John Delach

The New York Times recently published an extensive account of a trip to Indonesia that I sent to my buddy, Geoff Jones. In their salad days, Geoff, and his wife, Judy, traveled to remote and exotic places seeking unconventional adventures and Geoff recalled several of his experiences on their trip back in the mid 90’s:

The only way that we could travel from island to island was by air. They operated like a local bus service and we mostly flew on one of two airlines, Merpati and Simpate, both owned by the Suharto family. They were simply awful. They had a terrible safety record and were infested with roaches. On one flight my seatback collapsed into the next row making it impossible to fasten my seatbelt. That wasn’t all, comically; the airplane featured two ordinary chairs situated near the door. They were moved out of the way for boarding, etc. and were used by the cabin crew for takeoffs and landings.

At one airport, my friend, Randy and I, decided to exchange $100 bills for Rupiah, the local currency. I don’t recall the rate of exchange but the stack they gave us was so large that they also gave us large size super market paper bags to cart the money away. When Randy and I returned to the luggage carousel where Judy and his wife, Toni, were waiting, they looked at the bags with surprise and asked what we had purchased? We replied, “Nothing, but look in here.”

We all nearly collapsed with laughter. The Rupiahs were so worthless that our stash consisted of one inch bundles of filthy colored paper with a rubber banded sample of the denomination around it. To purchase something, we counted out bundles, not the bills,

That airport was also a zoo. The luggage carousel didn’t actually move and the luggage arrived on old pickups. The handlers slid the bags down a ramp going in various directions depending which of the raised slots on the carousel slide they happened to hit. On the ceiling, a mounted fan rotated around in a vain attempt to moderate the intense heat inside the terminal. The fan didn’t have any blades. Between the money exchange, the luggage and the fan, we nearly pissed in our pants.

Indonesia is so big that it spans seven time zones. Ethnically diverse, it is heavily Chinese in the West but gradually turns aborigine as we traveled east. On a two-hour plane flight you feel you have crossed into a new world and not that you are still in the same country. A flight from Java to Irian Jaya made about a half dozen stops. On another from Jakarta, we reached our destination, Jojakarta after dark, tired and sweaty. The airport was deserted and we had to change terminals. Finally we found a terminal that listed our flight. I felt so dirty that I bought a shirt to replace my filthy one and changed in a bathroom. It was a neat looking Garuda Airline shirt but later in the trip after washing, it shrunk to the size of doll clothing. It might have fit “Ken.”

We visited with tribes slightly beyond their stone-age head-hunting days. The women were bare-breasted and wore a net cloth around their waists that served as a soft cover up and was also used as a shopping bag. The men split penis gourds and western garb depending on whether they were farmer/hunters or shop keepers. We did see a family mummy. We were treated to tribal meal rituals where pigs were shot with primitive bows and arrows and cooked on hot stones though we declined to dine. On one occasion, they brought out the seated mummy for us to see. It began to rain so one of the tribe produced an umbrella and held it over the old fellow.

We discovered Durians. For the uninitiated, these fruits native to Southeast Asia, are supposedly delicious and can be made into ice cream. However, they are infamous for their fecal odor. Toni tried a cone on a taxi ride smelling up the cab until the driver forced her to toss it out.

Of course much has changed in the last twenty years but this narrative gives you an idea of what a unique adventure this could be. But if you are interested in a beach vacation, limit your adventure to Bali.

I’ve analyzed the newly proposed plan to reconstruct and resurrect LaGuardia Airport from the horrible condition that it has sunk into and I say with absolute candor, “You can’t shine s***!”

The existing facilities are overcrowded, worn down and broken. The main terminal, now known as Terminal B, opened fifty-one years ago in 1964 in a much quieter era before the 727 and the DC-9 revolutionized domestic air transportation. Terminal B was designed to have flights arrive and depart from four separate wings that connected to various areas in the main building. Security was minimal back in the day and each wing had its own security check-point. I always understood that if you had to transfer from one to another, you had to exit the secure section and be screened all over again. Today, in our post-September 11, 2001 atmosphere, this enhanced process is a logistical nightmare. That was my understanding but it turned out not to be the case.

My cousin, Bill, recently made two trips from Texas to LaGuardia. His first round trip was on American. On the return leg the airline changed his gate from C-4 to A-12 after the TSA had cleared him and he arrived at the original designated gate. He told me, “I did not want to go through that barbaric process again so I asked a Port Authority cop if there was a way to avoid it?”

“Yes,” the cop replied and directed me to a non-descript door. “Go down the stairs and a van will take you to Wing A.”

“He must have called ahead because no alarm went off when he opened the door and when I reached the bottom there was a driver waiting for me. After driving me to the correct wing, he watched me very carefully to be sure I entered the right stairwell. I climbed the stairs and out another unalarmed door although there may have been a guard nearby.”

Just one example of how broken this airport is. But the overwhelming issue is LaGuardia cannot be fixed. I remember a flight from DFW to LGA years ago. I was sitting next to a young man, a new flyer on his first flight. Understandably excited and scared, he asked me what the takeoff will be like. “Oh that will be as easy as can be. The runways at this airport are about 12,000 feet long. There are separate runways for take-off and landings that are widely spaced and the pilots have all the room they need.”

He looked too relieved for his own good so I continued, “The problem will be landing at LaGuardia; that will be like trying to put the airplane down on to a postage stamp.”

To make sure he understood, I pointed the field out to him as we banked over Flushing Meadows Park. My reward was watching his eyes grow to the size of silver dollars.

The site for LaGuardia Airport was originally picked to be convenient to Manhattan and be accessible to both land and sea planes. At the time Imperial (British Airways) and Pan American Airways were the primary trans-Atlantic carriers and both operated multiple engine flying boats on their overseas routes.

Hence LaGuardia sits on a peninsula with water on three sides, the East River, Bowery Bay and Flushing Bay. Over time the airport has been expanded and been manipulated as much as humanly possible. The land side is locked in behind the Grand Central Parkway along its entire length and three residential communities, East Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights. About half the airport was originally built on top of semi-stable fill requiring a dike and pumps to keep it from flooding during high tides.

The two runways are perpendicular to each other and can only be used one at a time. They were extended to 7,500 feet in length in the mid-1960s to meet the minimum distances needed by medium size jets for takeoff and landing. These extensions were erected on two massive concrete piers strong enough to take the shocks of countless aircraft touching down.

Scary enough but there is more. Only one end of one runway has overshoot protection; i.e. an area to stop an airplane in an emergency. On two others, the water is the only choice and the last, the parkway.

In closing, the most modern terminals, transportation hubs, air control systems or travel amenities can do nothing to alleviate what ills LGA.

My suggestion, have pilots change their announcements to: “Ladies and gentlemen we are cleared for landing / takeoff and now, let us pray.”

Once upon a time, Keene, the little city in southwestern New Hampshire, was known as a transportation center. Three railroads met in this city providing service throughout New England. The Boston & Maine Railroad even had engine shops there. But railroad traffic waned after World War II and by 1970 almost all of the tracks had been torn up. As the railways disappeared, the city maintained itself with light manufacturing but it also became known as a college town. Institutions domiciled there include River Valley Community College and Antioch University of New England but the crown jewel is Keene State College.

From 1991 to 2013, Keene also hosted an annual pumpkin festival that attracted growing attention. The first year produced a modest count of 600 pumpkins. Then organizers and supporters went to work and claimed their first Guinness World Record the following year with only 1,628. Over the next eight years, the festival set six additional world records taking the count up to 23,727. The ninth and most current record was set in 2013 in an all-out effort to break the existing record held by Boston of 30,128 pumpkins which Beantown stole from Keene in 2006. Keene efforts succeeded as businesses, fraternal organizations, schools and individuals contributed 30,581 jack-o’-lanterns on October 19, 2013.

But the good times came to a sudden and dramatic end the following October 20^th when word went out over social media that the 2014 festival was a cause to party and party hard. The great Keene Pumpkin Riot began simply enough when a house party in one of the off-campus buildings near Keene State’s campus on Winchester Street out grew its space with party goers pouring onto the street.

The Boston Globe reported, “Outmatched officers struggled to contain the disruption as it spilled onto nearby streets. Showing little respect for New Hampshire state fruit or a community event meant to honor it, the rioters smashed windows, slashed tires and overturned dumpsters.”

Graphic scenes filled the national news airways of shirtless teenagers and young adults launching filled and empty 1.75 liter liquor bottles at police and anyone or anything else deemed a target. They started fires, tore up street signs, flipped cars and created “…a general atmosphere of mayhem.”

Keene’s finest retaliated by donning riot gear and attacking the mob with mace, pepper spray and tear gas. As things escalated aggrieved students chanted, “Bring out the BearCat,” referring to a military surplus armored vehicle owned by the Keene police. Reinforcements arrived in the form of New Hampshire State Troopers and other law enforcement members, some from as far away as Massachusetts. “At one point a helicopter flew over the off-campus neighborhoods of Keene telling partiers to go inside.

No records were kept to determine how many of the 21,912 pumpkins from the festival were destroyed by these mostly young men who believed “…they were just fighting for their right to party.” Eighty arrests were made and Keene State ultimately disciplined 170 of its students for their actions. It seemed that the same social media sites that attracted the raucous party goers also identified them to authorities.

The festival sponsors paid the ultimate price. On April 2, 2015, the Keene City Council by a vote of 13-1 refused to renew their permit. Sadness gripped the Granite State until just twenty-two days later, plucky Laconia in the Lakes Region stepped up to the plate and announced that they would host the 2015 festival.

Was this an act of insanity? You be the judge. There is a possibility that the same mob will migrate to Laconia although its institutions of higher education are either community colleges or on-line schools. Also, Laconia is currently most famous for its annual late spring, annual motorcycle week.

One would think that if this city has been able to host a bikers’ week for 92 years with crowds that can reach over 430,000 people and survive, a one-day pumpkin festival should be a day at the beach.

August invites us to sit back, relax and muse about some of the improbables that life offers.

Item One: After 35 Years, Stolen Stradivarius Is Home. In 1980, the Ames Stradivarius, made by the master craftsman, Antonio Stradivari in 1734, was lifted from the office of violin virtuoso, Roman Totenberg, at Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Totenberg had his own deep suspicions of the thief’s identity, a certain student by the name of Philip S. Johnson. Mr. Totenberg’ daughter, Nina, explained the basis to a reporter from The New York Times, “He (Johnson) was loitering around the place where it was taken and later his ex-girlfriend would tell my father that she was quite sure that he had taken it.”

Mr. Totenberg who acquired the instrument in 1943 told CBS a year after the violin was purloined:

“…that it had taken two decades of playing the instrument before it reached its potential. ‘It took some time to wake it up,’ he said, ‘to work it out, find all of the things that it needed the right kind of strings and so on and so on.”

Mr. Totenberg passed away in 2012 at the age of 101. He did collect $250,000 in insurance proceeds following the theft. Mr. Johnson died in 2011 and his wife, Thanh Tran, discovered the violin when she forced open a locked case given to her by Johnson before he died. Recently, she brought it from her home in California to New York for appraisal supposedly “innocent” of the circumstances surrounding it. When confronted with the details, Ms. Tran wisely “voluntarily relinquished” the violin.

The family has returned the insurance money for a simple reason as The Times reported, “…these days, the finest Stradivarius violins sell for millions of dollars.” They also noted that Mr. Totenberg’s wife became so frustrated with the lack of effort by the police in gaining entry to Mr. Johnson’s abode that she frequently asked friends if they knew someone from the mob. Too bad she couldn’t find someone like Ray Donovan to do her bidding.

Item Two: Semi-Happy Ending, Seaside, For Long Island Ponzi Scheme. The usual fraud story with a twist, a pair of brothers-in-law, Brian R. Callahan and Adam Manson, bilked 45 investors out of $96 million by creating a semi-mythical hedge fund beginning in 2007. Instead, they invested the bulk of the money in the Panoramic View, a Montauk, N.Y. resort of villas and cottages first opened in 1954. Their plan was to renovate the aging property, sell some of the units as co-ops and operate the remaining cottages as a hotel. Whether or not they intended to share the profits with their investors is unknown, but timing, as usual, is everything. Their original timing was lousy and their entrepreneurial scheme collapsed in the face of the great recession that hit late in the summer of 2008.

Of course, not all of the money went into the Panoramic View although Mr. Callahan did buy his own co-op there – Unit Salt Sea No. 4 for $450,000. Investors’ money also helped pay for “…(he) and his wife’s Old Westbury, N.Y. mortgage, credit-card bills, golf-club dues and payments on a range Rover and a BMW.”

As the recession waned, the Montauk real estate market heated up and in 2012, they were offered $50 million for the Panoramic View that had cost them $38 million. Mr. Manson rejected this offer as too low but the following year the Law caught up to the two crooks. Both men plead guilty and will be sentenced this October. Now it is the government’s job to secure the best offer possible so to return as much of the lost investments as possible.  They were ready to sell the property said to be worth as much as $75 million for $54 million in 2013 but Federal District Judge Arthur D. Spatt nixed it as t.f.l. (too f***ing low.)

New bid packages were sent to interested parties in June…stay tuned.

Max is our sixth Golden Retriever. He traveled from a breeder in Missouri by truck with the comical name: PetEx Express. He and his sister, Ruby, arrived on November 11, 2010. Ruby was a birthday gift for our daughter-in-law, Jodie and her three kids named the two pups after the story-book and TV cartoon brother and sister rabbits. Max succeeded Maggie who we lost the previous summer.

Our first Golden was Harry. Then came Fred, Bubba, Jumbo and Maggie. Harry was our first and a grand dog. Knowing what I now know about Max, his disposition, attitude, temperament, etc. Harry would have been a great name for this Missouri dog. Failing that, I would have pushed for Truman because he is a “show-me-dog.”

Max was our first pup in a long time. We acquired Maggie in 1999 when she was ten-months old and already a certified Looney Tune. Anyone who knows us and knew Maggie will certify that she was f—ing nuts.

Folks we know looked at Mary Ann and me in a way that clearly showed their thoughts: “The two of you are either dumb or crazy.” I too had real doubts about what we had done. A puppy with all that it brings. The biting, destruction, housebreaking, sleepless nights and other unpleasant happenings and events. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

Admittedly, we had some bad moments, but this new pup was special. He gave us a pass on one of the fundamental problems, crying through the night. Not Max. He took to his crate (cage) for naps during the day and to sleep without fuss and remained quiet and dry until we woke him up. And those are magical words: “Until we woke him.” He remained contented until he heard action. Then he’d whine, but when we opened the door, he usually reacted by first looking at us, stretched, got up, stretched again and exited the crate to begin his day.

Also importantly, almost from the beginning, the floor of the crate would be dry even after eight hours. Max was clean even for Goldens who by nature house break themselves quickly. Max also proved to be very trainable. He’d cooperate for love but we quickly realized that he did and he’ll do almost anything for food.

The biting lasted more than a year, never vicious, he just had the need to use those teeth. Unfortunately, this meant that play sessions deteriorated into bloody sessions especially for Mary Ann whose thin-skinned arms and hands soon made her look like a serial knife fighter. Mary Ann’s ultimate defense was to cut the toes off of athletic socks and fashion them into shields to minimize the damage to her skin.

Max grew rapidly almost before our eyes and quickly became known in the neighborhood as the dog who carried sticks around in his mouth the size of small trees. A fine looking dog, one gal remarked to me one day: “Wow, is that dog good looking. Why he’s the Robert Redford of Golden Retrievers.”

He grew and grew rapidly. One problem with this is he thought flapping children wearing oversized jackets, sweaters or hoodies were great sport who should be brought to the ground by grabbing on to the back of their garments. Needless to say this activity led to some difficult crises until we learned to anticipate when this was going to occur. Fortunately, he outgrew this impulse.

Now an adult about to turn five he would be a total pleasure if not for his need to steal. And steal he does, clothes, shoes, towels, throw rugs, mats, pillows and even blankets and bed spreads. The only good news about his stealing regimen is he considers it to be retrieving and he brings the items to us with his plume tail high in the air proud of his prowess.

On the whole, this adventure has gone well and he’s a love. But if sometime in the future, hopefully way down the road, we even consider a puppy again; please, I beg of you,  shoot us.

Slip slidin’ away, slip slidin’ away, you know the nearer your destination the more you’re slip slidin’ away.

Paul Simon

I cannot recall even approximately when I began to feel naked, alone and afraid whenever I discover that I am beyond walking distance from my cell phone. This awful realization hit me like a ton of bricks the other day when I called my carrier, Verizon, to accept a discount in return for electronic billing. The helpful young lady pleasantly thanked me for my loyal service. I murmured, “Whatever.” But then I realized she was saying in amazement, “Why you have been a wireless customer since 1992.”

Nineteen ninety-two, “Damn,” I said to myself after I had hung up, “Chances are she wasn’t alive in 1992.” Not only that, Verizon wasn’t alive in 1992. Neither were its predecessors, Bell Atlantic or NYNEX. Heck, when I first signed up it was with New York Telephone then an orphan of the broken-up AT&T, Bell System.

My first phone was a Nokia brick (small size), not as big as those Motorola walkie-talkies. I’ve gone through L.G.’s, Samsung, the Motorola Razor and one made by Qualcomm, whoever the hell they are / were. (Incidentally that relic is still in my garage and bears the name, Bell Atlantic Mobile.”)

Now I am blessed / cursed with an IPhone 5C that does everything except offer sex, at least I think it doesn’t, as I probably utilize less than 15% of its capability. My friend, Mike calls it the work of the devil. (Mike swore allegiance to his flip-phone until dragged into the dark side at a family intervention where his flip-phone was forcibly removed, replaced by a hand-me-down IPhone 4 from his teenage son.)

Worse, a mobile device doesn’t even scratch the surface of my skitsofrantic relationship with technology. In fact, if it weren’t for Google, it would be impossible for me to spell skitsofrantic!

Just last night, I miss-hit some button on my key board sending my tool bar into never, never land. The cold sweat of fear descended upon me, my hands became clammy and my heart raced as I contemplated being unable to make next Wednesday’s blog deadline.

This blog is another thing. Every Wednesday morning I sit down at this computer with absolute dread and certainty that today will be the day that I will not be able to access WordPress or that it won’t work.

Computers, IPhones, IPAds, Kindle, all those devices frighten me. So too in my vehicle- OnStar, Blue Tooth, GPS and XM – each of these things are traps waiting to turn on me when I least suspect it.

The house in New Hampshire has gone from a bucolic place for peace and quiet into the nut house. When we took ownership in 1984, the only devices were a radio, telephone land-line and a roof-mounted antenna that picked up a single television station out of Burlington, VT. We replaced the antenna with one of those old monster dishes that combed the sky for C and K-band satellites. In all we could access two or three dozen satellites each with 15 to 24 stations both domestic and foreign. That was fun especially during football season as we could access the raw feed of every NFL game for free. But like modern pizza discs that replaced it about ten years ago, we quickly discovered that most of the content consisted of, sex, obscure religions and shop-at-home. (Back in the day, late one night after a few pops I bought two Bill Clinton backward-watches because the price was right!)

Now we have semi-adequate cell-phone service (unless you have AT&T) and a Router that works well except when our offsprings and their families overwhelm it with their war chest of devices or when the not infrequent blackouts play havoc with it.

Windows 10 is knocking at the door and what future shock will next strike? I avoid all social media and clouds though I hear this voice inside that repeats, “Soon, sucker, soon.”

Late in May, the One World Trade Center (WTC) observatory opened to the public, 1,250 feet above West Street. For $32 an adult can whiz up to the 100^th Floor in 47 seconds while looking at a virtual presentation of how the view from the top changed during the last 500 years. One WTC joins the Empire State Building (also $32) and the Top of the Rock ($30) observatories as the highest in New York.

But these towers are for common people, you and me, Aunt Sally from Indiana, tourists from Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, England – Paris, France or Paris, Texas and  any other place on the planet considered to be friendly to our nation. Their special views are open to anyone who can afford to buy a ticket.

These towers though, high as they may be are not the truly exclusive top of the Big Apple. That distinction belongs to the new “supertalls,” new mega-tower residential buildings that cater to the incredibly rich who already occupy the very top of the food chain. These insanely wealthy domestic and international messieurs and madams have demonstrated an insatiable appetite to fork over millions of dollars as investments in absurd structures that boggle the mind with their heights, views and the cost of admission.

One57, a 1,094-foot tower completed last year on West 57^th Street was the first of the supertalls . It set an all-time ceiling for the cost of single residence this past January, “…when a duplex penthouse there closed for $100.4 million.”

As scandalous as One57 may seem, for now the reigning king of the supertalls is 432 Park Avenue. Naturally, located between 56^th and 57^th streets, It stands 1,396 feet tall, has 104 units with more than half under contract, “…for roughly $1 billion in potential sales, including a $95 million penthouse.” Those still available range from $16.95 to $82.5 million.

But wait, as the carnival barker would call out to hustle the crowd, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

The developer of One57, Extell Development Company, has plans to build “the tallest residential structure in the Western Hemisphere between 57^th and 58^th Street east of Broadway rising to at least 1,500 feet if not higher.”

How much higher? According to The New York Times, “A spokeswoman for the developer denied reports speculating that the building might top the 1,776-foot pinnacle of One WTC!” The projection is that the building will “generate some $4.4 billion in total sales proceeds.” That’s $4,400,000,000 in cash money.

Across the street construction on a 950-footer containing 118 units has reached street level. Designated as 220 Central Park South reports are “…buyers have already snapped up about a third of the units representing $1.1 billion in commitment.”

“The least expensive apartment, a 2,394-square-foot two-bedroom apartment on the 22^nd floor, is listing at $12.25 million.” The 9,500-foot penthouse can be gained for $100 million.

Foundation work has started on a third tower at 111 West 57^th Street scheduled to reach 1,421 feet. Designed for 46 apartments in the tower and 14 in an adjoining building, prices begin at $14 million.

Insanity personified, simply mind-numbing just to contemplate these figures. How can it be that there is so much disposable wealth available to fuel such expansive uber-luxury development in mid-Manhattan?

Come the revolution, ground zero will definitely be 57^th Street. Forget the Wall Street “One Percenters” with their $343,000 in annual income. No, no, we’re talking here about 1/4 or even 1/8 Percenters. When the time comes to put these interlopers up against the wall; at least we’ll know where to find them. That is, if they are home. Since much of this development is driven by Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc. investors seeking a safe haven to part their ill gotten gain, they will not be in residence often. Timing is vital.

Autumn in New York, why does it feel so inviting…

Pass the word; the revolution begins in the October after the last of these towers is finished. Start collecting cobblestones and Belgian blocks and prepare to man the barricades; to arms, to arms.

During the early 1980’s when New York City was in the middle of enduring those bad times and crime was rampant, I was tasked to meet a valuable client in the lobby of the Dorset Hotel on Fifty- Fourth Street. The Dorset was a throw-back to a more gentile era, a favorite for old-school British businessmen. My purpose; to escort him to Giambelli’s, then one of the city’s more upscale and popular Italian eateries. I was so assigned to keep creeps at bay based on my size and girth that gave me the same profile of Popeye Doyle from the French Connection.

This profile didn’t offend me, I considered this assignment a privilege to have the opportunity to spend some time alone with an amazing man. He was a fellow with the dryest sense of humor of any person I’ve ever had the privilege to know and beyond that, he was a RAF war hero and old enough to be my father.

We met at the bar and shared a drink. He had a gin and tonic, I probably had something similar but with vodka. The doorman ordered us a taxi and I gave the driver our destination. Correctly, he turned south onto Fifth Avenue. As memory serves me, the taxi was passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral when I proposed a question to my customer:

“There was a chap who worked for your firm. He preceded me on your account. I never met him, never knew him but I’ve heard many things about him, may I ask you, ‘What kindof a man did you find him to be?”

He looked at me, thought about what I had asked, measured his response, paused, then replied, “Like him or dislike him, you have to admit he was basically dishonest.”

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Once upon a time a group of sports entrepreneurs created a professional football league to play their games during the spring rather than compete against the NFL in the fall. They called it the United States Football League (USFL.)

The Donald usurped this concept by buying the New York franchise, called the Generals and led the charge to compete against the NFL not on the playing filed but in court. He set out to sue the league on the grounds of antitrust and force his way into the league.

The trial took place in Brooklyn in the Eastern District Court. The Donald and renegade NFL owner, Al Davis, were pivotal witnesses in favor of the plaintiffs. They both accused the NFL of just about everything short of nuclear war.

Here is what happened: In the normal course of events with an urban jury The Donald & Co. would have won and, in fact, they did, or would have had it not been for a single alternate juror.

This juror was a naturalized citizen, a British ex-pat, who prior to coming to America had been a secretary at NATO. She replaced one of the original jurors who pleaded to the judge that he’d just been accepted by the US Post Office as a trainee but, if he didn’t show up the next day, he’d forfeit the job.

Except for this new juror, the USFL’s case was a slam-dunk! Out-numbered and out-voted, she voted with the other five but held her counsel until it was time to award damages. She recommended to her fellow jurors that this was really a bit of a silly case, something the judge should really decide. So she proposed they set the award at one dollar and let the judge amend the amount as he saw fit.

When the jury announced their verdict, the court was stunned. What she had failed to explain to her fellow jurors is that a judge can only reduce a settlement, not increase it.

Brilliant from where I sit, but I guess some of you may consider this the con of the century.

In any event, in this his latest re-incarnation, The Donald running for president of the United States has erased his role as the prime mover in this litigation and professes his loyalty to and love of the NFL.

The Donald is amazing:

Like him or dislike him, you have to admit, he’s basically dishonest.               

The origin of hat-trick according to Wikipedia: The term first appeared in cricket circa 1858 to describe HH Stephenson’s taking three wickets with three consecutive deliveries. Fans held a collection for Stephenson and presented him with a hat bought with the proceeds. The term was used in print for the first time in 1878 and was eventually adopted by many other sports including hockey, association football, water polo and team handball.

On July 5, 2015, the American midfielder, Carli Lloyd, accomplished a hat-trick by scoring three goals against Japan in the team’s 5-2 victory in the finals of the women’s World Cup. She was the first woman to make a hat trick in World Cup competition and the first athlete to make it in a final match. Ms Lloyd scored her third goal in the 16^th minute, another record.

While the mostly partisan American crowd went wild in their spontaneous reaction to this amazing feat, their behavior was nowhere near as intense as two other instances that I have witnessed as part of my experience as a sport’s fan.

The first demonstration occurred during the New York Yankees 1978 home opener, but the reason for it actually happened the previous October. In Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, Reggie Jackson, put the Yankees ahead 4-2 with a two-run homer off Burt Hooten in the fourth inning. In the following inning he went yard again hitting a second two-run blast off of Elias Sosa giving the Bronx Bombers a 7-3 lead. Finally in the eighth, Mr. October parked his third round-tripper served up by Charlie Hough to become the first player since Babe Ruth to make a hat-trick in a World Series Game. Celebration of this event was subsumed by the team’s clinching the series that night and the chaos that followed the victory as unruly fans flooded onto the playing field.

Before Jackson came to New York the brash superstar predicted that if he played in the Bronx, “They would name a candy bar after me.”

And so it came to pass; the Reggie Bar was born, a square shaped concoction of chocolate, nuts and raisons wrapped in a bright orange package showing Reggie’s image about to swing at a suspended ball and emblazoned with REGGIE! in blue letters. The long defunct Wayne Bun Company that made this new treat introduced it at the 1978 home opener distributing individual candy bars to the 50,000 faithful in attendance. The Reggie Bar elicited comments reflecting the over-sized ego of its name sake: “It’s the only candy bar that tells you how good it is,” and, “It tastes like a hot dog.”

As luck would have it, Number 44 blasted a home run his first time at bat and most of the fans decided to celebrate the event and his World Series hat-trick by bombarding the field with his candy bars as he circled the field. The cascade of unopened candy continued until we ran out of ammunition covering the most of the field within reach of the stands in a sea of orange.

My second experience took place at a non-descript Rangers hockey game at Madison Square Garden Unfortunately, I don’t recall the player involved but that night a group of us secured our firm’s corporate box and filled it with a group of insurers who had assisted us in placing a difficult risk. Unbeknownst to any of us, Winston cigarettes was using this venue to showcase their then famous Winston Cup stock car racing series by distributing bright red baseball caps to each arriving fan. You guessed it, that unidentified Ranger scored three goals and the rink was transformed into the frozen Red Sea. Again, a lengthy delay ensued as all of the hats had to be picked up by hand, the Zamboni being useless for this task.

When action resumed, the same player scored a fourth goal bringing on an onslaught of any remaining hats plus packs of Winston cigarettes.

I just wish those fans in Vancouver had the presence of mind to celebrate Ms Lloyd’s achievement in similar fashion. But it can be argued that a jubilant New York City crowd exceeded this wish by showering Ms Lloyd and her teammates with confetti last Friday when the city hosted a parade in their honor up the canyon of heroes on a glorious July day.

We drove up in two cars a necessity of traveling with our daughter, Beth, her two, Marlowe and Cace plus Matt Delach after a stop in Fairfield, CT. Matt’s older brother, Drew, called the next morning asking me to drive back down to Deerfield, MA where his dad would drive him. “Why not,” I thought. Matt wasn’t too pleased to have his big brother intrude on his time here but we bought him off with a double sawbuck.

Sunday was cold and wet when I left the house at 10:30AM to pick up Drew. The rest of the gang drove to Keene where we met for lunch at the Colony Pub known for good food and long waits. All went well until we arrived back in Marlow later that afternoon where we discovered power was out. I had bought a small inverter for such an emergency that I hooked up to my GMC Arcadia to power the freezer and refrigerator.

The bad news: we were without the well with the primary and immediate concern of flushing toilets. The good news: water was available from the hot tub so I established a periodic bucket brigade. By 9 PM what fun remained was fast disappearing with the day’s last light and the Electric Cooperative gave no estimate of when power would be restored. We had enough flashlights for everyone and we all turned in early rather than curse the darkness. A bit after ten my restless sleep was interrupted by the sound of trucks on the road so I rose, put on sweats and a tee shirt and watched two line trucks pass our house. When they came back down ten-minutes later, I stepped out to ask when they thought we’d get power back?

One lineman said, “Soon,” and I started back to the house. It was then that I realized that I had on a Yankee tee. “Great,” I thought. “Soon, my ass,” I thought, “After seeing my shirt it will be a cold day in hell before power returns.”

Fortunately, we had it back ten-minutes later.

Beth took three of the kids to Mount Sunapee’s Aerial Adventure Park on Monday where they were strapped into harnesses and navigated various suspension “bridges” consisting of planks, wires, ladders and tunnels, some as high as 50 feet. One look convinced me that even back in the day when I was younger and more agile, there wasn’t any power on earth that would get me up there other than the army. The army made me climb telephone poles, never again!

Amazingly, Cace, Marlowe and Drew successfully tackled all four levels of the course. Beth also took it on four times but wisely restricted herself to level one, three times and level two, once. The park also featured two rock walls, one that ended with a 15-foot “gravity jump” onto a large air bag. Deliberately falling 15 feet is akin to trying to hurt or kill oneself. Wisely, Beth decided to forgo this plunge, but Drew, Cace and Marlowe chose to jump. Drew made it alright but the others hurt themselves, fortunately not seriously. If all of this is not enough to satisfy your daredevil, there was a two and a half-hour zip line trip; again thanks but no thanks!

On Wednesday it rained so it was off to the movies in Keene. Mary Ann, Beth, Marlowe and Cace saw the animated movie, Inside Out, while the two boys and I saw Jurassic World. Malowe and Cace liked their movie, the two adults, not so much. As for Jurassic World, this was Matt’s third time and Drew’s second. My impression in one sentence: “There goes the neighborhood.”

The boys and I returned to the house first just in time to have a weather cell pass over us and lightning strike really close by. So close that the boys saw a flash and sparks in the front room. Shockingly, we didn’t lose power!

The rest of family arrived Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon together with good weather. Six adults, five children and three Golden Retrievers successfully co-existed (mostly) over the next three days including a pontoon boat rental on Lake Sunapee on July 4^th.

Once they all departed on Sunday the quiet was inspirational!