John Delach

May 2014, Revised May 2025

When the 7:07 PM Metro North / Connecticut Transit train to New Haven left Grand Central Terminal on time on Friday evening, May 9, 2014, it included one of the last bar / lounge coach cars operating on any American commuter railroad. Officially dubbed, Café Cars, this forty- something years old unit was removed from service at the end of that run together with three other lounge coaches.

They were rolling dinosaurs and only lasted this long because Connecticut deferred replacing their M-2 commuter car fleet well beyond other railroads had like Metro North and the Long Island. Their very existence was odd as the Nutmeg State still chose to include Café Cars when they ordered new train sets in the early 1970s at a time  almost all other systems were eliminating these coaches as they modernized their equipment.

Like Chicago; Jim Hagelow recalled “We lost ours years ago and with them, many fond memories. Birthday parties, Cubs outings, ‘Oh Shit’ card games and singing Christmas carols. Every year for years, a fellow from Peat Marwick and I led the car singing carols during our rolling party.” Jim also admitted a universal truth: “I think my wife was happy when it went away.”

Geoff Jones remembered that the older pre-MTA equipment included lounge cars with upholstered chairs and couches that could be moved around. “Some had service bars at one end, but there were others with long bars running along one side of windows. The railroad had a bartender who rode south from Poughkeepsie in the morning running a continental breakfast service. At night he became the bartender for the northbound return run to Poughkeepsie where they put him up in a small apartment. On weekends, he continued further north until he reached his family home.”

“When the new equipment arrived, booze carts on the platforms at GCT replaced the lounges. But drinks bought there didn’t last to Peekskill where a funny thing often happened on Fridays. The platform is located on a pretty sharp bend of the Hudson. The train emptied on the right so it took the conductor a long time to check it all to see if passengers were safely off. Just across the street was a pizzeria and thirsty commuters who still had a way to go pre-ordered pizzas and six-packs of beer from pay phones in GCT (no cell phones) to meet the train. A designated runner left with the first wave of exiting passengers to secure the order and re-board the train. Usually, the run went smoothly, but I do believe the conductor held the train when it didn’t. The pizza always smelled great but it was only ten minutes to my stop in Garrison so I didn’t join in.”  

After the LIRR introduced their new M-1 coaches without bar cars in 1969, for a while they turned trains that went long distances into bar cars by putting a cart and bartender on one of the units. He maneuvered the cart taking over one of the two vestibules in that car. He disabled the doors behind him and the conductor would announce his location. Pity the passengers, especially non-drinkers in that car. A line would snake down the narrow aisle with thirsty patrons competing for space with others carrying their drinks back to their friends. If that didn’t create sufficient discomfort for regular riders, once the bartender came on board, that coach officially became a smoking car!

My own make-shift bar experience came on my son’s last commute to Port Washington  before he was to be married and moved to Fairfield, CT. I bought two cans of Budweiser 16 ounce tall boys to share on our express run home. While the train was still in Queens, we made an unscheduled stop for what the crew described as a medical emergency. “EMS is on the way and will be here soon.”

We had finished our Buds, the doors were open and I spied a bodega at the end of the platform across Northern Boulevard. “Watch my briefcase,” I said to Mike and made my way as quickly as I could.

Dodging traffic, I replenished our diminished rations and made it back as the EMS fellows were removing the distressed commuter from the train. “Hey, is that for us?” one of them called out as I re-boarded.

“Afraid not fellas, but if you had let me know, I would have picked up two more.”
                    

May 2016, Revised May 2025

Last week’s piece jogged my memory about another incident that also took place at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. My company had a rough spell in the early 80s that limited the destination for two of our meetings to the nearby Arrowood Conference Center in Rye brook, NY. In a word, modest, at best, Arrowood was a sad excuse for a resort.

Happily, my company’s fortunes vastly improved in the mid-1980s and the big brains decided to reward our Managing Directors with a conference at the Greenbrier.

We realized this meeting would be special. It seemed the firm had money to burn. The first night, before dinner, we followed a high-stepping college band from the hotel to the train station. What followed was a cocktail hour on a train trip to nowhere that consisted of vintage coaches and dome cars. Even the name tags we wore were totally upscale.

From 1987 until 2000, we attended eleven conferences at this swell facility. Most years, the event began on Monday morning and ended on Friday. Our firm was enlightened enough to make Thursday afternoons free time allowing the great majority of MDs to golf on one of The Greenbrier’s three exquisite 18-hole courses.

Being a miserable duffer, I didn’t need to suffer the embarrassment that would surely accompany any attempt I made to challenge these links. Tennis, too was out of the question. Instead, I made an appointment for the spa. Without question my favorite part of the treatment was the massage that concluded the spa experience. The Sulphur baths were the low point as they were just plain smelly and did nothing to enhance my mood or physical well-being.

Naturally, different masseuses brought their own talents and approaches to their craft and over the years I received superb treatment by both men and women that left me loose, relaxed and at as much at peace as was humanly possible.

Then there was 1993. Fortune introduced me to a short fellow with powerful arms and hands who introduced himself as Chet. We made small talk as Chet went to work. I learned he was a Mountaineer, a native-born West Virginian and true to his size and rough appearance, had once been a coal miner. I mentioned that I was from New York; the conversation went on – then from out of nowhere – he noted, “I worked on the Giants’ coach last year. That’s right, he was at the hotel and I worked on him.”

“Really,” I replied. “Do you remember his name? Was it Ray Hanley?” – The Giants previous the head coach.

“No, I don’t think so.” He paused, thought about it then floored me as he continued. “No, he just said he was the coach but that’s not his name. I remember him though because he stiffed me. I paid him back though. I’m part Cherokee and I put a curse on him and the team. They will not have success as long as the curse is on them.”

My head spun because of what I just heard. Chet couldn’t know how long I had been a season ticket holder, that the Giants had finished with a 6-10 record in 1992 and that Hanley and his staff had all been fired.

Instinctively, I wanted to ask him how much he’d want to lift the curse but I sensed that this would only make the situation worse. I had to be more nimble in my approach.

The massage ended and after I dressed, Chet returned with his personal log hand-written in a copy book. He pointed to a name revealing the culprit to be Rod Rust. Rod Rust, I thought to myself, not only did his “read and react” defense suck, he screwed all of us by being a cheapskate.

I put a good tip on the spa bill, standard practice at The Greenbrier, hustled to an ATM and withdrew a like amount in cash. I sealed it in an envelope and returned to the spa, asked for Chet and waited for him.

When he reached reception, I walked over, gave him the envelope while I looked him directly in the eye and said, “Chet, this is to make up for the shabby treatment you received.” I shook his hand and walked away.

It took awhile but the Giants went on to play in three more Super Bowls winning two.

The curse had been lifted.       

When you joke about serious subjects, there is always the chance that what you say in jest can come back to bite you in the ass. It may not happen as soon as you say it, it may not happen tomorrow, or it may not happen until years later. The tragedy is it can happen.

During the 1980s and 1990s my old firm, Marsh &McLennan, had annual meetings for their Managing Directors (MD’s) at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. This is a luxury resort where golf is king, but if golf is not to your liking, other activities include tennis, horseback riding, hiking, their world class Sulphur Baths, massages and a world class regiment of beauty treatments.

For anyone who is fascinated by the secrets and intrigue of our Federal Government, the Greenbrier is home to a decommissioned Congressional fall-out shelter that is located beneath one of the hotel wings that is now open for tours.

Food and drink are plentiful and varied from BBQs to five course extravaganzas. Before I first saw the Greenbrier, I was at another MD Conference held at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. Over drinks, one of my friends said, “You know, John, nice as this is, I hope to get to the Greenbrier one day and have our firm pay for it.” He got his wish.

One of the interesting oddities about the resort is they have a number of cabins along the road leading up to the main building each that could accommodate six people. One trip, I found myself walking up this road late in the afternoon past the cabin where six chaps from Canada were staying. I knew it was their cabin; a Maple leaf flag gave their presence away.

A loud voice stopped me in my tracks. Anthony Tomkinson, their unofficial leader took me on. ”You know, Delach, the trouble with you F-en Yanks is that you think that Canada is the 51^st F-en State.”

“No, Anthony, Canada is not the 51^st F-en State, Israel is the 51^st F-en State. Canada is the 52^nd F-en state.”

Needless to say, I had a beer with them before heading back to my room to get ready for dinner. I had made a good point or so I thought with no harm done.

More than twenty-five years later, my words came home to roost. Here was the second coming of Donald J. Trump seemingly at war with anybody and everybody; friend or foe to correct all real or imagined things others had done to him. Canada was one of them.

The only good news was Tomkinson had passed several years ago, not because of lots of booze, but rather because of lots of his brand of unfiltered cigarettes. Still, I felt badly and wanted to make it up to Anthony and his mates.

I found my answer in a sports story about a fan being ejected from a Toronto Blue Jays game for wearing a baseball cap that read: “Canada Is Not For Sale.” (Fortunately, the Blue Jays backed off and invited this chap to attend another game while wearing his hat.)

I ordered my hat via Amazon and I was told I had to pay a surcharge of $2.75 to pay any possible tariff. For other reasons that I don’t understand,  Amazon advised me that I might not receive my new hat until May, but it actually arrived on April 13^th.

I have worn my hat in public several times without receiving a single comment. This is not a good thing. I am sorry to say the lack of comments is not due to agreement with my message. Rather, it is due to our lack of interest as to how Trump’s tariffs will affect Canada. I am not surprised by this. Americans tend to ignore Canada and Canadiens and take them for granted. Sad, but true.  

Oy vey, Trump’s brave new world is quite confusing and self-serving. Sorry, Mr. President, this old Goldwater conservative has decided that you are a self-serving egoist with the concentration of a flea. And yet, you are the forty-seventh President of the United States of America.

May God have mercy on us all:   

I am an old man named after my father,

My wife is another child who’s grown old,

If dreams were thunder and lightning was desire,

This old place would have burned down a long time ago.

 Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery,

Make me a portrait of an old rodeo,

Just give me something that I can hold onto,

To believe in this living is such a hard way to go.

With thanks to John Prine

January 2005. Amended April 2025

I first caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. It was the color of his skin that drew me to look at him. Copper, not quite as bright as a recently minted penny, but just as shiny.

He stood on line waiting patiently to use the restroom in an Arco convenience store in Gardano, Arizona. I knew that I would be embarrassed if he caught me staring at him, but I couldn’t turn away. He was a compact, wiry man with a chiseled face, a square jaw, high cheek bones, a narrow, pointed nose and black eyes set deeply into his face. I guessed his age to be about 75, but he could easily have been 60 or 85.

White hair draped down the back of his neck from under a blocked cowboy hat. His clothes suggested that he was on his way to some place special. A crisp starched white shirt with red trim, black bolo tie fastened with a silver clip and tan pants, newly creased  without a wrinkle. His pants were hemmed at mid-ankle revealing highly polished boots. A leather belt joined together by a large oval brass buckle completed his outfit.

I forced myself to look away before he saw me. I could not remember what I wanted to buy so I settled on a Diet Coke and walked back to my car.

As I thought about him, I remembered an incident I read about long ago. A New York State Trooper pulled over one of the Hemingway girls for speeding on an upstate parkway. Once he had her license and registration, he returned to his cruiser, wrote out the ticket and gave it to her without saying a word. When asked why he hadn’t talked to her, he replied, “I couldn’t, her perfect beauty overwhelmed me.”

Now I understood how he felt.  

Bob Sylvester was a gossip columnist for many years with the Daily News including when I was growing up. From time to time, he would write that day’s column about changes in our lives and the things that surround us that he titled: “You know that you are getting old when you remember when airliners had propellers…etc, etc.”

My personal introduction to this concept came in 1962 when I was only eighteen-years-old. That February, I turned eighteen, then the legal age allowing me to enter a bar and grill and have a beer, or two or three. Back then, the cost for a glass of beer at a typical bar in Ridgewood, Queens was 15 cents and the bar tender bought back every fourth beer.  All I needed was proof of age. At that time in my life, a driver’s license was only a dream, but the Selective Service gladly accommodated this need by issuing me a draft card.

All was well until September 22, 1962 when a seventeen-year-old-wunderkind baseball player made his debut appearance with the New York Mets after making his way through three levels of the Mets minor league system with a combined baseball average of .301.

Edward Emil Kranepool III was born on November 8, 1944 in the Bronx. Kranepool attended James Monroe High School where he played baseball and basketball. Mets’ scout, Bubber Jonnard signed Kranepool in 1962 as an amateur free agent.

He made his major league debut on September 22^nd as a late inning defensive replacement for Gil Hodges at first base. He made his first start the next day playing first base and going one for four with a double.

More importantly, Kranepool was the first major league player who I knew of who was younger than me. OMG, you know you are getting old when newbie players arrive at the big show who are younger than you.

Kranepool had an up and down career with the Mets making several trips to the Mets triple A top ranked minor league clubs only to be called back up to the big show , the Major League Mets. Originally, he wore number 21 whenever he was back playing at Shea Stadium, but in 1965, the Mets acquired future Hall of Fame pitcher, the aging Warren Spahn from the Milwaukee Braves. Kranepool gave up his number 21 to Spahn and began wearing number 7 for the rest of his career.

He was a strong part of the 1969 Miracle Mets and contributed to an 11-game winning streak in late June that put the team in second place in their division, seven games behind the Chicago Cubs.

“On July 8, Kranpool hit a fifth-inning home run off Fergunson Jenkins to give the Mets a 1-0 lead over the Cubs. By the time the Mets batted in the ninth inning, however, the first place Cubs had taken a 3-1 lead. The Mets scored three runs in the ninth to win the game, with Cleon Jones scoring on Kranpool’s single to center.

“The Mets completed their remarkable ‘Miracle’ 1969 season, in which the team backed by Kranepool, Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, won their first World Series title against the Baltimore Orioles. Kranepool hit a home run in game three of the series, a 5-0 win for the Mets.”

1970 was an off season for Kranepool who was only batting .118 by June when he was demoted to the Mets then triple A affiliate, the Norfolk, VA based Tidewater Tides where he batted .310 in 47 games. He bounced back in 1971 when he batted .280 with 14 home runs and 58 RBIs.

By 1974, this fan favorite’s role had been reduced to that of a pinch hitter. However, he made the most of his opportunities and from 1974 until 1978, he hit .396. After the Mets traded Jerry Koosman at the end of 1978, Kranepool became the last of the 1969 Miracle Mets.

He retired after the 1979 season at age 34, the all-time Mets leader in eight offensive categories. He still holds the mark of most games played with the Mets at 1,853.

In retirement, he became a lasting hero to the Mets-centric Long Island community making an endless number of appearances at many functions. In 1990 he was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame. He did develop diabetes soon after retirement and by 2017, both his kidneys were failing. His fame came to his aide and in 2019, he received a new kidney from a living donor at Stony Brook University Hospital extending his life to 2024. Kranepool died in Boca Raton, FL on September 8, 2024.

The Mets announced shortly before the 2025 baseball season started that they would honor the late Ed Kranepool by wearing a uniform patch featuring his iconic Number 7 on the sleeves of all Mets jerseys.

“Of all the stats and records Ed accomplished throughout his career, the thing he was most proud of was that he spent his entire Major League career in a Mets uniform.” Fellow 1969 Miracle Met, Art Shamsky said in a statement. “Ed would be touched that the team will be wearing his number seven on that uniform all year long.”                    

An incomplete and stingy obituary for Mike Battle appeared in the March 13 edition of Newsday. Originally written by the Los Angeles Times, it mostly paid attention to his college career at USC with the only reference to his short pro career as follows: “He was chosen in the 12^th round of the 1969 NFL Draft by the Jets and played for two seasons in 1969 and ’70.”

Battle’s only professional claim to fame was entirely omitted  by in this obituary.

This story is an excerpt from my book: “17 Lost Seasons” published in 2009.

The Giants and Jets agreed to meet in an exhibition game at Yale Bowl on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Tickets were at a premium, but, my cousin,  Bill Christman, my brother-in-law, Tom Donlon and I were able to grab three. We left early that Sunday morning. Tom drove and Bill practically came directly from the hospital where his wife, Del, had given birth to their second son, Tom, earlier that morning.

The atmosphere building up for the game ,0was tense. Norm Miller set the tone in the Daily News:

The Jets and the Giants stage their Fun City Bowl today for the championship of the five boroughs, and never has so much fuss been made over a happening meant to be only a trial run in the town of New Haven, Conn. The Jets, champions of all football, were four-point favorites over the Giants in the clash that has whipped up more fan enthusiasm in Our Town than anything since the old-time Giant-Dodgers baseball rivalries. More than 70,000 of the “in’ crowd will buck the terrible traffic jam and the inevitable heat to sit in Yale Bowl (game time 2 p.m.) Millions will listen to the live radio broadcasts on WNEW and WABC and millions more will watch the two taped TV replays, the first at midnight tonight on CBS-TV (Ch. 2) and the second at 8:30 tomorrow night on WOR-TV (CH. 9).

Miller was right about the traffic. We left early enough to beat most of it on the way to New Haven, but leaving post-game was impossible. We settled in to play touch football with other stranded fans. The game lasted until a chap who thought of himself as a jock punted my football onto the roof of a Yale field house. It was the perfect ending for a miserable day. The Daily News’ sports headline reinforced the pain that Giant fans felt:

Jets 37, Giants 14

Broadway Joe, 14-for-16 Hurls

3 TD Passes

Norm Miller was angry with Giants and gave them no quarter. “With all the prestige of the championship of the city as table stakes, Joe Namath cleaned out the Giants and left ‘em for broke.”

The Jets took a 17-0 lead when they again stopped the Giants offense forcing Big Blue to punt.

Jets rookie, Mike Battle, became an unlikely hero as he sealed Big Blue’s fate.  Battle, here-to-fore best known for his strange ability to chew, eat and swallow glass stunned the crowd with an 85-yard punt return with 1:45 left in the second quarter. Increasing the J.E.T.S. – Jets – JETS  JETS lead to 24-0 and crushing the Giants and their fans. Battle’s superb moment came when he vaulted over a would-be Giants tackler on his touchdown run. (This play would ensure that the Jets would retain Battle for the next two years of his otherwise uneventful NFL career.)

Giants head coach, Allie Sherman fared much worse. The Giants preseason record dropped to 0-4 and Dave Klein wrote, “Well Mara reacted to the Jets loss as though someone close to him had died. Mara missed a whole week of training camp for the first and only time since the war. Gene Ward wrote a column on Thursday where he tried to balance Sherman successes and failures, but he did acknowledge that …the Sam Huff trade being a goof which the fans will never forgive.

The last exhibition game against the Pittsburg Steelers on Thursday night played in Montreal, Canada decided Sherman’s fate. The Giants  lost to Pittsburg by a score of 17-13 while the sparse crowd sang “Good Bye Allie, we hate to see you go over and over again French and English.

The Giants locker room was in disarray and certain columists  were starting to report that the team was becoming unglued and subject to player feuds and dissatisfaction.

Alex Webster was appointed Sherman’s successor. Mara admitted: Of all the assistant coaches, Alex has had the least experience. But he could be an inspiring influence on a ballclub whose morale has ebbed. He loves the game, he loves the team and his popularity will go a long way toward giving everyone a lift.

It didn’t and  the long struggle continued for another ten years.        

I joined Taproot in the Fall of 2000 after I retired from Marsh & McLennan in April of that year. The group was in full bloom when I joined with a weekly attendance of twenty or more poets and writers at each session. At best, one could expect to wait at least a week between invitations to present one’s piece.. As a novice, I kept my mouth shut while I learned from our master, teacher and poet, Max Wheat and the skilled poets and prose writers. Sooner than I expected, I believe it was after my second session, Max took me aside and said, “John, your purpose for being a member of this group is to share your writing with the other members. I expect that you will submit a piece at our next session. Reluctantly, I wrote my first piece which I presented during the next session.

Late summer in New Hampshire

October 2000

Summer ends suddenly and too soon as sunshine’s daily arrival comes later and later. The sky is Kodachrome blue providing the perfect background for the trees that burn with color. It is as if they are engulfed in a silent fire set ablaze by a sun that is already low in the sky.

In the morning, my hands and face feel that first cold sting as frost forms on grass, roofs, decks and windows of vehicles left outside overnight. The sense of football is in the air. It is time to start preparing for winter. Wood must be stored so that it is accessible once the heavy snow arrives. Pools and hot tubs must be emptied, outside pipes, pipes, faucets, traps and lines must be drained and decks protected against snow that will cover them until spring.

This is not a labor of love. I have no choice but to accept the change of seasons as I put away the toys of summer for another year.

I asked Max if I should submit Autumn in New Hampshire to be part of that session’s Taproot Journal. He counseled me that I wasn’t up to that and at that time, my task was to continue writing and learn form my fellow writer’s critiques. I did and the next year, the Taproot Journal published the first piece I submitted:            

The Big Orange Dog

March 2001

Harry was the first of the big orange dogs that came into our house and showed us why Golden Retrievers are special. He set the standard for all to come. Bright and alert, his favorite pastime was swimming in the still waters of Stone Pond in Marlow, New Hampshire. Stricken with arthritis early on, this passion continued even after walking became difficult for him. We rigged a wooden ramp covered in carpet fabric to assist him into and out of the truck. We chauffeured him to local ponds and he sensed water before he saw it. Excited and agitated, he had little patience until he arrived at his favorite destination.

Disregarding his infirmary, as soon as the rear gate was opened and the ramp raised, he rushed from the truck and into the pond. In the water, strong again, he would start swimming. And what a swimmer, fast with smooth, deliberate strokes creating a graceful wake that spread across the water as he progressed in his pursuit of the tennis ball of the moment. To accommodate his range and speed, I hit the ball with an old Prince racquet as hard and as far as my strength permitted. Upon reaching the ball and capturing it in his mouth, he would return in his graceful triumphant manner. As soon as he reached shore, he released the ball, turned and plunged back into the pond swimming in the direction where he anticipated the next ball would be hit. Watching for the telltale splash, he picked up his pace and swam in its direction. If he did not see a splash in a timely manner, he lifted his chest out of the water and started swimming in larger and larger circles until he found it. Again and again he continued to swim without noticeable fatigue or loss of interest.

His endurance only ended when I finally surrendered the notion that I could outlast him. Once out of the water, the pain and stiffness returned and he let me help him back into the truck. At times I lifted him in my arms so he did not have to negotiate the ramp. I tried not to mind getting drenched in the process.

I will never forget when I first received that journal. Overwhelmed with hope, I found my name, my piece listed on Page Six. …And there it was, my first piece in print in a literary journal. Inside, I jumped for joy.

So here I am; I just turned 81; how about that!

Guess what, whenever I finish a new piece, one that I sense is good, I still feel the same way and this is one of them. 

Saturday mornings are my favorite time for reading my newspapers. Newsday is compact with almost half the paper dedicated to sports and The New York Times includes their Sunday features in the Saturday delivery. These include, the weekend Metropolitan section, the Book Review, The Times Magazine, the Real Estate section and the weekly Arts and Leisure section.

I usually look at the Metropolitan section first. The front page of February 16^th edition featured a color photograph of a silver haired fellow wearing glasses and sporting a matching mustache standing in a cemetery covered in light snow in a tan lined overcoat, matching pants and canvas shoes inadequate for the ground conditions.

He is holding an aluminum cane / walking stick in his right hand and his coat is open reveling a navy-blue sweatshirt as he poses for the cameraman, unsmiling.  

A headline for the piece is below the fold that reads:

Respect for a Ransacked Cemetery

A Brooklyn Man honors the dead at Most Holy Trinity after grave markers are stolen.

 Ironically, the piece begins with: “Even as a small boy, Michael Hirsh loved visiting cemeteries.”

Ironic; where do I begin? First off, this piece unearthed memories, seventy-years old, and long since buried. The last time I visited Most Holy Cross Cemetery with my mother, Aunt Mildred and her daughter, my cousin Patty was just before I graduated from elementary school in 1957.

The cemetery, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn dates back to 1851 dedicated to the first Catholic German immigrants to settle in Bushwick. Stone markers or monuments were prohibited and nearly all graves were marked with wooden crosses that deteriorated with time and weather. The markers on active grave sites with living relatives would be renewed or replaced, but eventually, they all deteriorated into broken remnants of what they were.

Eventually, many of the wooden markers at Most Holy Trinity were replaced by metal markers. The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, CT began to manufacture a “white bronze” alternative to stone. It was actually zinc, far less expensive than bronze, but sturdy and resistant to rust. Sooner or later, all of these markers turned to rust and begin wasting away be they legitimate or knock-offs sold by unscrupulous suppliers.

In the late 1920s, the Public Service Commission authorized the Brooklyn, Manhattan Transit Company, (BMT) to build a new subway line from East New York through Bushwick into Manhattan. One section had to cross Most Holy Trinty Cemetery. The cemetery surrendered the unused land along its southern border, but the plot was too narrow to accommodate two tracks and a station.

The solution was to double-deck the structure. Manhattan-bound trains would remain in the subway while Canarsie-bound trains would travel on a concrete elevated structure. This became the great wall of the cemetery.

Okay, alright; so what is this unearthed memory all about?

Uncle Pete! So who in hell, is Uncle Pete?

Here’s what I remember. Uncle Pete lived one block away from my mother on Himrod Street. A visit to his railroad flat was always a test of my limited abilities as a kid. He was a retired recluse, no window was ever opened, the air was always stale. I don’t have a clue about his personal habits, but all I know is accompanying my mother’s visits to Uncle Pete attacked my senses. The smell was more than unique, it was overwhelming and extremely unpleasant.

My mom seemed oblivious to it. I figured she was faking it. My mother and Aunt Mildrid took turns taking care of this shell of an old man. I had the impression Uncle Pete was related to Mildred but, not directly to my Mom.

Much later, somehow, I figured why my mom and Aunt Mildrid sucked up to this shadow of a person. It seemed that Uncle Pete had acquired the honorary use of Von in front of his last name. How this came to be, I haven’t a clue. I looked it up, and while it can signify a royal blood connection, it can simply be a preposition used by commoners that means “of’ or ‘from.”

When Uncle Pete died, he was buried in his family plot at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery. It seems I vaguely remember that the metal marker was renewed to acknowledge his death and burial.

 We visited his grave several times before my teenage sense of right and wrong kicked in: Right: Let me do what I want. Wrong: Don’t make me do things I don’t want to do.

Adios, Uncle Pete.

But thank you for giving me this piece.