John Delach

On The Outside Looking In
February 26, 2025

Of This and That: Thank God I’m Glad to be Back

My Radiation Treatment

Today was February 22, 2025, my eighty-first birthday and I spent the afternoon with nine members of my family at Peter Luger’s steak house in Great Neck, Long Island. In addition to celebrating my birthday, my reasoning for hosting this luncheon was to celebrate the ending of my radiation treatment for prostate cancer, a 28 daily ritual that consumed my life from January14th to February 21st. (Weekends and MLK Jr. Day off.)

God only knows what these doses of radiation have done or will do to my body, but I followed doctor’s instructions in an effort to cure my prostate cancer. Sometimes I wonder…you know what I mean…what if?

Let me share with you the major daily preparations I was required to perform in order to actually receive each dose. Nobody told me about these requirements until the chief radiation technician at my facility, Ben, explained it to me. In order to protect other organs in the vicinity of the prostate gland, I had to arrive every day with an empty bowel and a full bladder. To achieve the first goal, I drank a cup of prune juice and a large cup of extremely strong coffee every morning. By George, it worked, but over time, too well. As the days went by, the results took on a life of their own. Caution became the better part of valor except for one accident that I will leave at that.

My bladder was another story. Ben told me to consume two 16.9 bottles of water every morning from 9:15 am to 9:30 am to ensure a full bladder at 10;30 am, the schedule of my daily dose. Thankfully, I was able to fulfill this every day although the time it took me to drink this amount of water increased from fifteen minutes to forty minutes.

Ben, and his assistant, Larry, were angels and did all they could to make every day, a success. Fortunately, I completed my treatment in the scheduled amount of time. This despite warnings of five separate snow storms, two that fell on weekends, one that went out to sea and one that turned out to be rain. Praise the Lord!

To celebrate, I made those reservations at Peter Luger’s and the good times rolled again.

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January 29, 2025

Demise of Pan American Flying Boats

It didn’t take long after the end of the war for Pan American to abandon its flying boat service in favor of a new generation of land planes, particularly the Douglas DC-4, the Lockheed Constellation and the Boeing Strato Cruiser.

Captain William M. Masland ended his book about his ten-year experience operating these “flying boats with wings” with a final chapter about the end of his career flying these unique airplanes. He gave the chapter a simple yet haunting title: Requiem.

In December of 1945, my crew and I waited in Lisbon for Joe Hart and his crew to bring us a ship for the return to New York. This would be winter time, long way round by way of Africa, South America and the West Indies. The route was by now well established, but I sent a message to New York asking them what schedule they wanted us to follow on the return passage.

“We  don’t care,” was the answer. The Atlantic Division had a new interest, land planes. The DC-4’s were operating and the Lockheed Constellations could be  expected any day. They’d forgotten all about the flying boats.

I soon discovered that the passengers and crew all wanted to be in New York for Christmas, so we flew for three days and most of three nights, stopping only for fuel, finally landing at Bowery Bay at two o’clock in the morning the day before Christmas. This marked the last flight of a Pan American boat into New York.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, courageous seafarers explored the watery world. In the twentieth century the great flying boats in similar fashion explored the atmosphere that surrounds the globe. Now the boats were finished, gone where the sailing clippers went.

The night watchman met us, no one else. No flags, no bands, no speeches, just the night watchman making his usual rounds. There never was a quieter end to a brave and glorious era.

American Export Airlines was the first airline to offer regularly scheduled landplane commercial flights across the North Atlantic. Using DC-4 aircraft, it began passenger services from New York and England via Gander on 24 October 1945. PAA started its own flights through Gander very shortly thereafter, also using DC-4s. By the start of the new year, it scheduled five DC-4s per week from London via Gander and two more from Lisbon via Gander and the Azores. A typical DC-4 flight New York-London with a stop at Gander was 17 ½ hours.

Pan American soon upgraded its fleet of aircraft. The first Constellations were delivered on 14 January 1946 and the first Stratocruisers in 1949. All of these flights also stopped at Gander.

The flying boats quickly faded. The last Boeing B-314 operating across the Pacific was the California Clipper withdrawn in 1946 and the last B-314s to go were those operating between Baltimore and Bermuda in late 1951.

In 1947, PAA moved all operations from LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal to the  New York International Airport in Idlewild, Queens on Jamacia Bay. Nick-named Idlewild, this facility was re-named after John F. Kennedy in 1964 after he had been assassinated.

The Marine Air Terminal fell on hard times after Pan Am left for JKF. Eventually, it was named a national historical landmark and it was refurbished by the Port of NY and NJ. Today, Delta operates their Boston and DC shuttles from this terminal.

Transatlantic flights continued to improve as newer and aircraft with longer ranges joined their fleets. The introduction of the Douglas DC-7 C Model in 1956 and that of the Lockheed L 1049 Super Constellation in 1955 finally enabled fights to by-pass Gandar. But the success of both these airliners was short lived as the Boeing 707 Jetliner entered Pan American’s trans-Atlantic service in 1958…and that is a whole new story for another time.

Important Notification:

Dear Reader, Unfortunately I must suspend On the Outside Looking In until March due to a medical issue that requires me to undergo a radiation regiment until then. I look forward to rejoining you once this regiment is behind me.

See you on the other side.             

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January 22, 2025

The First Flight Around the World: Part Two

Bahrein, January 25, 1943: Having reached our destination, we awaited our orders. An army captain flying through gossiped, “Of course you know that you have to wait here until the Casablanca Conference is over. Then you are to fly Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin out east to meet the Generalissimo.” 

He rattled on while the crew sat mouths open and eyes popping. The First Officer and I did what we could to keep the crew busy and it wasn’t until almost two weeks later that we finally received orders to embark for Ceylon. As we approached our destination, Trincomalee, we managed to make our approach in dirty weather. Visibility was only one mile, less in rainsqualls. We found the pass to China Bay and half-mile beyond it the R.A.F. moorings in Malay Cove. And that was that. In the lounge, I discovered there had been a sudden and complete change in military thinking. General Wedemeyer and two aides on their way east would now be our passengers. Disappointed, but greatly relieved that the plan to put Roosevelt and Churchill on the same plane through unfriendly skies across a wide and little frequented ocean had been scrapped.

Our next destination was the northwestern coast of Australia. We knew our airplane was overweight by one ton. I took a deep breath and opened the throttles. The engines responded with a smooth, even roar. We raced across the bay toward a low spot in the hills. We put all our blue chips on the table and the clipper lifted off easily. We were airborne at eight-fifty, local time, two minutes early. It was now the sixteenth of February and the weather remained cloudy forcing us to continue navigating by dead reckoning until well after sunset. Two hours later the upper clouds vanished allowing the navigators to shoot three stars for a fix.

This first fix in ten hours of dead reckoning showed a navigational error of thirty miles. Not perfect, but not bad, an average error of three miles every hour. I took a two-hour break before re-assuming command just before day break. We were in a slow decent and an hour and a half later we leveled off at one thousand feet. It was now broad daylight and the last of the clouds had vanished. A half-hour later land came up out of the horizon ahead of us. And the automatic pilot tracked us directly over the Fraser Lighthouse, the marker for our arrival.

After one circuit of Exmouth Gulf, we located a fueling tender and landed four minutes later. Colonel Arnold came aboard in a foul mood. His relationship with PAA had soured and I sensed that he decided to blame us for the president’s cancellation. He flew with us on a short hop to Perth where we picked up twenty-six homeward bound U.S. Naval officers. Arnold left us there together with General Wedemeyer and I never saw either of them again.

We left Perth in the late afternoon so as to make a daylight landing in Brisbane where we began the long road home. After leaving Australia, we first stopped at the beautiful harbor in Noumea, New Caledonia where we slept on cots. From Noumea, we were forced to stay south of the equator for the next two days before heading Northwest for Pearl Harbor. Remember, this was early 1943 and the Japanese still controlled most of the Central Pacific including Wake and Guam.

Our route took us by way of Fiji and Canton Island with an overnight stop at each. The next morning, we decided to postpone our flight to Honolulu to tackle the repairs needed to restore the engines that had given us trouble back to working order. It was a beautiful night and we were soon airborne. The sun was three hours up when we landed at Pearl Harbor after a flight of fourteen hours. That night at dinner in the Moana Hotel, our entire passenger list came trooping into the dining room in good spirits, dropped a lei around my neck, and presented me with a handsome pen-and-pencil set, a generous thing to do.

After our first attempt to fly to San Francisco was aborted because of engine problems, we corrected the issues and left Pearl Harbor the next day. On arrival, fog was the problem, but I followed the letdown we devised eight years before for the China Clipper to deal with the fog. We flew south overhead the Oakland beacon before letting down. When about over the San Mateo Bridge, turned back and had the whole bay ahead of us to land where the fog was the thinnest and the steam traffic was nil.

We checked into the St, Francis Hotel, two to a room. The next day provided the first chance  for the crew to let their loved ones know they were still alive and almost home. The lineup of crew members at the telegraph desk was overwhelming. I moved on to take care of other business., leaving the hot blood of youth to pour out its affection via Western Union.

Next afternoon, we set off for New York and home with “just one more river to Cross.”

Our flight across the continent in a seaplane would be as long a flight as we had attempted, more than twenty hours. There was no help to be had from the westerly winds that night; the high-pressure saw to that. The ship would be heavy at departure, too heavy to top the cloud-covered Sierras. Well, all right, then, go under the clouds.

We did, wriggling through the San Bernadino pass under the cloud deck and clearing the trees, or whatever it is that passes for vegetation in those parts, by a positive figure, and that covered that problem, with the whole night ahead of us for coping with the next. We aimed for Atlanta by way of Fort Worth. From Atlanta, we could either continue to New York or turn south for Miami and clear skies. At mid-watch I turned the ship over to Austen and climbed into my berth in the aft crew quarters. When Mc Goven woke me, I asked him how we were doing.

“Ten minutes ahead,” he answered. “The winds are a bit better than forecast.”

I went forward to the flight deck. Tonight, the engines all sang in harmony. We had a half-hour to go to Atlanta. Time to make a decision. I sat down at my desk and over a cup of coffee went through the radio messages It still came out the same, everything north of Charleston was subject to overcast and fog, everything south, sunshine.

Prudence said, “Play it safe. Go to Miami, wait for the front to clear New York and fly home tomorrow.”

But conscience said, “You have flown into unknown places with worse weather. You know the Jersey coast. Go home and quit stalling.”

The first officer entered the flight deck, a questioning look on his face.

“We’ll carry on to New York, Mr. Austen. I’ll relieve you on the hour.”

Hours later it began to turn light in the east. Near Baltimore we peeled off the airway and headed east across the pine barrens of Jersey groping our way down through the layers of cloud that looked like torn and dirty laundry. We found the ocean somewhere north of Cape May, returned to the beach, and followed the line of the surf. We flew toward New York harbor passing Wildwood, Ocean City, the steel pier at Atlantic City, which called for a short climb to clear it. Then Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, and finally, Sandy Hook. The ceiling here was higher. We came up the East River over the bridges, not under, and landed in Bowery Bay at nine twenty in the morning, double daylight-saving time.

Ed Mc Vitty stood on the dock to greet us, a broad smile on his face.

“They took it for a joke when you sent us the message from Honolulu saying you’d be here this morning when the offices open but I told them to have the beaching cradle on the railway by nine. It’s ready for you now.”

“Sorry to be twenty-minutes late, Ed. We had a problem in San Francisco getting security data.”

“Never mind, Bill. If you didn’t make it when the office opened, at least you’re in good time for the coffee break.”

And so ended that voyage, the long way around the world, crossing the equator four times, through unfriendly skies, thirty thousand miles in all.    

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January 15, 2025

The First Flight Around the World: Part One

Dear Reader

I just finished the best book I ever found on the history of Pan American’s flying boats. The book is sort of an auto-biography of the author’s experience flying these boats with wings from 1935 to 1945. His name was William M. Masland, who graduated through the ranks from mechanic in 1935 to Captain in 1943. He retired in 1966 making his way from Flying Boats to Boeing 707s. He died in 1986 at 79.  

He used his vast experience flying these boats in missions that surveyed both the Pacific route from San Francisco to Manila and Hong Kong with overnight stops at Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island and Guam. Pan American had to build all of the facilities on Miday, Wake and Guam to accommodate and feed their passengers and crews in first class style and service the clippers. He also flew across the Atlantic part of the PAA crew dispatched to survey the routes and stopping points for flights to Southampton such as Newfoundland, Iceland and Shannon, Ireland.

Ultimately, he became the captain who first flew around the world in 1943.

Unfortunately, since Masland was an engineer by background, he titled his book: “Through the Back Doors of the World in a Ship that Had Wings,” a title only an engineer could love. In researching this book, I discovered it had been published privately by Masland in 1985 with a price of $14.50

Needless to say, that price is long gone as are most copies of his book. Mary Ann gave me the book for Christmas and paid the exorbitant price of $91. Since then, I have found several copies for sale with prices ranging from $70 to $160.

Outrageous-without a doubt and, if you have enough of an interest in flying boats, the Pan American Historical Foundation Collection may fulfill your curiosity.

When we went to war in December of 1941, the Government requisitioned PAA’s fleet of Boeing’s B-317 Flying Boats.(*) But Uncle Sam was wise enough not to dismantle the airlines infrastructure, its flight crews or their operational staff. This included the airline’s superb navigation academy and their existing global network that was readily adoptable to military needs.

(*Back in the day, the common abbreviation for Pan American was PAA. The current abbreviation, Pan Am, came later during the jet era.)

During the war, PAA flew special missions for Uncle and a new mission, S.M. Seventy-Two was assigned to Capt. Masland. On January 7, 1943. A Colonel Milton Arnold wanted to meet Masland the following day at his Pentagon office. Masland took the overnight train from New York’s Penn Station and arrived at Arnold’s office with two other PAA officials.

Masland explained, “The colonel was a trim, military figure, as polished and effective as a pair of chrome molly pliers.” He came right to the point. “We want you to take a cargo from Ceylon to Australia. There’s a R.A.F. seaplane base there at Trincomalee on the northeast coast of Ceylon. You would make a refueling stop at Cocos Island, about halfway to Australia, then continue on to a landing at Port Hedland on Australia’s north coast. Can you, do it?”

He looked at the three of us. The other two looked at me. A major obstacle is nobody seemed to know if the Japanese controlled Cocos Island. It turned out the colonel didn’t know the status of Cocos Island either. I asked him, “Can you give us twenty-four hours to make an answer?”

He hesitated a moment then said, “Very well. Twenty-four hours. I expect to hear from you at this time tomorrow.”

Somehow the three of us found seats on the next train for New York even though this was wartime. It was then that I discovered that our proposed cargo was actually three people, three Very Important People, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin who would all be attending a conference in Casablanca, Morocco from January 14 to 24, 1943. The plan was to transport them to Australia where they would continue the summit with Chiang Kai-shek.

On return to PAA’s operational HQ located at the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia (then still referred to as North Beach), I examined charts and records of wind, weather and geography and made as many calculations as I could think of. The answer was that the flight from Ceylon to Australia could be successfully completed without making a stop at Cocos Island. I so advised Col. Arnold the next day.

He replied, “Very well, I’ll be in your office in North Beach at noon, tomorrow” and hung up.

At precisely noon, Colonel Arnold stepped into the office. He led off by announcing, “I want a plane to arrive in Bahrein by January twenty-fifth to be ready to depart the next day for Australia by way of Ceylon, without fail.”

They wouldn’t dare. I thought, just wouldn’t dare to plan to send the president of the United States on a mission as crazy as this one. But they did.

We left New York on the fourteenth with a full crew plus two mechanics. It was a daylight flight, with an overnight stop in Miami while the army loaded the ship. From Miami, we made our way to Port of Spain them to Belem and Natal Brazil before crossing the South Atlantic, destination Lake Tanganyika or Fish Lake, as we aviators called it, located in what was then the Belgian Congo. From there it was an eight-hour flight to Lagos and we ran the engines in high-speed cruise that was good for them as they purred like contented kittens for the first time on this voyage. Next was a direct flight to Khartoum, a flight of fifteen hours.

We left in late afternoon and takeoff was awful. The temperature was over 90 degrees and the available wind, a little more than ten-knots. It took a run of 4,600 feet to free the hull from the surface of the lake allowing us to become airborne. We flew over night and after midnight, it seemed we were flying over a world that apparently belonged to no one but ourselves.

Nearing our destination, the BOAC base, we turned down a stream toward the landing area just as the sky began to lighten in the east. The station manager, a Mr. Fenton, was efficient in meeting our needs and promptly refueling the ship. An American army jeep met me and took me to an army camp in Wadi Saida where a Lt. Cammeron provided all of the information that we would need to enter Bahrein, the major destination for our outbound flight. All that information wrong.

We were up by 4 am the next morning, breakfast at 4:30 and we were off the water of Gordons Tree by five-fifty-nine, one minute earlier than planned. The sun came up twenty minutes later and we laid a course that would take us directly across the Red Sea and the Arabian Desert to Bahrein on the Persian Gulf. Communications were failing so I had Mr. Martin, our radio operator send a simple message to Bahrein: ETA GINNS 1225Z   MASLAND.

The message in clear text represented a flagrant breech of regulations but I was determined that we be expected at our next port of call. My communication worked out and Bahrein was waiting for us. We landed and tied up at one of the BOAC moorings one day early of our January 24th due date.

Days passed and nothing happened  Meanwhile, an army captain flying through Bahrein dropped in to our lounge just before dinner. He gossiped: “Of course, you know you have to wait here until the Casablanca Conference is over. Then you are to fly Roosevelt. Churchill and Stalin out east to meet the Generalissimo.”

The crew sat stunned, mouths open and eyes popping. Of all the people in the Middle East, my crew did not know the details of our secret mission.

Continued in Part Two

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January 8, 2025

Second Addition to My Bucket List

I already published the first addition to my bucket, a list to visit the birthplace of Chicken Tenders at a restaurant in Manchester, NH called the Puritan. Hopefully, I can accomplish this next summer with our friends, Geoff and Judy Jones.

I discovered a second addition, almost a month later in the October 27th edition of The New York Times. The headline read, “To Ride These Rails, You Use Your Own Two Feet.” Written by Michael Harmon, he reported on his experience traveling by rail-bike in New York’s Catskills region along an abandoned railroad still in good condition; four mile out and four miles back.

The right-of-way begins and ends at an old station in the Catskill town of Phoenicia, once owned and operated by the Ulster & Delaware Railroad that ceased running passenger trains in 1954 and all other service in 1976.

Phoenicia is located in the southern Catskills nearby to Kingston, NY, Exit 19 on the Governor Thomas Dewey (NY State) Thruway. Phoenicia is located 20 miles northwest from Thruway exit on Route 28 a day trip from Long Island.

Michael Harmon wrote this for the NYT explaining his experience: “It’s always a thrill to pull out of a train station and feel yourself picking up speed, wheels click-clacking over the rails. It’s even more thrilling when your train has no roof or sides, is as low-slung as a Mazda Miata and comes with a warning to watch out for bears crossing your path.

“I was riding a rail bike, a pedal-powered contraption built to cruise along railroad tracks. Rail-biking opens the door to using existing rails recreationally, with no need to tear up the tracks. In 2015, a company called Rail Explorers started the country’s first rail-biking operation. Today, the company has seven locations and there are now more than dozen rail-biking outfitters running excursions in 16 states from Maine to California.

“My trip – an eight-mile round-trip pedal, much of it paralleling the Esopus Creek – departed from Phoenicia, home to Rail Explorer’s Catskills Division.

“The atmosphere (when we met) was surprisingly upbeat for 8 am on a gray, damp morning before, Sam Huang, our tour leader began a high-energy introduction and safety briefing. ‘These are the Rolls-Royces of rail bikes.’

“Our rides did look pretty slick with painted metal frames, adjustable seats with handles on either side  and even some very Rolls-Royce-built in umbrellas. After demonstrating the raised-fist ‘brake signal’ to alert riders behind you that you are stopping – and reminding us to watch out for wildlife, Mr. Huang let out with a spirited ‘All abord’ and we were dispatched to our assigned rail-bikes. I had booked a tandem rail-bike ($102) suitable for one or two people: Rail Explorers also offer quads ($178) for groups of two to four (the prices are per bike, regardless of the number of riders.”

“One by one, our convoy set off down the line boosted by an electric pedal-assist system that helps make the rail-bikes suitable for all ages and abilities. As I pedaled along, I took in the scenery, glad the crew had generously spaced out our departures from the station giving me the opportunity to have a few times when I felt I had the tracks and the scenery all to myself. Four miles in, we reached the halfway point, stepping off to stretch our legs while the crew turned our bikes around using a turntable.

“After I climbed back on for the return trip, I settled into a rhythm, marveling at the effort it must have taken in the 1860s to lay these tracks flanked by the river on one side and a rocky cliff on the other.”

By the time I read Mr. Harmon’s piece and called the operator, it became clear that Rail Explorers’ 2024 season was coming to an end. I had to wait for the 2025 season that would begin in April so long as winter and the early spring run-off did not compromise the right-pf-way. I hope not and if, all goes well, I’ll share my experience next spring in this blog.              

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January 1, 2025

Two Additions to My Bucket List: Part One-Birthplace of Chicken Tenders

Happy New Year

Thanks to separate pieces in The New York Times, I have added two items to my bucket list. The first appeared in the Food Section of the paper’s October 3rd edition under the headline, “In the Birthplace of the Chicken Tender.”

Datelined Wednesday, October 2, 2024, from Manchester, NH, Peter Wells began his piece with, “Fifty Years ago, the breaded, fried chicken tender as we know it was invented here.

“At least, that’s what they say in Manchester. Such claims are usually impossible to prove, and the picture is clouded in this case because of the loose ways the term chicken tender gets thrown around.”

Wells explained, that non-purists will use the name, “chicken tenders to refer to any strip of boneless chicken.” To chicken farmers, tenders refer to the tenderloin, a muscle along the backbone that gets very little exercise, hence its tenderness. These floppies of white-meat didn’t begin to appear on menus until 1974.

“If you were born in the United States more that 50 years ago, you can probably remember a world without chicken tenders. If you grew up later, you can’t.

“Today the chicken tender is not just familiar. It is triumphant. It is a fixture of school lunches and kids’ menus, of all-night diners and gas stations. It can be found at airports, food courts and stadiums.”

In 1917, two Greek Americans immigrated to Manchester, NH; Arthur Pappas and Louis Canotas. They opened a candy store that they called Puritan that grew while they re-located several times over the years. “In 1974, Arthur’s children added a large sit-down restaurant behind the shop, the Puritan Backroom.”

A fry cook told one of the Pappas kids, Charlie, that he had a small piece of chicken he didn’t know what to do with that turned out to be the tenderloin. This piece of meat performs no task and, consequentially, is a tender piece of meat. Served alone, it’s also tasteless until Charlie hit upon a method for preparing it.

“Before it is fried, the meat soaks in a pineapple-juice marinade. It is also served with what the Puritan calls ‘duck sauce,’ a thinnish, yellow, sweetish liquid.”

Early on, Pappas’ tenders were outsold by his barbecued lamb, broiled chicken breasts and pizza. But something about the taste of fried white meat dipped in rejiggered duck sauce captured Manchester’s imagination. Word spread; sales climbed while imitators arose. Eventually, chicken tenders began to outsell everything else and became mandatory at birthday parties, bar mitzvahs and wedding receptions celebrated at the Puritan.

“The tender has other things going for it, too:

‘Some of the popularity of the tender is that it is a whole-muscle white meat that doesn’t have to be cut or portioned, and, when cooked, it makes a great hand-held item,’ said Terrence O’Keefe, the content director of agribusiness news at WATT Globad Media. The tender could, in other words, go from the box to the batter to the deep frier to the table in minutes.”

Chicken tenders served at The Puritan has evolved over the years. “Besides its classic chicken tenders in duck sauce, the restaurant now offers tenders in a spicy breading, coconut-clustered tenders, and a version made by drenching the original recipe Buffalo-wing sauce.

The Manchester city council agreed to issue a proclamation proclaiming Manchester, NH to be the capital of chicken tenders.

Not to be left behind by this amazing fact, a fact of which I was totally ignorant, I’ve added a trip to Manchester for lunch serving of the original tenders at the Puritan. My target date for fulfillment is a weekday next summer when we are spending time at Little House, our vacation home in Marlow, about an hour away from Manchester. The game-plan is to join our good friends, Geoff and Judy Jones at the Puritan. They will drive down from their vacation home in Denmark, ME, slightly more than an hour and one half from Manchester. The most important reason for making the trip to the Puritan is their dining room has a full bar! I sent the Jones’ the piece from the NYT and what I discovered about the Puritan’s bar and they signed on for a lunch next summer, God willing, and the Creek don’t rise. 

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December 25, 2024

A New Hampshire Christmas

Christmas, 2012; Mother Nature was not in a nurturing mood for those of us living in the Northeast. Small as our family is, we seldom spend it together but 2012 was an exception. Joining Mary Ann and me; both the Briggs and Delach tribes trekked to Marlow, New Hampshire.

Tom, Beth, Marlowe & Cace Briggs, Michael, Jodie, Drew, Matthew & Samantha Delach, plus their granddame, Bare Delach, the elder Golden Retriever who my wife always wanted to call, Ernistine, because of her sincere eyes. Joining everybody were Max & Ruby Delach, two, eleven-week-old Golden puppies, the male belonging to us and the female, a birthday gift to Jodie.

Six adults, five kids and three dogs, all made it in three separate vehicles having had to brave through various intensities of a major snow storm old Mother Nature threw at travelers like us navigating the I-91 Corridor. Mike and his family caught the worst of it but, fortunately, the peak of the storm didn’t hit until after we’d all made it safely to that place we call Little House.

Loss of power is issue number one in rural NH. Issue number two is freezing pipes that closely follows issue number one. We do have two wood burning stoves for our primary heat and our wood supply was superb. But, if we lost power, we’d lose water and life quickly becomes  difficult when that happens.

Cut to the good news: the power didn’t fail: “Thank God Almighty; say halleluiah, say Amen!”

With power, everything is good even though we were snowed in.  We shoveled where we had to with joy. The two pups realized they were in Golden Retriever heaven being able to play with each other in the snow without adult supervision anytime they wanted. Mike and Tom laid out a challenging sledding run on the hill above us that became the major outdoor attraction until the town plowed and sanded the hill.

What could have been an ordeal, turned out to be a winter wonderland. The pups left their need for action outside in the cold, kids also exhausted themselves in the snow and the adults had a marvelous time. Each time kids came in they were relived of soaking wet snow clothes; hats, gloves and boots that were hung from every available hook, railing or most any other surface that could hold a hanger. The stoves were well-tendered and the clothing dried quickly enough to be available for the next onslaught. Drew dug a short tunnel just outside the front entrance that gave Max and Ruby their own access to the front yard without having to go near the driveway. The pups loved it. 

Inside was non-stop action. Food was always being prepared whether it was bagels and eggs, hot chocolate, soup, or great dinners. Good cheer and entertainment of every kind abounded from simple board games to playing electronic games or watching TV or DVDs.

Of course, things still go wrong. At the time, I was driving a Chrysler Aspen that I parked at the bottom of our circular driveway. My plan was to use this SUV as the lead vehicle to open the way out of the 16 inches of snow the storm had gifted to us. Unfortunately, when I made my attempt to open the driveway, I judged the turn too sharply and put the left-hand side of my rig into a depression. Mike’s van was behind me. Mike and Tom did most of the clearing around the wheels and dug it out enough to enable me to pull the Aspen out using low gear with the transmission in four-wheel-low. After I made it to the road, I walked my original route and told Mike, “If you put your left tire in the depression I made with my right tire and you will be okay.” He did so and got out easily.

Another time, after the driveway had been plowed by a local fellow from a garage in the town of Gilsum, one town away, I came into the top of the driveway too fast. We were returning from a small local ski slope where my passengers had gone tubing – Beth and Tom, their two and Matt Delach. As I went into the first turn by the house, I realized too late that I was on ice under the snow and I wasn’t going to stop. The house was on the right so that direction was not an alternative. Ahead of me where the driveway curves to the left was Beth and Tom’s Grand Cherokee so that wasn’t a good alternative either.

Mary Ann, who was sitting in our “Four Seasons” type glass room, saw what was happening. “I realized that you were moving much too fast, so I got up to get dressed so I could be of help.”

My only choice was to keep going straight between a bush and a tree; deliberately leave the driveway and drop down into a level snow-covered grass area below it. Not sure how much space this gap afforded, but I aimed more toward the bush figuring that would be the path of least resistance. Hot damn, it worked. It all happened so quickly that nobody said anything. Good fortune, part two, I was able to drive through the snow and regain the driveway.

(Mary Ann,) “By the time I got dressed, John’s SUV was back on the driveway. Totally shocked, I couldn’t figure out how he did this.”

Only then did we three adults begin to realize what just happened. It did occur to me what an old friend used to say, “Delach, you just cleaned out your luck locker!”

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas vacation and we all made it home safely.

May you, dear reader, enjoy this 2024 Christmas. If not Christmas, May you enjoy your day that you consider joyful.

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December 18, 2024

Robert Riger

Robert Riger, the renowned sport’s photographer, artist and writer, took a black and white photograph at Yankee Stadium late in December of 1962 during the NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers. Six of the eleven members of the Packers defensive squad stand in the foreground, their backs to the camera. Number 46, Hank Gremminger is closest to the camera. To his right stands Number 87, Willie Davis. Number 79, Dave Hanner stands in the center partially obscured by the dust blowing up from the Yankee Stadium infield. Numbers 66, Ray Nitschie, 74, Henry Jordon and 83, Bill Quinlan, stand to his right. All wear white uniform jerseys with dark stripes on the sleeves and dark pants with a lighter stripe on the seam. The teams’ capital G logo is visible on several of their helmets.

They are all looking at the Football Giants offensive squad who are bowed in a team huddle preparing their next play. Only three linemen’s numbers are visible, tackle, Jack Stroud, 66, center, Greg Larsen, 53 and tackle, Roosevelt Brown, 79. The Giants are dressed in dark jerseys with white numerals and white pants with a dark stripe along the seam. Only the side of Brown’s helmet is visible revealing the teams’ lower case ny logo.

A solitary game official stands between the two teams, head bowed, his white and black striped shirt barely visible through the dust. He is wearing a white hat designating that he is the referee.

The stadium grandstand provides a background for the photo, the lower deck, mezzanine and part of the upper deck. Bunting lines hangs from the façade fronting the upper deck. Curiously, despite the wind that is blowing across the field, the bunting remains undisturbed.

The photo captures Sections 8, 10 and 12. A capacity crowd fills the stands and the open press box suspended in front of the mezzanine. The wind-blown dirt makes it impossible to identify any single individual.

What the photo doesn’t show is the cold. The temperature at 2 p.m. when the game began was 16 degrees and the wind was clocked at 40 mph. Being a city kid in this pre-Gortex era, my clothes are no match for the cold. The scarf, overcoat and ear muffs worked pretty well, but the cold concrete easily defeated the thin soles of my shoes in the same way that the freezing air penetrated my unlined leather gloves.

The Packers would prevail, 16 to 7 and, I sat somewhere in Section 12 obscured in the photo by four of the Packer defenders and the flying dirt. I remember how devastated I was that my team lost. Compounding my misery was the cold. I was never again as cold as I was that day.

This was only one of Robert Riger’s brilliant photographs. In a book entitled, “The Sports Photography of Robert Riger” the author notes: “(Riger) began taking photographs in 1950 as research for his drawings. His distinctive sepia-colored sketches appeared in the first issue of Sports Illustrated in 1954 and became a regular and familiar feature in the magazine for many years afterward.

“He was soon publishing both drawings and photographs, and in 1960, his first photography book, The Pros, was published. The same year he became a writer / photographer / artist for Esquire. In 1963, Riger joined ABC’s Wide World of Sports, where he became a producer / director of many ground-breaking and award-winning programs. Among his prizes were nine Emmys. In the 1980s, Riger’s Journal appeared regularly on ESPN. His books include The American Diamond, Best Plays of the Year, Man in Sport and The Athlete.”

He died on May 19, 1995 in Huntington, California. 

He drew the covers for the programs for several organizations including the New York Football Giants. In 1958 Shell commissioned Riger to draw a series of ten scenes featuring Giants players for distribution to customers at their gasoline stations. A friend of mine recently came across an offer to sell an entire set in excellent condition. He told me this story of how he acquired the prints:

“ There is a side-story to the purchase of the Giants Robert Riger prints. The seller requested that I phone him before he accepted my transaction for $129.99 plus shipping that totaled $152 and change. I called back not without some curiosity. He was friendly and engaging and explained that they belonged to his recently deceased father but had no extra value to him other than sentimental (not a fan.) However, since they meant a lot to his father, he wanted to know what I was going to do with the them and to make sure they had a good home. He was disarmingly sincere about my plans for them. Nevertheless, I had a feeling that the money meant more to him than the sentiment so I offered him another $100 which was unsolicited. He came away happy with my plan and slight windfall. I came away with a cherished piece of memorabilia and a warm glow of doing good. A win-win.”

A happy ending to a good story.              

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December 11, 2024

Post-WW II Demilitarizing Eclipsed by the Cold War

America accelerated its pre-war effort once President Roosevelt declared that we would become “The Arsenal for Democracy.” Beginning in 1940, after FDR had won election to his third term and secured his power, he began his so-called “short of war” policies to supply Great Britian with military equipment that included 50 obsolete destroyers in exchange for bases in Bermuda, Canada and the Caribbean.

FDR, took on the powerful Isolationist lobby who opposed our entrance into this new conflict in Europe. He initiated the draft, passed legislation to greatly increase our army, air force and navy, despite this lobby’s opposition.

Lend-lease, our program to supply our allies expanded by leaps and bounds once America entered World War II. The colossal industrial might that was the USA geared up to produce an enormous stockpile of airplanes, ships and land equipment that greatly surpassed what the ten million men we had in uniform needed. Our surplus was so great that we supplied the USSR, Great Britian and its Commonwealth, the Free French, and China. Lend-lease essentially translated into Uncle doing this for free.

When the war ended on August 15, 1945, a rapid demilitarization began that forced this military / industrial colossus to reverse course, de-militarize their plants, factories and organizations. Instead of bombs, cannons and warships, they began to produce commercial ships and civilian airplanes while resuming everything our citizens wanted and needed like jobs, housing, appliances, new cars and varieties of food without ration cards. We also became the supplier to our devastated allies, sending them everything from grain to surplus trolley cars, again for free under the Marshall Plan that saved many European nations from Communism.

Up to the start of the draft in 1940, America had always been a country with a small military presence. We, as a nation, incorporated the same philosophy for returning our citizen army and navy to civilian life. Our immediate goal following the surrender of Japan was to bring home our service men from those numerous locations where they had been deployed. The navy’s first post-war challenge was to bring the boys back home from those far-flung locations across the Pacific.

This feat was accomplished by using soon-to-be laid-up aircraft carriers devoid of airplanes with reduced crews that participated in an incredible operation to bring our boys back home that the navy called: “Operation Magic Carpet.”   

Once that mission was accomplished, the navy took up the task of prserving all of their ships they deemed eligible for future re-activation should the need occur.

The army cut its active divisions as this service discharged about 70% of its manpower. A strong effort in Congress tried to eliminate the marines, but their alumni of significant supporters squashed this effort. Still, the marines remained vigilant.

The air force was the only service to prosper during these stringent times. First off, the Defense Act of 1947 made  this, a separate service, the United States Air Force (USAF.) The need for bigger and faster bombers to deliver the atom bomb, and later the hydrogen bomb plus the development of jet powered airplanes guaranteed that congress would fund the USAF with the money needed to develop these bombers and fighters.

Boeing built these bombers, first the B-47, a medium bomber and later, the B-52, our international heavy bomber that with the advent of air-to-air refueling, could reach any target anywhere in the world. The B-52 defied becoming obsolete and, while  its role has changed several times since it was designed and built, it remains our primary long-range nuclear bomber.

My cousin, Bill, pointed out to me that the USAF is still be operating the B-52 in 2024 and plans to use this “B.U.F.F.*” until 2050. That’s the equivalent of the army or the navy using guns, equipment and ships designed during the Civil War. Do the math: Far out!

The navy mothballed 17 Essex Class Fleet Aircraft Carriers, seven Light Carriers and 70 of 72 Escort Carriers.

 Every battleship was removed from service except the USS Missouri. (Remember, Harry Truman was president and Missouri was his home.) Fifty cruisers, all constructed during the war were also decommissioned.

The navy was a mere shadow of its war-time self, but then, the Soviets dropped their version of the Atomic Bomb and the North Koreans invaded South Korea. We went to the United Nations requesting they declare that the North had created a hostile situation and a UN force led by the United States would lead and command an international force to defeat them. The Russians had the power to veto this mandate, but, strange as it seems, they walked out of the Security Council and the resolution passed unanimously!

Korea was too far from our air bases in Okinawa and Japan to allow fighter-bombers stationed at the bases to support our troops fighting the North Koreans who outnumbered them. The only carrier in the Western Pacific available to support this vanguard of American troops trapped in the shrinking Pusan perimeter was the USS Valley Forge that quickly went into harm’s way.

Demilitarizing stopped on a dime and nine de-commissioned Essex Class aircraft carriers were chosen for re-activation. Six other carriers were transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Like it or not, We had been drawn into a Cold War with the USSR that would last until the fall of the Soviet Union 40-years later. It began with a hot war for all of the marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in that conflict from 1950 to 1953. These men, now senior citizens had the dubious distinction of serving in America’s forgotten war.

But any thought of cutting our armed forces had disappeared and each effort to do so since then has been stopped by events hostile to our well-being.

*BUFF: Big Ugly Fat F**ck.

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November 27, 2024

Mid-Twentieth Century Football Giants

One of the reasons I bought the Giants One Hundred Anniversary Book was that it included the top 100 players who wore the team’s uniforms. 

As I have previously stated, this football season, as terrible as our team is, celebrates the Giants 100th Anniversary of being part of the NFL. I attended my first Giants home game in 1961 at Yankee Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams. That gave me the opportunity to use my brand new 7×50 binoculars that my father had given to me when I visited him and his family at March AFB in Riverside, California that summer.

Having those binoculars gave me the opportunity to visually record the play-making abilities of  four-star players, quarterback Chalie Conerly, runner and receiver, Kyle Rote, kicker Pat Summerall and center, Ray Wietecha, all of whom would retire at the end of that season.

Y.A. Tittle, was the Giants starting quarterback, but that Sunday, his passing was ineffective. Head coach. Allie Sherman, replaced Y.A. with the Giants long-time starting OB, Charlie Conerly, who responded by completing a touchdown pass to Kyle Rote in the end zone behind the Yankee dugout to give the Giants the lead that they never relinquished. Amazingly, Rote made that catch exactly in front of where my friend, Jimmy Pace and I were sitting.

I had been introduced to the power of witnessing all aspects of professional football, close-up and in person. OMG, the beauty, the intensity, the sounds, profanity, tough-talk, baiting and the pain; the struggle in the pits where linemen collide, winners prevail by overwhelming their opponents. The men who make-up the defensive line know when their opponents mentally give up. Offensive players know the same thing when their opponents quit.

Vince Lombardi said it best, “ Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”         

The following year, when I first purchased my season ticket, I was assigned a Box Seat in Section 12 about five rows from the playing field behind the baseball visitor’s dugout on the side of the end zone at the closed end of Yankee Stadium.

In my first two seasons, 1962 and 1963, I did get to see 19 stars who were members of teams that played for the Giants from 1956 to 1963, the team’s mid-century glory years. During that eight-year period, the Giants won a World Championship in 1956 over the Chicago Bears. They also were division champions five times, but lost the championship games, twice to the Baltimore Colts in 1958 and 1959, twice to the Green Bay Packers in 1961 and 1962 and once to the Chicago Bears in 1963.

The linemen who were included in the Giants top 100 players were Roosevelt Brown, Andy Robustelli, Jim Katcavage, Roosevelt Grier, Jack Stroud, Greg Larson, Dick Modzelewski, Ray Wietecha and Darrell Dess.

Running backs, quarterbacks and receivers included Charlie Conerly, Frank Gifford, Y.A, Tittle, Del Shofner, Joe Morrison, Alex Webster and Aaron Thomas.

Linebackers and Defensive backs like, Sam Huff, Jimmy Patton, Dick Lynch and Erich Barnes.

This list doesn’t include Lawrence (L.T.) Taylor, voted the Giants best player of all-time because he didn’t join the Giants until 1981.

My only disappointment was missing out on seeing Emlen Tunnell, the team’s world class defensive back who was traded to the Green Bay Packers in 1958 after having played nine years with Big Blue.

Brief thoughts on some of my heroes:

Charlie Conerly: WWII Veteran, stone-cut face would have been the perfect Marlboro man except, he hated horses.

Kyle Rote: Fan favorite. Many guys have his name because their fathers adored him.

Y.A. Tittle, YAT, for short had three fabulous years with Big Blue after the 49ers traded him ending his long career in San Francisco. He set the record for most TDs in 1962 with 32 and 36 in 1963.

Rosy Brown was the ultimate offensive tackle in the NFL. A man of peace who, for most of his career lined up against Ernie Stautner who hated the Giants for cutting him in training camp. Brown held his own against Stautner but took a beating.

When Stautner retired, he became the Steelers line coach and taught his replacement all of his dirty moves. First time vs the Giants, less than a quarter into the game, Rosy stepped back after an ugly play and punched the replacement kid right in the face.

Rosy was thrown out of the game. a first and only time in his long career. When his coach asked for an explanation, Rosy replied: “I took that shit form Stautner for too many years, I’ll be damned if I’ll take that from a rookie.”

In 1958 Summerall kicked a 48-yard field goal to beat the Cleveland Browns. When he ran to the sidelines, Lombardi grabbed him and shouted: “You know you can’t kick it that far.” When he  retired, he became a world-class announcer and a world class drunk. Fortunately, he beat the booze.  

Sam Huff was a fan favorite. When the stadium crowd shouted the chant, they invented: DEEfense, DEEfense, DEEfense, it was for Sam, our hero.

When he was traded to the Redskins, we, the faithful, lost any and all affection for, Allie Sherman, the Giants coach who engineered the trade. Our new chant became: “Goodbye Allie, Goodbye Allie, Goodbye Allie, we hate to see you go.” to the sound of “Goodnight, Ladies.”

It took a night exhibition game in Montreal where the local fans sang this chant in French to convince Wellington Mara to fire Coach Sherman…and so it goes.

Dear Readers, let me wish each of you a happy Thanksgiving that I hope you can enjoy with those you love.    

On the Outside Looking In will not publish next week, but I expect to return on Wednesday, December 4th.

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