid but he didn’t have a new one in stock. He did have a bunch of old parts and found one that he thought would work a few times. It worked, allowing us to drive it to the Jeep dealer. The sales man took the keys and one of their shop guys went out to drive it into their lot. We held our breathes until the Pacer started. We completed our purchase and we left the dealer as quickly as we could.           

Richard L. Green passed away on October 23, 2017 after a lengthy struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Dick was the finest insurance man I’ve ever known. He was honest, trustworthy and fair but exacting and demanding. It was both my honor and pleasure to work with him for almost twenty years.

I worked for Marsh & McLennan, Exxon’s corporate insurance broker. We placed a huge re-insurance policy for their in-house insurance company, Ancon, then located in Bermuda. Ancon insured Exxon’s world-wide operations. When I joined our Exxon team in 1978, Dick Green was one of Exxon’s senior insurance professionals. His office was in Houston, Texas, the headquarters for their largest and most important subsidiary, Exxon Company, USA.

Dick and his mates insured Exxon USA’s vast operations that included Alaska’s North Slope Pipeline. Exxon USA had its own insurance operation called, Petroleum Casualty Company (PCC.) Even so by 1978, PCC had been mandated by corporate to pass on their policies to Ancon. Nevertheless, PCC remained fiercely independent and maintained an adversarial relationship with Ancon and all doing business with Ancon including me.

No one bothered to explain this relationship to me. Too bad because one of my first tasks was to bring the PCC’s marine policies into line with Ancon’s. Someone at PCC had dissected the American Institute Hull Clauses (AIHC) a sacrosanct form not to be tampered with. They cut and pasted various clauses as they saw fit deleting those they found uninteresting or undesirable. (Could it have been Dick Green?) Changing the AIHC was akin to amending the United States Constitution. It is deliberately a difficult and complicated procedure.

Dick and his colleagues met with us in our home office at 1221 Avenue of the Americas as did Ancon’s people from Bermuda. Dumb and happy, I preached my sermon that the AIHC was not a term of art to be tinkered with, exploited, changed or deleted. Arrogantly, I noted that PCC was out-of-line and their policies had to be changed to reflect Ancon’s policies that accepted the AIHC in its entirety. Case closed, that’s the way it is.

Len Brown who worked for Exxon in several insurance capacities explained what happened next. (Note, Although Len wasn’t present in New York that day, he had his own experiences with the phenomenon that followed.) Len explained: “Every meeting would eventually get to a point where a voice would be heard from among the Exxon contingent uttering words in an Arkansas twang close to the following: ‘Just a minute, hold on, run that by me one more time will you? You gotta understand now that I’m just a little ol’ country boy, but…”

The speaker was Dick Green and what followed the “but” was a dressing down of biblical proportions. On that day it was directed at me. “Now, John, it seems to me that your position is based soley on your opinion. Do you expect us to roll over and make changes in our policy without any specific explanation of each change you are suggesting? I don’t think you’d appreciate it if I did this to you?”

I had no place to run and no place to hide as my arrogance quickly melted into humiliation.

Dick was relentless in his criticism and I saw my future slip sliding away. My only course for survival was agreeing to prepare a line-by-line analysis of the AIHC that I would present within a month to PCC at their office in Houston.

That meeting went reasonably well. I learned enough to listen to PCC’s demands as well as speak to them. The one exception was the so called “Continuation Clause.”  In plain English, it says that if a vessel is at sea when the policy expires, coverage continues until the vessel reaches a port.

Dick insisted this was a restriction while I maintained it was an extension. Back and forth we went, neither giving an inch until the day ended and we broke for dinner. I do recall it was a great evening at a superb restaurant (it well could have been Brennan’s Houston.)

Another lesson learned, Dick Green was a completely different person on and off the field. He could be a bulldog when business was the issue, but socially he was charming.

We went at it again the next morning. Finally, I said to Dick: “If you ask me to prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, I could gather scientific data from the US Geological Survey, newspapers and other sources to demonstrate that the sun will come up tomorrow. But, you and I both know that I can’t prove it. Guess what though, even if I can’t prove it, the goddamn sun will come up tomorrow!

That got Dick’s attention and he agreed to disagree and move on. I was exhausted, but I knew I’d survived to fight another day.

Twenty years later, we had been down so many roads, fought good fights, mostly on the same side and overcame the great SS Exxon Valdez disaster. We traveled roads to many places including, London, Paris, Bordeaux, Munich and Zurich.

One night in Paris, our host took us to a historical restaurant. He seated us in a large chair and explained that Napoleon and Josephine once sat there. Dick looked at me and noted; “John, here we are, you from Brooklyn, NY and me from Alma, Arkansas and we are sitting where Napoleon sat. Only in America!

RIP Dick Green.

Congress authorized funds to build the lead ship for the next generation of nuclear powered super aircraft carriers in 2008. By then the concept of building a new class of weapons incorporating “leap ahead technology” had been fixed in stone in the Pentagon’s procurement philosophy and this baby was a natural for it. It was decided that the lead ship for this class, CVN-78 would be named for our Thirty-eighth president, the USS Gerald R. Ford.

“Ford was designed under Bush (43) and Rumsfeld. The carrier was packed with major cutting-edge technologies including an electromagnetic aircraft launching system, an advanced arresting gear, a powerful dual-band radar, a new nuclear propulsion and power distribution system and advanced defensive weapon systems. In all, the ship incorporated twenty-three distinct changes and up-grades from the ten existing Nimitz-class carriers.”

The last Nimitz, USS George H.W. Bush, CVN-77, was completed in 2009 at a cost of $6.2 billion. Although commissioned on January 10, 2009, Bush didn’t become operational until May 15, 2011.

Bush was a direct descendant of the USS Forrestal, CVA-59 our first super carrier completed in 1956. Like the Forrestal, Bush’s technology included the angle deck and steam catapults both invented by the British. By the Rumsfeld era the problems associated with steam catapults were well documented. Steam was corrosive and required continual maintenance. The hydraulic landing system that controlled the arresting cables was also considered obsolete for future carrier operations.

Rummy and co decided that this class would have great leap forward technology so Ford and two planned sisters, CVN-79, U.S.S. John F. Kennedy and CVN 80, U.S.S. Enterprise incorporated these new toys. Thought was also given to retrofitting later models of the Nimitz class with these systems. Fortunately, this insanity was quietly abandoned once the cost became known.

Ford was authorized on September 10, 2008 in the waning days of 43’s administration with a price tag of $7.9 billion and an estimated completion date of 2015. Neither the actual price tag nor the delivery date came in anywhere near those estimates. Self-imposed budget restrictions were part of the reason but the real culprits were those “what if” systems particularly the new catapults the new power plant and the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG).

These systems remained in development as construction of the hull at Newport News Shipbuilding (now Huntington Ingalls) progressed but timing slipped and costs soared as it became obvious that they didn’t work as intended. Ford wasn’t commissioned until July 22, 2017 at a staggering cost of $13 billion. But before you begin to shake your head in disgust, understand the ship will not be able to enter service until 2020 or 2021 and will cost an additional $780 million to be made operational.

This additional time is needed to get these damn systems to work properly. Current estimated cost for the launch system is at $961 million or three times the original price and still can’t be used to launch aircraft equipped with external fuel tanks needed for long-range missions. I kid you not, this is scary stupid.

The turbines have failed to produce the amount of electrical power the ship requires and the AAG does not perform up to specifications either.

Fixes are in the works but may affect the timetables for the Kennedy and Enterprise if corrections and solutions are not made sooner rather than later. Bryan Clark, a naval analysis noted:

“The navy is paying the price for attempting to incorporate too many new technologies at once. The Ford is an example of how short-lived strategic themes such as ‘transformation’ can create long-term problems. This is not a history we want to repeat.”

Ex-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus noted: “The Ford is a textbook example of how not to build a ship… (We were) building it while it’s still being designed…which results in costly do-overs of already finished components and trying to force unproven technology on it.”

Congratulations Rummy, you took three throws at the dice table, the Zumwalt destroyers, the

F-35 Lightning II and the Ford and you rolled craps each time.

During the second Iraq war Rumsfeld ended a press conference with an old service remark: “Good enough for government work.” These debacles don’t even qualify for that excuse.

Q: What do Mao Zedong and Don Rumsfeld have in common?

A: They both promulgated the concept of a “Great Leap Forward.”

Q: How did that work out for them?

A: “Furgeddabouit!”

We will not speak unkindly about Chairman Mao. Let the dead rest in peace even though his great leap forward resulted in the deaths of countless ordinary Chinese citizens. Let’s face it…The average day under Mao was usually not a day at the beach, and so it goes.

On the other hand, Uncle Don, as Secretary of Defense under Bush 43 insisted that our next generation of weapon systems then being budgeted must incorporate a new paradigm, “Leap Ahead Technology.”

The exact meaning of Leap Ahead Technology is lost to history. Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. Another instance where think tank, big brain so-called wunderkind analysts convince DC policy makers that their latest, greatest new-think weapons solution are in fact: “The way the truth and the light.”

The result; the Elmo Zumwalt class destroyers, the F-35 Lightning II fighter and the Gerald Ford nuclear aircraft carriers. I understand that Leap Ahead Technology would incorporate the next generation of technology into the new weapon by relying on unproven systems still in development. This amounted a crap shoot, betting that this technology would reach maturity before the weapon system was completed.

When I wrote about the Zumwalt’s in 2015, I reported: “Back in 2009, the GAO “…found that four out of 12 critical technologies in the Zumwalts’ design were fully mature. Six were approaching maturity but five would not be fully mature until after installation.”

So much went wrong that the navy cut the order from 32 ships to three and deemed that this trio would be utilized, “…as state of the art platforms for experimental weapons such as lasers and electromagnetic rail guns…” This way the navy could play with all the stuff that didn’t work as promised in the first place. Cost: $4.2 billion for each ship not including an additional $10 billion in development costs plus invoices still to come to make these systems workable.

In 2002, we touted the F-35, Lightning II as only one of two fifth generation jet fighters on earth, the other being our F-22. We invited every nation we considered to be friends and family to participate (i.e. help pay for) this the best tactical fighter jet on the planet capable of performing every conceivable mission for the rest of the 21^st Century:

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen; nothing up my sleeve. I present to you, each one of you the future of tactical military aviation. Tell you what I’m gonna do…if you sign up right now for your share at my low introductory price of $233.0 billion, you will be the first on your block to possess this gallant steed…sign up now as I shall not pass this way again…

And how they signed up: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom. Hello suckers, feel right at home. By 2007, the price had swelled to $278.5 billion, by 2012 to $395.7 billion and by 2017 to $406.5 billion. Oh, dear how loudly the Aussies, Canuks, Danes and Dutch squawked as each installment came due. You would have thought Uncle was to blame!

Did I mention that the cost of the helmet was not included? Whoops, well, its price tag of $400,000 each is an extra. But what a helmet! “It offers a 3-D scan, noise canceling headphones, night vision, a forehead-mounted computer, and a projector that displays live video on its clear visor.” The helmet comes in dark green and weighs about four to five pounds about the same as a football helmet. “When tethered to the plane, the helmet gives pilots the combined visual capabilities of Superman and Iron Man, if they were flying Wonder Woman’s invisible plane.”

Everything the pilot needs is shown on the visor and the pilot can see through the aircraft with a 360-degree view. It just took a while to get it to work the way it’s supposed to work but I have it on good authority that it’s now working peachy keen. (Did I mention that each pilot has his own one-of-a-kind helmet?)

The Lightning II comes in three models, A, B and C. Most buyers have ordered the traditional Model-A suitable for air force service at $94.6 million per airplane. The aircraft carrier capable Model-C navy version costs $121.8 per unit and the Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) Model-B favored by the marines comes in at $122.8.

The B has been a bitch and a half to get working right. Its second internal vertical lift engine really complicated the airplanes avionics and performance adding time, money and near nervous breakdowns to its development. It remains in development and is just now going into production. The C has had similar problems and delays due to the need for folded wings and added stress during catapult takeoffs and arrested carrier landings. Delays forced the navy to purchase 90 additional tried and true F-18E Hornets(fighter-bombers) and 80 EA-18G Growlers (electronic warfare aircraft) to fill the gap.

Fifteen years removed from the programs origin, only the USAF is operating 104 F-35As in an ongoing developmental and training role and the navy is testing a small number of F-35 Cs. Foreign partner pilots participate in the training program as production plans are updated. The best estimate that I can find is full production will begin in 2019 and our foreign partners will begin to receive their airplanes beginning in 2021.

So much for that great leap forward and in the words of one American general: “Think really hard before deciding on any future joint-service platforms.”

(To be continued with Part Two: Ford Class Carriers)