John Delach

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.

Perhaps true love does conquer all. Surely, in my case, it conquered geography.

I met Mary Ann Donlon at the New York World’s Fair on June 5, 1964 at The Red Garter, a banjo bar in the Wisconsin Pavilion. (The pavilion prized exhibit was the world’s largest wheel of cheddar cheese.)  Mary Ann gave me her phone number and after a few unlucky false starts, she agreed to a safe date; a Sunday afternoon return to the fair. Once she gave me her address and directions, I began to realize that we may have been geographically incompatible.

Did I mention that I didn’t have access to an automobile nor that it mattered as I didn’t have a driver’s license either?

We were separated by two bus lines. My first ride was on the B-58 bus that once upon a time had a more descriptive name, the Flushing – Ridgewood trolley. I rode the B-58 on a 45-minute journey to reach the junction of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing’s business and transportation center. Leaving Ridgewood, the bus meandered through Maspeth, Elmhurst, Corona and the World’s Fair before reaching Flushing and the end of the line.

I transferred to the Q-16, Q-14 or the Q-44 to arrive within proximity of the Donlon residence.

Being a city kid, public transit was in my DNA and I never considered this trek to be other than the way it was, much less a burden. No doubt, the early sparks of romance between us eliminated any possible negative thoughts. The girl was more important than any geographical inconvience.

We soon found ourselves dating regularly on most Saturday nights and many of these dates took us into Manhattan for dinner and/or a movie or a Broadway show. I didn’t consider going to the city on a Saturday night to be unusual even though it required extensive time on public transit to make the journey to a young lady’s house, escort her to Manhattan, enjoy a date, bring her home and return to Ridgewood.

On those early dates, a kiss or two or a short series of kisses was all I expected. Then it was good night, good bye until our next lengthy phone call. During this time the first inklings of love blossomed. As our relationship developed, I lingered longer and longer before beginning my journey home.

As my stays extended, those rides became more of an odyssey as Saturday melded into Sunday morning. At that hour, my only chance for a reasonable wait for a bus back to Flushing was the Q-44 stop. It was the only line that ran with any frequency at that time of night. The stop was outside a bagel store, but at that hour, even the bakers had yet to arrive. On arrival in Flushing I headed for an all-night news stand at the corner of Roosevelt and Main that carried the “bull-dog” (early edition) of Sunday’s The New York Herald Tribune, my favorite newspaper.

Sunday meant the Trib’s new magazine section: New York, with the good chance of featuring pieces by both Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap. I’ve written about Breslin many times but Schaap was also a good writer and commentator. He was the person who coined the term, “Fun City” to describe John Lindsay’s New York. He also did a stint on the local NBC nightly news program as a sportscaster only to get into trouble.  When the great Secretariat was retired to stud, reports spread that his sperm showed signs of immaturity. His early breeding attempts in December of 1973 with Appaloosa received inordinate publicity prompting Schaap to comment: “It would not be an exaggeration to note that Secretariat and Appaloosa have become the most famous stable mates since Mary and Joseph.”

After picking up the Trib I made my way to a drug store with an outside vestibule unblocked by a security fence, common in those days. Their vestibule sheltered me against wind, cold and on bad nights, rain. The showcase windows gave off enough light for me to sit and begin reading my paper. Several times I reached my nest after one am. That made for a long wait as the next B-58 had an hour and a half layover and didn’t leave until 2:30. After discharging his Flushing passengers, the driver shut his doors and took a passenger’s seat for a nap. I never asked the driver to let me on. I just asked him to wake me if I fell asleep. Fortunately, I never did as the Trib held my interest.

I disappointed Mary Ann by not asking her to be my wife the Christmas of 1965. In February, 1966, the National Guard shipped me to Fort Dix, NJ for basic training and my advanced training in my specialty, MS-311, a telephone lineman.

When I returned home late that summer, Mary Ann invited me to stay over finally ending my odyssey. I popped the question on Christmas Eve, 1966 and we wed on November 11, 1967.

The best decision I ever made was making that trek.

One morning in 1973 found Bill Christman and I riding the Q-29 Bus from a stop on Dry Harbor Road to the junction of Woodhaven Blvd and Queens Blvd where we’d pick up the subway to Manhattan and work. Bill opened his copy of The New York Times and whistled surprise. “Look at this, John; CBS sold the Yankees to a group led by somebody named Steinbrenner.”

I looked over at the paper and said, “Holy sh**, that’s George Steinbrenner. I know about him, he owns a Great Lakes fleet and shipyards. He has a big reputation for being a hard ass and a prick. Well, I guarantee that the Yankees will be a lot more interesting than they’ve been under CBS.” (On December 31, 1974, the Yankees signed Catfish Hunter as a free agent. Good times and the Steinbrenner three-ring circus were on their way!)

We lived at 65-33 77^th Place in Middle Village from 1970 until 1977. I have a favorite photograph of my family standing on the stoop just outside the house. Beth looks to be about four, Michael, two. That would put it in 1973. Mary Ann stands in the doorway wearing a red blouse with white trim and blue slacks. The blouse has a Western look that would do Dale Evans proud. I have on my old army field jacket. My name, the US Army patch and the 42^nd Rainbow Division patch on my left shoulder are all visible. My sideburns travel to the bottoms of my ears and I have on the loudest pair of grey, blue, red and white plaid pants that the decade produced. The photo stops just below my knees but I’ll bet I was wearing a pair of Frye high-heel boots. You have to love the 70s!

Middle Village is a real community with its own character. We lived in pre-war attached houses,   18-feet wide, two-stories with a basement. The main floor, back to front began with a small foyer with a closet off the front door. An inner door opened into the living room that was the only room that took advantage of the full width of the house. On the extreme right of the living room was the staircase that led to the second floor. The dining room occupied about 2/3rds of the back of the house and the kitchen the other third. This made for a narrow kitchen, only six-feet wide before being reduced by counters, sink, stove and refrigerator.

We had three bedrooms and the bathroom upstairs. A good sized master bedroom, a second smaller one that was our daughter Beth’s and one the equivalent to a solitary cell on Rikers Island that was Michael’s.

The basement was unfinished but had a utility sink and connections for a washing machine. It also had half-bath featuring a small sink and toilet: Rikers, the sequel. I decorated the white-washed walls with four posters: Farah Fawcett posed in a bathing suit, hair askew and her left nipple visible. The second, a mock headline from The Daily News showing the first moon landing with a photo of Neil Armstrong descending down the ladder to the surface. The headline screams: SO WHAT! The third was my favorite. A photograph of Frank Zappa in all his ugliness sitting on a toilet bowl with his pants around his ankles. Frank mugs for the camera and the headline reads: PHI ZAPPA CRAPPER. The fourth was the movie poster from Jaws featuring the shark closing in on the women swimming above. Scared my daughter Beth to death and still does.

The back door led to a small yard and a garage that fronted on a central alley serving all the houses on both sides. This is where our young children safely raced their Big Wheels and where we put out our garbage for collection. The inside of the garage was so small that even if completely empty, it could barely hold one car from that era. Before they moved to Ramsey, NJ, my cousin Helen and her husband, Don, garaged their full-sized 1973 Chevy station wagon in it for insurance purposes. Maneuvering this monster in and out was a nightmare akin to making a bed with fitted sheets.

Money was scarce in those days. One Sunday, I attended the 7:30 morning mass at St. Margaret’s, our local parish. A well-dressed couple entered late and sat in the pew behind me. They were both still dressed for last night’s activities in Manhattan and I had a distinct impression that these strangers were from parts unknown who found this church because she insisted on attending morning mass. When the time came for the collection, he placed a $20 in the basket. Wow, I thought to myself, that’s more money than I can get my hands on until the banks re-open at nine tomorrow morning.

Bill Christman reminded me that you can never go home. We have been cousins and friends forever. For a while both our families lived on 77 Place separated by only three houses. Years after we all moved on, Bill and his son, Tom, flew back to Long Island from Dallas to attend a family charity golf outing. This is Bill’s recollection: “We had time on our hands after we landed so we decided to visit the old homestead. Tom drove up 77^th Place passed both ‘home’ and ‘Michael’s house’ as Tom called it, he commented to me: ‘How little it all is.”

I replied, “Tom, you were only about four feet tall then. Everything seemed and looked bigger.”

Let me end with a life-lesson I learned living in Middle Village. But before I go, this exercise has stirred other memories of Middle Village that I will share with you in the future.

The life-lesson is: Don’t be so sure of yourself that you’ve got it right no matter how successful you think you are and always be kind and genuine with every one you encounter.

On those Sunday’s when I went to the 10:30 mass at St. Margaret’s, I’d usually see the same usher always dressed in a sports jacket and tie. He made the collection on the side where I sat and he moved his basket with efficient motions. I never wore a jacket to Sunday mass much less a tie.

During the week, on those days I chose to walk in the morning to the Metropolitan elevated station, I would sometimes encounter this same fellow working on the street picking up garbage wearing his Sanitation Department uniform. My uniform was a suit and tie.

The irony wasn’t lost on me and I thought on more than one occasion: One of us has it right and one of us has it wrong.

To this day I believe,  he had it right.

Over lunch, I misconstrued a friend’s comments about a book called, “The Sympathizer,” to be a recommendation. That was my first mistake.

I undertook a due diligence investigation to discover more about this book. “The Sympathizer,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen was the winner of a 2016 Pulitzer and the 2016 Edgar Award. The publisher’s description noted: “A profound, startling and beautifully crafted debut novel. The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties… A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics and a moving love story.” My second mistake, I bought into the description and acclaim.

I inquired about the novel from the national book wholesaler, Abe Books, who advertised a mint copy for $12 including shipping. On opening the package, I was surprised that I now possessed a brand new first edition. That’s when I realized something may be amiss. However, I had what I thought was a recommendation so I began to read it. One oddity became immediately apparent. Although written in a first person narrative with plenty of dialogue; the author completely ignored the use of quotation marks.

Imagine turning a page believing you are still following the narrative only to realize that someone else has been speaking, in some instances several people. Disconcerting to say the least! Several times I had to return to the point of departure just to understand what was going on.

Finally, I contacted my friend who I believed had recommended the book. “Not at all,” she exclaimed. “In fact, if you can figure out what is going on, would you please explain it to me?”

Too late to quit, I pressed on. I persevered and as I was wrapping it up I asked both of my book-trading buddies, Bill and Geoff, if they were interested. I explained, “It is dense, very dense. It follows a double agent from the fall of Saigon to America and back again. It has touches of “Catch 22” and some good writing but, I repeat, it is 372 pages of dense writing. Yes, it’s a good read but don’t expect to whiz through it.”

Bill declined. Geoff replied: “How on earth did you come across such a celebrated but apparently economically failed thing like that? I do have trouble sleeping at times so it could be Ambien in print.”

I replied, “In fact, I can testify that it is truly a useful tool to ease insomnia.”

Geoff sent his first impressions on April 17: “I began Sympathizer last night. This guy needs an editor more than any writer I’ve ever been exposed to. I found one sentence that was 18 lines long. He has to find out about periods. And he seems not to know about quotation marks…But I’ll plug along to see where it goes.”

Three days later Geoff transmitted the following: “This has to be the most obtuse book I’ve ever tried to read. Sometimes I’m looking at words without even trying to see how they fit in to whatever he was trying to say. It happened last night. He was writing of things he was reminded of by Lana’s (our hero’s love interest) singing…and the list seemed to be getting long. The count of commas and semi-colons grew as well…When I finally came across a period I paused to see if I knew what he meant and of course I had no idea. So I started working backwards to see exactly what he started out trying to explain. I counted lines and found the sentence, if it was a sentence had 25 lines. I decided to count the punctuation marks and there were 25 semi-colons, 6 commas, one colon and finally a period.”

This is a portion of the sentence in question:

We could not forget the caramel flavor of iced coffee with coarse sugar; the bowls of noodle soup eaten while squatting on the sidewalk; the refugees who slept on every sidewalk of every city; the sweetness of a mango plucked fresh from its tree; the streams where we swam naked and laughing; the shadows cast by candlelight on the walls of wattled huts; the stickiness of our situation; and while the list could go on and on and on, the point is this; the most important thing we could never forget was that we could never forget.

Geoff read on and reported on April 22: “… he produced a 37 line sentence, perhaps the modern record for verbosity. He also seems to have forgotten his love affair with semi-colons. This time it was 49 (counted them) commas and a surprisingly but welcome question mark…The mind numbs, at least mine does, trying to capture a thought that is 37 lines long.”

In case you are wondering, dear reader, the book has an open ending with our hero embarking on another long voyage sort of like Yossarian in “Catch 22” paddling off in search of Sweden. He is a man without a country completely rejected as unfit by his communist masters. We end with him adrift at sea.

One last problem the author chooses to ignore much less resolve, that he had our hero commit

two cold-blooded murders while in California so he has two Murder-One raps hanging over his head as the book ends…neat!