John Delach

Thomas Sullivan and his wife, Alleta, raised their family in Waterloo, Iowa. Mr. Sullivan worked for the Illinois Central Railroad as a freight conductor while Mrs. Sullivan kept house and raised their five boys and one girl. George was born in 1914, Francis in 1916, Genevieve, a year and one day later in 1917 (Irish twins?), Joseph in 1918, Madison, (a boy’s name back then) in 1919 and Albert not until 1922. (Perhaps Alleta received a three-year pardon for good behavior?) An eighth girl, Kathleen was born in 1931 but died just five months later.

The five boys were troublemakers with a capital “T” and every one of them dropped out of school in junior high. In keeping with their pack mentality and Tom-foolery, they enlisted together in the Navy after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

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William F. (Bull) Halsey, Jr. was born in 1882, the son of Captain William F. Halsey, Sr. and the former Anne Masters Brewster. Halsey attended private schools and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1904. In 1935, he became a Navy pilot earning his wings at 52 years old so that he could command a carrier group. He was at sea on December 7, 1941 returning to Pearl Harbor on board his carrier flagship, USS Enterprise, after a re-supply mission to Wake Island.

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The Sullivans convinced Naval bureaucrats to assign them to the same ship after completing basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Center. They reported to the USS Juneau, CLAA-52, a brand-new cruiser then being fitted-out at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearney, New Jersey. Juneau, had been built side-by-side with her slightly older sister, USS Atlanta, and the Sullivan boys stood at attention in their dress blues part of the crew of 63 officers and 785 enlisted men as Juneau was commissioned on Valentine’s Day, 1942.

Captain Lyman Swenson sailed his new command down the East Coast and into the Caribbean where its crew, including those five greenhorns from Iowa could drill, drill and drill again until ordered to the southwestern Pacific on August 22, 1942.

Atlanta and Juneau were a new concept in warship design, a multi-purpose platform primarily designed and armed to protect the fleet from attack from the air –  an anti-aircraft cruiser. Their eight, 5-inch twin-turrets, (three forward, three aft and two amid-ships) plus numerous 40mm and 20mm cannons could let loose a magnitude of deadly steel to kill or deter the most determined attacker. Both ships performed as expected shooting down numerous Japanese aircraft during several battles off Guadalcanal.

Unfortunately, these lightly-armored steeds, built for speed and air defense, were poorly designed to withstand the big guns of the Imperial Navy’s cruisers or the revolutionary, monster, oxygen-fed torpedoes carried by their destroyers and submarines.

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Marines successfully landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi on August 7, 1942 establishing secure beach-heads and pushing inland seizing a Japanese airstrip soon to re-christened, Henderson Field…So far, so good.

The Japanese reacted with all hell two nights later. Admiral Gunichi Mikawa ordered his task force to destroy the landing fleet. Standing in his way off Savo Island, Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley had positioned two cruiser squadrons, one, north and one to the south of the island. Mikawa took the southern route the one closest to Guadalcanal sinking the USS Astoria, USS Quincy, USS Vincennes and the HMAS Canberra. Mikawa inflicted the greatest loss of men and ships America ever suffered in a battle at sea. But Mikawa blinked. He didn’t continue forward to sink the supply ships; he returned home. Hindsight sucks, but that moment was the best shot the Japanese had to reverse what was almost impossible to reverse…Japan was finished.

The next six months witnessed a war of attrition, a terrible struggle. Each side would go on to lost a total of 24 ships and thousands of young lives. The difference was America had undertaken an enormous building program and every carrier, cruiser and destroyer lost would be replaced with five to ten new ships in less than a year. The Japanese didn’t have the same luxury enjoyed by the Arsenal for Democracy.

But that was all in the future. After Savo, circumstances became desperate and it became clear to Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, that Ghormley wasn’t capable of carrying on. Halsey understood that the battles had to be fought with the “navy you have to fight with” and he was pragmatic enough to understand he had to send his officers, men and their ships into harm’s way for as long as it remained necessary.

(To be continued)

The Long Island Railroad has long distrusted its most faithful riders, those commuters who regularly purchase monthly tickets. Granted, the LIRR deeply discounts these fares in the hope of attracting more and more patrons, but the railroad also fears that these “loyal riders” will misuse and subvert their discounted tickets. For many years ticket collectors had to punch most tickets four times a day, twice in the morning on the ride to the New York Pennsylvania Station and twice on the evening commute. Collectors punched tickets before and after the junction in Jamaica, Queens where all branches save the Port Washington Line meet.

The only discernible rationales for a double punch were either; A. to make sure passengers who changed trains at Jamaica had a valid ticket for both trains or, B. to prevent ticket takers from going to sleep after first punching the tickets. Thankfully, this practice ended in the early 1980s. Passengers only showed their monthly on each ride and ticket takers randomly punch them two or three times a month to prevent counterfeiting.

Today, the introduction of electronic tickets is changing the game, yet the acceptance of monthly paperless tickets is yet to catch on.

Since recorded time, or at least as far back as 1924, (the earliest monthly ticket I could find on eBay,) the collector dutifully has taken the new ticket in hand at the beginning of each month, looked  at the commuter and punched the “M” or “F” box to denote the commuter’s sex. This custom established a rite-of-passage especially relevant during the male dominated Twentieth Century commuter scene. Most of these male commuters seldom ventured into Manhattan on the weekend and it was not unusual for their teenage daughters to borrow daddy’s ticket for a Saturday night adventure in the Big Apple.

Most collectors accepted the borrowed monthlies without fuss or bother but invariably the chap who was having a bad day or simply was a prick refused to honor the ticket. Such callous action could initiate a drama proportionate to the lass’ hurt feelings or her funds on hand to buy a one-way ticket. My own daughter, Beth, and even my wife, Mary Ann, encountered such harassment at least on one occasion.

I actually suffered a case of mistaken gender identity myself. One month, a ticket-taker hastily punched the wrong letter on my monthly. I didn’t notice until one of his brothers chose to take issue with me. The fool challenged me even though I had signed the ticket on the front and printed my name and phone number on the back. My response to his: “What’s going on here, bub?” was a sharp, “Well, it looks to me like one of your dumb-ass buddies decided I needed a sex-change.”

My sharp words, no-nonsense tone, and the look in my eyes sent him reeling. He took the only course of action left; he punched the “M” marking me bi-gendered for the remainder of the month.

Now at long last, the LIRR’s gender fixation has finally hit a wall, one of those Twenty-First problems we are forced to address, the rights of transsexual and transgendered people. Newsday recently reported that a public advocate, Letita James, has put the railroad’s parent, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, (MTA,) on notice that, “The railroad’s gender policy, ‘violates the spirit, if not the letter’ of state and city laws meant to protect human rights.”

“This unnecessary antiquated and reductive system poses serious constraints on a range of groups including those whose dress or appearance is gender-nonconforming and anyone who doesn’t feel their gender is relevant to riding public transit.”

(After reading my new book on writing clearly, I am sorely tempted to edit that statement so that she speaks clearly.)

But it is a quotation and, so be it.  Me thinks Ms. James is asking the LIRR’s to stop identifying passengers by their gender and let’s go with that.

So I say: Bully for you, Letita! Enough is enough. With all of their other problems, both the MTA and the LIRR should cave on this issue. Pennsylvania Station is falling down, the four East River tubes damaged by Sandy must be repaired sooner or later and emergency repairs at Penn Station this summer will likely cause mini-nightmares.

That’s not all, folks. The signal system at the LIRR’s Jamaica hub is on death’s doorstep and the LIRR has two insanely expensive capital improvement projects under way. The first, Eastside Access, is the road’s perpetual project to shift a good number of its trains from Penn Station to a new terminal under Grand Central Terminal. This boondoggle devours money like Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” yet has an opening date that continues to slip-slide away. That opening, once projected for 2012, now hovers at 2022 but don’t bet the ranch on it opening that year either.

Add to that the LIRR a multi-billion-dollar project to build a vital third track along the main line from Jamaica to Hicksville. Still in the early stages of design and funding, it seems likely to inherit a life of its own and cost escalation without end.

The time has come to say adios to M/F feature on monthly tickets. Why fight a fight you can’t win especially when it’s un-necessary and dumb? Let people free to be who they want to be and, for God’s sake, make the trains run on time.

My cousin, Bill put me on to “Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters” by Harold Evans. I recommend this gem of a book to anyone who wants to improve their writing skills.

Mr. Evans catalogues a list of clichés writers should avoid. These include acid test, breathless silence, crack troops, dig in their heels, given the green light, heartfelt thanks, in the nick of time, long arm of the law, never a dull moment, part and parcel, red faces, stick out like a sore thumb, true colors, up in arms and widespread anxiety. Directly following this list, He takes a time out that he calls “Interlude.” It contains the following passage Evans attributes to the late Bernard Levin:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “Its Greek to me,” then you are

quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting

Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in

sorrow than in anger; if your wish is father to the thought; if your lost property has

vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an

inch or suffered from green-eyed  jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have

been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your

brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted  on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on

ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and  master), laughed yourself into stiches, had

short shift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing,  if you have seen better days or lived

in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool  you, for it is but a forgone

conclusion that you are (as luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;  if you think it is early

days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that’s the long and

short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it  involves your

own flesh and blood, if you lie low to the crack of doom because you support foul  play, if

you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to

 give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head)

you  are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if

you wish I was dead as doornail, if you think that I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the

devil incarnate, a stone-hearted villain, bloody minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove!

Oh Lord! Tut tut!  For goodness’ sake! What the dickens! But me no butts! – It is all one to

me, for you are quoting  Shakespeare.          

Once upon a time, a chap named Steve Karmen produced an album of songs about New York City. He released his album during John Lindsay’s administration when all hell was breaking loose at the start of what would become that long, hard, rough and crime-ridden era of a dysfunctional New York City. Those of us who lived through those years remember this period as the bad old days.

One of the cuts had the title:  “As The Subways Go Rolling Along,” that included the following verses:

Oh they’re wild and loud,

and make a merry crowd,

together they’re happy right or wrong.

And without a plan,

this is where the plot began,

as the subways go rolling along.

There are people you meet

fifty feet below the street

as the subways go rolling along.

Some snooze, some booze,

if you snooze, they’ll steal your shoes,

as the subways go rolling along.

The city went to hell; the subways included. Years and years of deferred maintenance finally caught up and overwhelmed the system. Labor strife, racial and class discontent and that damn Viet Nam war stressed every element of society. Municipal workers felt put upon, pissed-off and prepared to retaliate. Unions were aching to strike and strike they did; transit workers, police, firefighters, sanitation, teachers, draw bridge operators, postal workers and on it went. All demanded satisfaction. Disrespect for the law followed. Crime and graffiti seemed to be the only prospering industry in Gotham.  Belief in the viability of the city cratered as the crack epidemic exploded.

Ed Koch insisted on a wake-up call to everyone starting with himself. Mayor Koch stood at the exit from the Brooklyn Bridge walkway and asked his constituents, “How am I doing?”

A new light began to shine on the city and life began to stir again. Quality of life began to improve under Koch, not so much under David Dinkins, but it soared under Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Money was re-directed into the transportation infrastructure improving both the suburban rail and the subway systems.

Newcomers; Generation X and Millennials flocked to New York. Their numbers overwhelmed the affordable space in Manhattan bringing about the gentrification of neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. Park Slope, always viable as a community, was the first to rise from the dead. Brownstone houses that sank to less than $50,000 in the ‘70s rocketed to multimillion valuations by the turn of the century and even a two-bedroom, third-floor, walk-up railroad flat on Garfield Street went for just over $900,000 in 2016.

Faced with soaring prices Park Slopeans pushed north into Fort Green and Bed-Sty, east into Crown Heights and south into Windsor Terrace. Likewise, urban pioneers pushed the frontier eastward into Bushwick and Ridgewood when prices rose in Williamsburg,

Heady days, but these new pioneers had to depend on outer subway lines as they pushed further from Manhattan. Unfortunately, state and city overseers had failed to provide adequate funds for maintenance and repairs. Cutting corners and doing things on the cheap are formulas for disaster and kicking the can down the road is a politician’s best friend.

Subway signals, once inspected every 30 days, are now inspected every 90 days. Subway cars, once inspected every 66 days or 12,000 miles, are now inspected every 75 days or 15,000 miles. Meanwhile, ridership increased dramatically from 1 million trips each weekday in 1990 to 1.8 million in 2016.

Reality caught up with this combination of neglect and over-crowding with a series of breakdowns and accidents that have plagued the system this year. The summer of 2017 is shaping up to be the summer of our discontent while Cuomo and DeBlasio point fingers at each other. A pox on both their houses!

Laugh about it, shout about it,

when it comes time to choose,

any way you look at this you lose.*

*Mrs. Robinson: Paul Simon

Our guide, Trish Hughes, warned us to refrain from taking photos while on Davis-Monthan AFB (DMAFB) until we left the base proper and entered AMARG, the largest military aircraft boneyard in the world. Ms. Hughes objected to the term “aircraft boneyard” explaining, “AMARG is much more than a place airplanes come to be dismantled; that’s AMARG’s purpose of last resort.”

Point made. The Department of Defense created the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) to take possession, inventory, clean, mothball and maintain aircraft retired from all branches of the service. DMAFB was selected to host the resting place for over 4,000 aircraft because of the surrounding desert’s low humidity, lack of rainfall and its hard alkaline soil. Ms. Hughes explained, “We locals call this surface, caliche or ‘Indian concrete.” (Don’t try referencing this politically incorrect term; it must be a local expression.)

“On arrival, all guns, ejection seat charges and classified hardware are removed. Each aircraft is washed twice, the fuel system drained and protected and the airplane is sealed from dust, light and high temperature before being towed to its storage position.”

Our tour took us throughout the facility past aircraft of every type and kind. Type 1000 are aircraft in waiting, sealed, untouched and ready for re-activation. Type 2000 are being cannibalized to provide needed parts for sister aircraft still in use. Type 3000 wait to be re-purposed and Type 4000 await the cutter’s torch.

Many fighter jets are waiting to be re-purposed into drones. The F4H Phantom II was the drone of choice for the last 20 years, but AMARG re-purposed the last of these work horses from the Viet Nam war in 2013. Ms. Hughes explained that the air force has just given the go-ahead to begin converting F-16s Flying Falcons into drones. Even though the F-16 remains in use by the air force, the sea of these fighters already retired that we pass on our tour demonstrates that they will serve as drones far into the future. AMARG also converts other aircraft, particularly helicopters, for use by the forest and the border services.

The tour took over an hour and the bus exited the facility just as I was reaching sensory overload. Thankfully, we headed back to the museum for a burger and a beer.

Our first stop after lunch was to a separate building housing the 390^th Memorial Museum dedicated to all of the members of the 390th Bombardment Group. Their beautifully re-conditioned B-17G Flying Fortress is the centerpiece of this museum. A guide insisted that this is a separate museum within the Pima Museum with its funding. Their exhibits do add to the experience and their handsome building is worth a stop.

Bill and I agreed it was time to make the trek out to the B-36 that sat gleaming in the sun between a B-52 Stratofortress, the bomber that replaced it, and a B-47 Stratojet, our first medium range all-jet bomber. What a sight, the three bombers that constituted the foundation of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) for over twenty years during the height of the cold war now sitting side by side by side.

(As I noted, in Part 1 of this story, Bill and I couldn’t believe that more than one B-36 Peacemaker still existed but here was a second Peacemaker. Subsequently, I discovered four of these giants have been preserved. Of the remaining two, one is housed indoors at the SAC Museum in Ashland, Nebraska and the other outdoors at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California.)

Pima has more than 300 aircraft with most displayed outdoors. Despite the heat, we took our time viewing several of the more interesting airplanes including an early model of a Lockheed Constellation in TWA markings that actually belonged to Swiss Air and a pre-WW II Sikorsky S-43 flying boat nicknamed the “Baby Clipper.” Built between 1937 and 1941, these amphibians island hopped passengers and cargo for Pan American and other airlines around the Caribbean. I was quite pleased to actually see one of these relics from that by-gone era. One of the oddest airplanes we came across was a Northrop YC-125A Raider. Twenty-three of these three-engine beasts were built in 1948 only to be deemed less desirable then helicopters. The museum believes theirs is one of two survivors.

By the time we reached Hanger No. 4, I was on the cusp of the heat defeating me. The a/c and a bottle of water saved the day and between No.4 and No. 5 we finished our day with a PB4Y-2 Privateer, the navy’s version of the B-24, a two-engine B-25 Mitchell bomber similar to the one Doolittle’s squadron used to bomb Tokyo in 1942, a PBY Catalina flying boat, the workhorse recon and rescue plane in the Pacific and a B-29 Superfortress, the bomber that ended the war in the Pacific.

Bill and I departed the next day pleased with our time together and the experiences at the Titan II Missile Museum, the Pima Air & Space Museum and AMARG. The trip fulfilled our expectations and now I have to begin thinking about a trip to Nebraska to visit the SAC museum.

Seeing the Pima Air & Space Museum for the first time forced me to ask myself: Why wasn’t this on my radar screen as a destination to see vintage airplanes? It’s not as if I’m a rookie or a rube when it comes to airplane museums. I live on Long Island and have visited the Cradle of Aviation museum located on old Mitchel Field to see their collection of airplanes built on Long Island principally by Grumman and Republic. In fact Grumman was the principal sponsor when it remained an independent manufacturer, the navy’s biggest supplier of jet fighters and Long Island’s biggest employer. The museum’s gem is the Luna Module 13, aka the LEM from Apollo 18 that never launched on its moon mission due to budgetary cutbacks. The moon’s loss was the museum’s gain.

I’ve visited the Smithsonian Air & Space facilities both on the mall and out at Dulles International Airport, the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio and the US Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. They all include treasures. The Smithsonian’s grand prize is the original Wright Flyer, a Concorde in Air France markings and the shuttle Discovery. The air force has the one surviving B-70 stored outside and its grand prize (in my opinion,) a monstrous B-36 Peacemaker stored inside. The Navy has the NC-4, the only one of three Curtis flying boats able to finish the first trans-Atlantic crossing in 1919, eight years ahead of Charles Lindberg. Christened, the Lame Duck, NC-4 survived the difficult flight from Rockaway Beach to Lisbon, Portugal with multiple stops in 10days and 22 minutes.

The primary reason Bill and I planned a trip to Arizona was to visit the military aircraft bone yard in Tucson. It was only when I began my due diligence that I discovered the starting point for the tour was at the Pima Air &Space Museum. I was surprised to learn that this museum was in a separate location several miles removed from the Davis-Monthan AFB, the home of the bone yard. I called the museum before we departed to determine tour details and discovered there were two tours daily, one at 11 AM and one at 1 PM.

We planned our visit on Friday, the one full day we had in Tucson and we agreed to be at the museum when it opened the next day at 9 AM, an easy task as our Hampton Inn was about ten-minutes from the site. Unexpectedly, we found about 50 people had already lined-up outside the entrance when we arrived at 8:45. We concluded that folks who go to airplane museums in 105+ degree heat tend to be early birds. Despite our “late” arrival, we secured tickets for the 11 AM bus. We had to undergo a security check designed to ferret out anybody with a record or a warrant hanging over their heads. This was becoming serious.

We had enough time to visit three of the five climate controlled hangers before boarding the bus and we couldn’t help but notice the large number of aircraft displayed outdoors as we walked from one hanger to another. We began in Hangers One and Two attached to the entrance. Both had decent collections but nothing unusual. We found a B-24 in pristine condition in Hanger Three. This is the type of bomber my father fought in with the Eighth Air Force flying 47 missions as a navigator on two separate tours of duty. The museum recovered their B-24 from the Indian Air Force and a museum crew flew it to Tucson. I was duly impressed by the tale of their flight across Asia, Europe, the Atlantic and cross-country. By then it was time to board the bus.

Laggards once again, we found the only open seats together were in the rear. However, they were great with plenty of leg room and an unobstructed view. As the bus left the museum, Bill and I were startled to see a B-36 parked on the grounds. We both believed that the sole remainder of these heavy bombers was located at the Air Force Museum. What a find and a must-see for us when we returned from the tour.

Our guide, Trish Hughes, an accomplished aviator and instructor, explained we were heading to Davis-Monthan AFB where we would have to vacate the bus while security inspected it. The driver stopped at the commercial entrance where a large garage blocked our path. It was actually a double-ended shed filled with various electronic, chemical, etc. sensors designed to detect the presence of harmful things bad guys would want to slip onto the base.

Few of us encounter direct face-to-face reminders that our nation has been continuously at war since September 11, 2001; this was one of them. We were not alone in the receiving yard. Every commercial vehicle stopped there for inspection. Each truck driver opened the hood of his truck, opened the cargo doors and presented his log to security. Uniformed military police and uniformed federal officers used various devices to inspect the engine compartments and cargo including the best and most basic detector, K-9 German Shepherds.

We were led off the bus and into the shed while our coach received a thorough going over including a quality sniff test by the K-9. Trish explained that the questionnaire we filled out back at the museum was also being checked against the FBI’s data base. Bill and I quietly shared the same thought with each other: “Pity the poor s.o.b. with an outstanding warrant who took this trip on a lark!”

Cleared to go, we re-boarded and the bus slowly rode through the shed before we were cleared onto the base.

(To be continued.)

Gary Gulman has a wonderful comedy routine about how the government decided to set the two-digit code for every state. Gary begins his routine by explaining that he recently watched a 93-minute documentary about the group of “abbreviators” the government brought together in 1973 to convert the existing abbreviations each state preferred into two-letter codes. The existing shortcuts were confusing at best with many having little in common. For example, Alabama was Ala, Hawaii and Idaho were Hawaii and Idaho respectively, Kansas was Kans, Missouri was Mo and Pennsylvania was Pa. So off to work these appointees went and, while they were at it, they also included two-letter codes for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Northern Marianas and Palau.

Gulman explained that the documentary placed the abbreviators in a hotel conference room fully expecting to wrap this up quickly enough to enjoy the hotel breakfast buffet before it closed.

All right, let’s do this in alphabetical order and let’s do it quickly so we can get out of here. First up: Alabama; make that AL. Next up: Alaska, (and the first moans.) Let’s skip that and go to the next state; Arizona. Easy, AR…next, Arkansas…’oh s***! We’ll go back to those two. Next: California, easy- CA, next: Colorado…CO, hey, we’re on a roll, Next: Connecticut…damn, damn, damn!

In exasperation one participant screams out: “How many times can this happen?”

Gulman answers for him: “Twenty-Seven!”

In fact, the documentary he refers to doesn’t exist. Nevertheless it has become an urban legend and has even been given a title: “The Abbreviated State.” It is simply a figment of Gulman’s imagination that he uses as the vehicle to introduce his routine. Despite this fact, there remains a small army of truthers out there combing through the corners of the internet desperately seeking to find it.

But Gulman’s routine does beg the question, how did the postal service select the more difficult choices for these codes? Absent a conspiracy model, most decisions appear to be logical, practical or both.

Eighteen states and two territories already used two letter abbreviations so the Postal Service agreed that they would retain those letters as their new codes. Missouri retained MO and Pennsylvania, PA. The list included DC, GA, KY, MD, all the popular “New’s,” NH, NJ, NM, and NY, not to mention the four geographical names, NC, ND, SC and SD. Other codes became shortened versions of the existing abbreviations. Miss became MS, Minn-MN, Ariz-AZ, Nebr-NE, Fla-FL and Iowa-IA.

Some must have been show stoppers. Texas versus Tennessee or, Tex vs. Tenn. It would appear that calmer heads prevailed giving us TX and TN.

But the M’s must have been a tough nut to crack. Including Marshall islands and Micronesia, there are ten and so we have ME, MD, MH, MA, MI, FM, MN, MS, MO and MT. No, that’s not a mistype; the postal code for Micronesia is FM. (Two other territorial oddities are Northern Marianas – MP and Palau – PW.)

Had enough? I would think so and I do believe I should stop beating this horse. It is dead.

Next time out, I plan to offer a proper explanation of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System’s numbering codes. I will explain how we get from I-5 to I-95 and from I-10 to I-90. I will also explain why we make side trips on routes like I-115, I-278, I-391, I-495, and delve into why Florida’s I-8 exists. I will offer my opinion why all of the distance signs on I-19 south of the Tucson city limits on the way to the Mexican border are in kilometers and not in miles. Did you know, Bob and Ray, the interstate system includes: H-1, H-2 and H-3 on Oahu, Hawaii? Yes, Virginia, there is a method to all this madness.

As an aside, if you choose to watch Gary Gulman’s routine, please make sure you also watch another of his called “The Adolph Hitler Documentary.” Again he makes up the existence of a documentary to introduce his subject. This time he explains that a women friend told him about it but couldn’t think of the word, atrocities, so she used a synonym and told him it was called “Hitler’s Shenanigans.”

Thursday, June 8^th found Bill Christman and me riding in a rental car 33-miles south of Tucson on Interstate-19 to the exit for Green Valley. It’s hot, really hot as we drive west for a mile on a two-lane road before we find our destination. Just off this road, we find a non-descript metal sheeted building behind a small parking lot. A cyclone fence stretches from one side. In front of the fence is a small sign that says: “Watch for rattlesnakes. We’re not kidding!”

Behind the fence sits a concrete structure low to the ground. Welcome back to the Cold War, a de-commissioned and preserved Titan II missile silo. Scott, our guide is a retired air force officer who spent two years as the launch commander in just such a facility. He leads a party of ten, Bill and I, a family of five, mom, dad and three teenage girls, another couple and a single fellow with a Germanic accent, into the facility. We enter a twisting passageway to begin our descent fifty-three steps down a metal staircase.

If the site had been operational, we would have had to pass through four locked checkpoints to gain access. As it is, we pass through two massive blast doors to enter the control room. Everything about this facility is deadly serious. Scott explains how serious from the intricate steel rebar pattern used to strengthen the massive concrete floors, walls and overheads – all laid in single pours to the complex’s communications system that has four independent and redundant back-ups.

The design and engineering of this facility is based on one over-riding reason, protect the Titan II missile and the four-person launch crew from all but a direct hit from an incoming nuclear device. (As an un-nerving aside, Scott pronounces nuclear in the same manner that W does.)

Completely sealed off inside, the crew has enough food, water, power, clean air and a/c to function for 12 days. Massive springs and shock absorbers, flexible cables and hoses protect the missile and the launch instruments from a nuclear shock wave. Positive pressurization prevents contamination by fall out or poisons.

The complex contains three separate chambers connected by tubes. The control center, the missile silo and the crew’s quarters. We only visit the first two but Scott explains the crew quarters are basic, a small kitchen, bunk beds and a toilet.  “The crews rotated every 24-hours so there wasn’t’ a lot of downtime. For the most part we didn’t cook as the kitchen had to be cleaned for the next crew. Instead, we subsisted on a diet of Coke and Twinkies.”

Scott is matter-of-fact, friendly, open and knowledgeable. He leads us through an excellent presentation of the launch procedure while we stand around the control room. He reminds us that the crew (two officers and two enlisted) were in their early twenties or late teens. Crazy as it sounds, the fate of civilization could have rested in the hands of personnel who could not legally buy a beer!

Scott selects two of the girls to play the roles of the commander and her executive officer (XO).He directs them to sit in the two oversized rolling office chairs each at her appropriate work station.  They are about six-feet apart with the sister playing commander perched before a console bursting with a plethora of 1950s and early 1960s technology. Phones featuring rotary dials, analogue displays and switches and black & white TV monitors.

Scott points to a large metal cabinet with all the draws marked “empty.” He explains:    “Originally, these draws were filled with vacuum tubes that powered the internal guidance settings for the missile. The air force estimated these missiles would remain in service for about five years. They actually lasted 20. Tubes must be replaced at regular intervals but after ten years, manufacturing ceased.” Pointing to one panel in the cabinet where a display is located, he continues, “Fortunately, NASA, Boeing and MIT developed this digital guidance system that replaced all those tubes.”

He instructs the sisters to re-enact a missile launch. First, he has the commander find a series of six numbers from her orders which she instructs the XO to enter into a switch that releases the locks holding the missile in place. Then he instructs them to simultaneously turn their two keys on the commander’s count.

(The position of these two keys is deliberately placed about twelve feet from each other making a one-person launch impossible.)

A series of turns activates a green light on the commander’s console. Scott gives the command, “Push the launch button.”

Reality check: It took less than two and a half minutes to launch!

Scott notes, “By the way, the air force thought it best that the crew had no knowledge of their missile’s target.”

Someone asks, “What was the crew to do next?”

“One and done. They had no further real orders.” Scott is not without a sense of humor. “Remember, we were basically big kids. One night, off duty, after a few beers, we concocted a ‘what if’ plan. We’d leave the complex, walk down to the interstate, use our side arms to hijack a vehicle, rob a bank, hook up with four hot girls and hightail it to Mexico.”

In case you are wondering, the missiles cannot be recalled. The time to target was a little more than a half-hour.

And now: “Let us pray.”

(Title used with apologies to Johnny Cash.)

From 2002 until 2014 our merry band of retirees made 14 baseball road trips. On most of these trips, four of us traveled together, Bill Christman, Mike Cruise, Don Markey and me. We missed 2012 and 2016. Bill, Mike and I made a non-baseball trip in the spring of 2016 to ride behind a restored Norfolk & Western J- Class steam locomotive, No. 611.

We lost Don who passed away in the fall of 2016. Mike couldn’t make the 2017 trip, but Bill and I are traveling to Phoenix and Tucson today for our next adventure. FYI, the forecast is 107!

Mike and I made the first trip by car. Our first stop was Pittsburg and a Pirates game at PNC Park. Granted, this was my first out-of-town ballpark, but its layouts, amenities and the great view of downtown Pittsburg blew me away. I still rate PNC Park as the best. We also visited Cleveland to see the Yankees lose to the Indians 11-3 at the Jake.

In 2003, we did Ohio flying to Cincinnati, Mike and I from LaGuardia, Don from Newark and Bill from Dallas. We rented a minivan: first stop Dayton for their Class A minor league Dragons who defeated the Lansing Lugnuts. The main event on this trip was an incredible air show staged at Wright-Patterson AFB celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight. Next up, Columbus and the AAA Clippers and finally two Reds games back in Cinci.

2004 found us in Chicago to see the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field and the Cubs beat the Cardinals in the “friendly (but uncomfortable) confines” of Wrigley Field. We finished with an Amtrak round trip to Milwaukee for a Brewers game at Miller Park before returning to Chicago.

A 2005 road trip took us to DC and Maryland. We watched the Nationals lose to the Cardinals at RFK before driving to Fredrick, MD the home of Barbara Fritchie who refused to strike the Stars and Stripes telling old Bobby Lee, “If you must shoot, shoot me and not this flag.” We saw their home team Keys play the Myrtle Beach Pelicans before finishing up in Camden Yards with the Orioles on the same day Katrina floods New Orleans.

Kansas and Missouri in 2006; stops included Omaha and the AAA Class Royals, Wichita for the AA Wranglers and Kansas City for the Big League Royals. In Omaha we saw a Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4023 displayed high on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and John Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the NCAA World Series. We visited the Truman Museum in Independence and Kaufman Stadium in K.C. with its great sight lines and dancing water fountains.

2007 was our most ambitious car trip with stops in Toronto, Detroit, Akron and Philadelphia. My Yukon XL provided room and comfort. Bill met us in Toronto where we watched the lackluster Yankees lose to the Blue Jays, 15 to 4. The next morning we drove across the farmland of western Ontario to Comerica Park, the Detroit Tigers home that featured a carousel featuring tigers instead of horses. We spent the night in Ann Arbor, (Go Wolverines!)  Next stop: Akron, for the Aeros. Bill left us in Pittsburg on our way to Philadelphia where we watch the Atlanta Braves beat the Phillies 7 to 5 at Citizen Bank Field. We said good bye to Don at a rest area on the NJT while Mike and I pushed on to Long Island having covered 1,769 miles in six days.

Our ranks swelled in 2008 and again in 2013 when we played “Backyard Baseball” in NYC. The first outing took us to Shea Stadium and old Yankees Stadium both in their last year of existence. The second took us to Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium. We coupled those trips with a visit to the Staten Island Yankees in 2008 and the Brooklyn Cyclones in 2013.

On the road again in 2009, we drove down the Delmarva Peninsula to Perdue Stadium for the Shorebirds vs the NJ Blue Claws. Continuing south we caught the Norfolk Tides at Harbor Park, visited the Navy base, the battleship, USS Wisconsin, and a replica of the USS Monitor before returning to DC and the new Nationals Park. Bill flew home from Regan National and Don again met Helen at a NJT rest stop.

We gave Bill a break in 2010 as we played Lone Star Baseball. Don and I flew separately to DFW where we met Bill. First stop, Arlington, a tour of Jerry’s palace (aka Cowboy Stadium aka AT&T Stadium) and a Rangers game. We had lunch in Austin on the way to San Antonio to attend a Missions game that night. We finished in Houston, visited the battleship Texas in San Jacinto, rode the light rail and saw the Astros play in Minute Maid Park (aka Enron Stadium.)

Reunited, the four of returned to the Midwest in 2011. A Twins game in Target Field, Minneapolis, a cold, wet visit to A Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, a rainout in Davenport, a Cardinals home game and a visit inside the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The Davenport rainout allowed us a serendipitous experience to enjoy an outstanding dinner at a fine restaurant called the Duck City Bistro and not at New York prices.

2014 made five of us with the addition of Geoff Jones. Geoff and I met in Atlanta and watched a couple of innings of a Braves game at Turner Field. The next day we drove to Charlotte, NC where we met Bill, Mike and Don. We rode their light rail, visited the NASCAR Hall of Fame and attended the AAA Knights game in their brand new BB&T Ballpark (named after a bank.) On our way to Durham and the Bulls, we came across Spencer and a sign for the North Carolina Transportation Museum. Located in old shops, once part of the Southern Railroad, they have an impressive collection of locomotives and rolling stock. Quite a find and a worthwhile visit. We watched a Durham Bulls followed by a pub dinner in a mall built around the old American Tobacco Company factory.

That turned out to be our last trip as a group. Curiously, I wrote an epilogue for that 2014 trip: “Older and not very wiser, we had a ball, great friends; lots of laughs. Baseball is our stated reason for making these trips but it’s really the good and bad, the things that go right and go wrong that make these trips special and what makes each of them a good time.”

I believe I can say for us all us, it’s been a blast!   

Bad boys, bad boys,

what you gonna do,

what you gonna do

when they come for you?

The realization that I had a problem struck me almost two and a half hours into our gathering at Foley’s NY, a sports bar on 33^rd Street opposite the Empire State Building.

Thirteen of us had gathered for our second spring luncheon to celebrate being part of a group of (mostly) guys who tailgate together before every New York Football Giants home game. We call ourselves, “Maramen Tailgaters,” and our name comes from the time when the Mara family owned 100% of the team. In that era, sports writers commonly referred to Giants players as “Maramen;”  hence our name.

For whatever reason, in the middle of having a good time, I reached into my pockets only to realize my IPhone was missing. “Damn.” I reached for my rain jacket only to find nothing but empty pockets. “Damn, damn, damn, I left my phone on the train.”

Within seconds of announcing my developing dilemma, Drew, my oldest grandson (17) asked, “Grandpa, do you know your Apple ID and password?”

In fact I did. The gal who set me up at the Apple Store when I bought my first device gave me a simple combination for my ID and password. Drew handed over a phone and asked me to enter both into the “Find My Phone” app. As if by wizardry it opened to reveal my phone was moving along Broadway toward Twenty-Six Street, about eight blocks from our location. My son swung into action and messaged my phone: “Lost my phone. Do you have it? Please call (his mobile number). Thank you.”

By then the phone had moved so Michael texted: “Checked it and see that the phone is at 24^th and 7^th. If you return it to Foley’s on 33^rd I will buy you a beer.”

My son-in-law, Tom, pinged the phone at 2:27. This is a command that you can use if you know your phone’s location but can’t find it. It sets off an annoying beep every 15-seconds. Thinking this through, we decided to cancel this as the finder might it so annoying to just throw the phone away.

Drew sent follow-up messages at 2:32 and 2:49 so we learned that it had come to rest at Broadway and Twenty-Eighth Street. About an hour later it still hadn’t moved so Tom and Drew decided to go to that location. I yelled to them as they left, “Please stay safe and don’t do anything foolish.”

The words were hardly out of my mouth when a feeling of dread came over me and I thought to myself, this is a mistake. I later learned that Tom sent out this message when they reached the location, “We are on your block. Are you there? We are at 28 & Broadway walking to find you. Please call (his number) as we are trying to find you.”

No response, just as well as far as I was concerned. I was greatly relieved when they returned. Back in Foley’s, Drew noted that the phone was on the move again. Then it stopped and Drew reported that the map showed it was at Madison Square Garden. Then it died. Drew is obviously a smart teenager, but having grown up in Fairfield, CT, he knows squat about Manhattan.

“That’s great,” I exclaimed! Drew looked at me like I had two heads. “Drew, Madison Square Garden sits right on top of Penn Station. This means there is a chance whoever has the phone will turn it in to the LIRR’s Lost and Found.”

On my way home I went to L&F only to see that it was closed on weekends…and so it goes.

I rode home cut-off and phone free. Tuesday was the earliest I could attempt to retrieve my phone. Sure, I needed a mobile phone but I am not yet so addicted that not having one crippled me. What did bother me was the thought of re-programing all the stuff we park on our mobile devices to a new one. My daughter, Beth, assured me that Apple has most of it in the cloud that I could retrieve the same way we located my phone. I chose to doubt that but I know nothing.

On Tuesday, I rode the 10:11 out of Port Washington to retrieve my phone. The L&F office was its usual busy place but the clerks show patience and empathy that calms frantic riders. As I waited, I came across a chap who lost his designer sunglasses, a business man who left a Manila folder with important papers and two others looking for phones.

I explained that mine was a white IPhone 5C in a black Otterbox Case. The clerk produced the plastic bin dedicated to IPhones and began extracting them one by one for my inspection. I stopped him when I noticed a phone up against the side of the bin. A white 5C in a black Otterbox Case. “I think that’s it, I exclaimed”

Of course, it was dead. He put it in a charger but said, “This will take time.”

“Fair enough, I’ll be back in a half-hour.”  Tuesday was a perfect spring day, mid-60s, so I enjoyed my walk. When I returned, he held up the phone. He had opened it to the “go-to” page. Staring at me was a photo of Max, our Golden Retriever. “That’s my dog.” I exclaimed.

When I gave him my code to open the phone: Game set and match!

Of course, I was thrilled, but yet, I am left to wonder about the finder’s motives. Was this person a good Samaritan, a railroad employee on a lunch break or did our surveillance send the warning: You can run but you can’t hide.