John Delach

Part Two

On board a Brooklyn trolley car bound for the Canarsie Pier with my Mom in 1951.

Rockaway Parkway, despite its grand name is a quiet street. Two-family attached brick houses line it for several blocks nearest to the subway station. Even so, as the trolley proceeds south, vacant lots gradually begin to outnumber houses until the scenery becomes mostly fields. The skeletons of a few remaining Quonset Huts dot some of these fields. Now abandoned, my Mom explained on an earlier trip, “The government built them in 1946 to house newly married ex-GIs because regular housing was so short. Two families shared half of building. It must have been terrible.”

Before reaching the pier, the tracks leave the street and enter their own right-of-way. The trolley runs along an uneven gravel and grass path bucking and shaking until it loops into the wooden covered platform that is the Canarsie Terminal. We tumble off the car, walk back to Rockway Parkway, through the underpass beneath the Belt Parkway and toward the pier.

A square parking lot occupies most of the pier. The only structure is a single-story red-brick park house containing an office, bathrooms and snack bar off to one side. Fishermen, using reels and rods, cast from various spots along the apron. Tin buckets and nets on long metal poles line their fishing spots to collect their catch. It is a warm spring day and Mom says, “Why don’t we take the boat ride around the bay?”

“Great,” I reply and follow her onto a gangplank that leads to a floating pier and a surplus navy whaleboat. Mom purchases two tickets for ten cents each and I hurry to grab an end seat on one of the benches. The boat ride though not exciting, is something different. As the boat weaves around several islands, I watch the afternoon aerial parade of Constellations, Stratocruisers, DC-4 and Dc-6 airliners as they follow the approach toward Idewild Airport just over the horizon.

We walk around the perimeter of the pier before my Mom makes her way to a bench to rest and read. I while away the afternoon, wandering among the fishermen comparing their catches, watch airplanes, seagulls and the occasional boat that sails by and, when Mom is not looking, lean over the edge and launch discarded ice cream sticks into the bay.

When Mom is ready to leave, we make our way back to the trolley.  Across the street from the subway station, she lets me buy a Three Musketeers candy bar. The toys and comic books in the store are off limits.

I look out the window at the low skyline of East New York as the Manhattan bound subway train approaches its next stop, Atlantic Avenue. The sun that is beginning to set casts orange light through windows on the opposite side of the car spreading it across the floor and the seats. My mother sits near me. She shifts her body to escape the light, but when the conductor opens the doors, a jolt of sunlight assaults her and several other riders forcing them to shield their eyes with newspapers, magazines, hands, or coat sleeves. I too turn away to duck the sun until the doors close again.

I am still enjoying the day and this last train ride. Mom is tired. She has given up another precious Sunday to entertain her eight-year-old son who is too young and too selfish to realize her sacrifice. The train moves on crossing the complex of switches and tracks that is Broadway Junction. I look down at the subway yard with its rows of tracks separated at intervals by cement firewalls, the red brick bus garage, the silver and green GMC and Mack buses parked outside and the remnants of an old Piels brewery. The houses, churches and schools of Bushwick line a ridge behind the train yard and brewery.

This is the last stop before the train descends into the subway erasing my view of Brooklyn. Through the portal, into the tunnel, the wind roars as the train pushes it forward. I look out into the darkness. The window ceases to be the canvas for the images I enjoyed this day and, instead, it becomes the disappointing reflection of my own image.

My day dies with the descent into the tunnel. Today’s adventure melts away as my thoughts quickly turn from the joys of this Sunday’s outing to Monday morning and the dread of returning to the fourth grade.

Written in 2004, first published in “The Big Orange Dog and Other Stories” in 2011 and revised in February of 2018

Part One

My excitement begins when the 8:45 a.m. mass at St. Aloysius Church ends. Outside, I line-up on the Onderdonk Avenue sidewalk with other kids to give a vendor a nickel for a salted pretzel that he selects from his wicker basket lined with a clean dishtowel. It is the first piece of food I eat today. This is 1951 and my Holy Communion fast began at midnight.

Mom told me before we left for mass that we would have an outing today. I still don’t know where we will go, and I must wait while she chats with friends and neighbors. I have learned to keep my mouth shut. I am sure my body language gives away my growing impatience as these women continue to talk aimlessly. But one time, I made the mistake of wising off and my Sunday outing ended right then and there. I am happy and relieved when my mother and her friends say their final good-byes. Walking home, Mom announces that we will be going to Canarsie today.

This is fine with me because that is one of the few places we travel to that is still served by trolley cars. Before Mom heads for our apartment to start our breakfast, she hands me seventy cents. I run to the bakery around the corner to buy 4 seeded rolls and 2 crumb buns for two quarters and to the candy store where I leave twenty cents in a plate on the counter for the Sunday News and Sunday Mirror.

It’s a four-block walk from our house to the DeKalb Avenue station. No clerk is on duty on Sundays forcing us to use the automated turnstile. I hate this machine; a steel enclosed cylinder with room for only one passenger at a time. I must push it around by myself and I fear becoming trapped. I’m sure if I do, I will wet my pants, but fortunately it does not jam.

I delight in this train ride. Being a kid, I imagine that I drive the train through the tunnel as I look out of the front window holding on to the doorframe as the subway car bucks and rocks as it travels with speed between stations. A marvelous combination of sensations, the swoosh of the train rushing forward, its lights bouncing off the concrete walls creates patterns of shapes and forms that disappear before I can even think what they could be. In front of us, the tracks glow until eaten away as the train devours them. The white light bulbs lining the tunnel walls are the stars in a galaxy; the blue emergency lights with their pink halos are its strange planets. Signal lights change from red to yellow or green as the motorman eases or increases his throttle to keep pace with them.

Every now and again, I look over my shoulder to make sure my mother remains in her seat reading a newspaper or magazine. Satisfied, I return to my own universe excited to be riding the train on this Sunday outing.

The day is ahead of us. Morning light fills the train as it emerges from the tunnel and onto the elevated structure. Apartment buildings, tenement houses, schools and small factories melt away with each station as the landscape becomes less crowded. We pass junkyards, rail sidings and even an occasional farm and farm house as the train descends to ground level before it reaches the end of the line. I abandon my post as the train eases into the last station and follow Mom to wait for the connecting trolley car that will take us to the Canarsie Pier.

“Will we go on a boat ride? Can I get ice cream, candy, a soda?” “How long can we stay?”

I don’t see that I am testing her patience until it is too late. “Stop it and be quiet.”

I sulk but the sound and sight of the trolley distracts me. Few streetcar lines still operate and, soon this one too will be replaced by buses. I have watched the ones that ran near my house all disappear, so this is a treat for me. Visions of ice cream and Pepsi vanish with its appearance, at least for a while.

We board the trolley, a double ender dating from the 1920s. So much more fun to ride than buses, trolleys have their own unique sounds and smells. The sound of the electric motor purring as the car waits to be engaged. The crackle and smell of the electric ozone when the trolley pole sparks as it crosses other wires. The clang-clang of the bell as the operator prepares to leave a stop. The sound and smell of steel on steel as the car crosses switches or makes tight turns.

Mom allows me to sit next to a window when a seat is available. She sits next to me. I am only allowed to open the window so long as the breeze doesn’t disturb other passengers. Five black iron horizontal bars block the opened window, but her sharp words of caution are enough to prevent me from sticking my fingers through the bars.

Practicality: The sensible use of dealing with or coming to terms with an unexpected, unusual or extraordinary situation or opportunity. Historical example: The Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson was opposed to westward expansion but when the French offered their legitimate claim to 867,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River for a bargain basement price of $15,000,000, Tom jumped on it. Practicality won out.

Item Number One: The Practical Author

“Fire and Fury” is currently the hottest book in the publishing world. Hyped as a tell-all of   supposedly salacious insider stories, it portrays the Donald Trump White House as more akin to “One Flew Over the Coco’s Nest,” “All the President’s Men,” and “The Pentagon Papers” rolled into one. This tell-all phenomenon from the pen of Michael Wolff is flying off bookshelves at warp speed.

In the interest of clarity, I note the full title of Mr. Wolff’s book is, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” I make this distinction because The New York Times recently reported that the book’s abbreviated title is causing confusion with another Fire and Furious, written a decade ago.

That book was authored by Randall Hansen, a Canadian professor who is currently the interim director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. The complete name of Professor Hansen’s book is: “Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942-1945.” The Times noted this about Hansen’s book: “It is highly critical of the British-led nighttime firebombing of German cities, finding it both morally dubious and of little strategic value.”

Apparently, Hansen’s book is enjoying a popular resurrection on Amazon’s best-seller list. Hansen noted to The Times: “I don’t know how much of this is a mistake and how much of this is from new interest created by free advertising., There might be some returns.”

The Times included a mild shot he took at Trump, but the Toronto Guardian provided a juicer quotation: “And we are talking about that at a moment when we have this warmongering, unstable, deranged demagogue in the White House, so that coincidence actually makes me happier than the sales.”

Unfortunately, Hansen’s self-proclaimed moral superiority over The Donald prevents him from enjoying the practicality of a return from oblivion and the profitability of renewed sales. Other authors would crave this unexpected windfall and a new opportunity to get your own message across without lifting a finger. Most would be satisfied to proclaim: “I should be so lucky.”

Item Number Two: A Free Lunch

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Nothing is certain except death and taxes.

Usually, when we receive invitations to free lunches, they are produced by folks who want us to give them control of our life savings in return for a piece of chicken. Think about it, when was the last time an attorney asked you to lunch, must less, a doctor. Attorneys, especially, elder care shylocks should be an opportunity for free-bees, but who wants to delve into their financial problems and the extent of their dysfunctional family in the company of other seniors?

As for doctors, I’ve never met even one who offered to take me out to lunch. I believe that there are times when that would be a humanistic gesture, especially by your proctologist. (A lousy cocktail wouldn’t hurt either.)

Most of my offers for free lunches come from money managers, estate planners or other financial advisors. That was until received a slick flyer from my friend, Geoff Jones that came to his home on St. Simons Island, Georgia. The top of the flyer proclaimed:

CONSIDERING CREMATION/ JOIN US FOR A

FREE LUNCH

& INFORMATIONAL SEMINAR

The brochure offered two different venues on the island, Coastal Kitchen and Catch 228. Geoff, noted at the top of the flyer: “I think it’s curious that two pretty good eateries got involved with this.”

The flyer makes sensible points explaining that they’ll discuss the benefits of preplanning, affordable options, veteran benefits and a travel & relocation protection plan. The folks who put this together must have realized that the flyer wasn’t enough to generate the response they desired. The problem: Is offering a free lunch at a nice restaurant enough to entice people to deal with a difficult and put-off subject?

They chose to sweeten the deal by including an incentive on the left-hand corner of the flyer, the place the eye naturally sees first:

Attend

a Seminar

For Your Chance to

WIN A FREE

7-DAY CRUISE FOR TWO

That is practicality at its best. Embrace the inevitable yet get a free lunch in the process plus the chance for a 7-day cruise.

My First Flight: Bill Christman

It’s truly amazing to me how vividly I can recall my travel experiences from that Labor Day weekend in 1964 and yet have no recollection of the weekend I spent with Helen and Don at Journey’s End itself.

I recall arriving by train at the Brattleboro station, looking at my watch to see that it was about 2:30 am Saturday morning and seeing my brother-in-law looking fresh and bright all set to drive me to their Journey’s End cabin. But from that time to Monday late morning my mind is a blank, and so it goes.

My game plan was to fly home as I had never flown before. Just like my first real train trip on Friday night, I wanted to experience flight for the first time. Come Monday, I remember getting more and more nervous as the time drew closer for us to leave for the airport, but not so nervous that I would back out. Mother Nature helped granting me a clear day of beautiful weather so that would not be a factor. Don drove me to the Keene airport while my sister Helen and my mother stayed back with my infant niece Anne-Marie.

The trip to the airport was memorable in one aspect. Most of the ride was on a simple two-lane winding country thoroughfare that had the necessary traffic lines dividing the road. A broken line on your side of the rode meant passing was permitted; a solid line meant don’t even think about passing. Somewhere along the way two young punks drove immediately in front of us and would crawl at say 20 mph when no passing was allowed and then speed up to the point where you could not attempt to pass when it was permitted. They seem to be in front of us most of the 20 or so miles to the airport but eventually went their own way.

At that time, Dillant-Hopkins Airport, (The airport’s official name) offered non-stop service to JFK on Mohawk Airlines. I bought my ticket at the counter, spending about $20 for a coach seat. My thinking was that I would figure out how to get home from there with the limited resources that I still had, meaning I was damn close to broke.

The flight was about half-full and uneventful although for a while I believed that my fellow passengers owed me a debt of gratitude for my keeping that plane in the air through sheer willpower. I remember being disappointed that the plane flew as high as it did since this minimized my view of the ground, but this was a minor annoyance and we arrived on time and in good order.

Relieved and safely on the ground, I exited the terminal and walked toward an area where several green municipal buses were waiting to begin their next runs. One of the first I saw had “World’s Fair” as its destination and I knew the Fair was relatively close to home if only I could find a local bus there. On arrival at the World Fair’s bus parking area, I found a sign showing where different buses stopped. One of them was the B-58, the Flushing-Ridgewood bus, that ran down Grand Street in Maspeth, within walking distance to my house. Almost safe at home, I boarded the next bus to arrive and handed my transfer to the driver.

Unexpected Encounter: John Delach

Mary Ann and I were seeing each other on a regular basis by Labor Day of 1964. We spent at least part of that holiday weekend together. Like, Bill, I too cannot remember the details of our experiences that weekend. However, I do recall that I left her family’s home that Monday afternoon to begin my long bus trip home. First, I grabbed any one of three buses of opportunity to Flushing followed by the long trek via the B-58 that would meander to the World’s Fair, then on through Corona, Elmhurst and Maspeth before finally reaching Ridgewood. Once on board, I opened my paperback book to pass the time, likely a James Bond novel or a book about World War II.

The Fair always drew my attention so when the bus stopped at the Rodman Street’s Worlds Fair Terminal, I put down my book to pay attention to what was going on. Lo and behold, entering the bus, shoving a paper transfer to the driver was my cousin and just-graduated, former college buddy, Bill Christman.

I saw him before he saw me. I know I fired the first salvo but I’m certain I wasn’t so quick to think of a line so clever that it blew his socks off.

Bill recalls, “I heard from the back a familiar voice shouting, ‘So you’re going away for the weekend, huh?’ It was my cousin and good friend John. Eagerly and anxiously I could not wait to talk about the topic then upper most in my mind; my first plane ride. Visiting Journey’s End, my sister Helen and her husband or my mom, forget about it. I flew in a plane. Wowzah!”

A guest blog by Bill Christman

Summer trips to Journey’s End stopped once our Dad took ill. He passed on Christmas Eve, 1957. RIP, Dad.

Life continued and we carried on. My sister, Helen, married Don Markey and once their first baby, Anne Marie, came into the world, Helen revived the Journey’s End experience. In 1964. Helen and Don thrilled Mom by inviting her to join them there.

I was working for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Manhattan, having started there in early July following my graduation from St. Francis College. Helen surprised me with a call from New Hampshire inviting me to join them for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

That call became my proverbial “one small step” that began my not-so-giant leap.

Mom had driven the 200 or so miles in our 1959 Ford and I had no car of my own. I had gone with my parents to Journey’s End as a kid several times. I loved the place and I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity some ten years later. Besides I was 21 and full of myself even though I was hardly worldly or sophisticated. How to get there and return home? I decided to take the train from NYC and fly home.

This was my first opportunity to ride on a real train, not the NYC subway.

I bought a ticket for the train leaving on Friday after work meaning a late arrival in Brattleboro, VT. I vaguely remember asking a ticket agent at Grand Central Terminal for a ticket to Brattleboro being told I would have to change trains. That was upsetting, I was a rookie, what if I missed my connection or fell asleep and didn’t get off? This is not the subway where you just double back or wait it out. I had no choice but to stay awake.

How did I let my sister know what train I would be on? None of the cabins had phones and forget about cell phones-this was 1964. I must have called the Rilling’s main house and left a message for Helen.

I asked the conductor to let me know when we reached my transfer station. (Let’s say it was New Haven although I’m not sure of that.) As we rode onward through Connecticut I became more concerned. In the oncoming darkness many stations either had no identification or I could not identify them before the train moved on. The loudspeaker, what there was of it, sounded garbled or only on in the other cars.

The conductor, true to his word, told me this was my station when we reached New Haven and I’m sure I pushed everyone out of the way, so I could detrain before they closed the doors and pulled out. It didn’t seem long before my next train arrived; I remember asking the conductor if this train stopped at Brattleboro and he assured me it did. Ahh, things were moving in the right direction. But not for long.

The train was scheduled to in Brattleboro around 11:30 pm. That was not going to happen. I joke that we spent too much time standing at various stations, probably waiting for mail to arrive or delivering milk. It became obvious that sticking to a timetable was not a priority.

Little did I understand when making my reservations that the North-Eastern railroads were going to hell in a hand basket and the last thing on their agenda was passenger service. They were bleeding money because of antiquated union contracts and ICC restrictions on pricing and loss of passengers. By 1964, hardly anybody took long distance trains in the North East. The interstates opened up New England for easy access by cars and buses and people flew for longer distances. Had I taken a bus, I would have easily made it to Brattleboro by 11:30.

Springfield, Mass was the worst; a long delay with no explanation. Vendors came through the cars with the most unappetizing sandwiches, which most passengers passed up, me included. When a newspaper vendor came through with the next day’s edition, I began to get concerned about whether I would ever get there.

I probably dozed off several times as we made our way north along the Connecticut River valley stopping at towns like Amherst, Northampton, Deerfield and Greenfield before finally entering Vermont.

We finally pulled into the Brattleboro station at 2:30 am. In my mind’s eye I still see a chipper looking Don Markey greeting me, appearing as though sleep was no problem for him. The five miles or so trip from the station to Journey’s End is only a blur but I do hope I had the good sense to apologize to everyone the next morning for my tardiness and interrupting their sleep.

The worst team in the National Football League, the Cleveland Browns, exceeded last year’s horror show of finishing 1-15 by losing all sixteen games this season. Once again, their awful record entitles the Browns to pick first in the 2018 NFL Draft. That draft, a semi-socialist, semi-indentured servitude process that makes superbly athletic young males instant millionaires will begin on April 26^th at the home of the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

The second pick will go to my beloved, New York Football Giants who earned this dubious distinction by self-destruction, winning only three games while losing thirteen. Along the way they embarrassed their franchise quarterback by benching him. This led to the firing of both their general manager and head coach who both pleaded: “I was only following orders.”

The owner-in-charge who initiated that benching ducked any responsibility. It’s good to be the owner.

Much will be speculated in the coming months about who my beloved Giants will select in the draft and how this will affect Eli Manning, the man whose benching caused the shit storm. (Full discloser; Mr. Manning is my quarterback of record so what’s good for Eli, is good for me.)

This will play out between now and April and I will report as needed. But, let me take you back to 1981, the last time my beloved Giants had the second pick in the NFL draft.

The Giants imploded in 1980; general manager, George Young, head coach, Ray Perkins and quarterback, Phil Simms, all in their second year together, finished 4-12 earning the second pick behind the New Orleans Saints.

There was absolutely no talk of replacing Young, Perkins or Simms despite the awful record. Wellington Mara, Young and Perkins all had a laser focus of who they wanted to pick in the draft: North Carolina’s unanimous All-American linebacker, Lawrence Taylor. The only force  that stood between them and Taylor was Bum Phillips, general manager and head coach of the Saints. The smart money predicted Phillips would select George Rogers, the South Carolina running back and winner of the Heisman Trophy. But Phillips remained coy and the Giants brain trust feared the Saints would trade down.

Taylor’s ability and ferocity were not exactly trade secrets across other teams’ personnel scouts and selectors. Gil Brandt of Dallas noted that Taylor, “… was the best player available on our list.” Mike Hickey, the Jets personnel director called Taylor, “A linebacker freak. He’s too big to be that fast, too fast to be that big and too tough to be stopped easily, if at all.”

Dave Anderson of The New York Times covered the first day of the draft on Tuesday, April 28 held in the New York Sheraton. He reported that NFL Commissioner, Pete Rozelle, began: “New Orleans first up,” the commissioner said. When the commissioner announced that the Saints had chosen George Rogers…at the Giants table, Ed Croke (public relations director) tore up a card with Rogers name on it and handed another card to Jim Heffeman of the NFL office who hurried up to Pete Rozelle with it.

“The Giants,” the commissioner was saying now, “select North Carolina linebacker”…That’s all the draftniks had to hear. They knew that the only North Carolina linebacker who counted was Lawrence Taylor, 6 feet 3 inches, 242 pounds – “a one-man demolition crew,” according to the NFL profile sheets. The draftniks whooped in agreement. “That’s the first time in six years” a Giants historian grunted, “that they cheered.” 

The man who quickly become known as LT was a New York Football Giant and would lead the team to its first playoff appearance in 17 years that season. The long nightmare was over.

Once the 1981 season ended Ray Perkins, who was stingy when it came to compliments, noted: “He’s a prototype outside linebacker in the National Football League. He’s an excellent blitzer, he’s an excellent tackler, he’s smart and he had a great impact on our football team. And I’ve already made this statement and I’ll make it again, that he’s the best young player I’ve seen at any position as a rookie.”

George Young best explained the force that LT brought to the game: “If you went to a ball game and had no idea who the best players were, and you just sat and watched the game, suddenly about five-minutes into the game you’ll be watching Lawrence Taylor.”

Big Blue should be so fortunate this year both in selecting their new head coach and what they do with their selection.

Guest Blog by Peter King

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.