John Delach

Such a poetic phrase, I lifted: “He Failed to Negotiate a Curve,” from The New York Times’ obituary for Joe Don Looney. Joe Don, a former football star died while maneuvering his motorcycle along a winding road in East Texas. Forty-five, when his obituary was published on September 26, 1988, he died the same way he lived; chaotically.

Memories of his comet like life and death were reawakened recently. Twenty-six years after Joe Don’s death, he still retained the power to co-op his father, Don’s obituary despite the elder Mr. Looney having lived a long and successful life first in sports then in the oil patch, passing at 98.

Don Looney, (the father) born September 2, 1916, starred at Texas Christian University and was named MVP of the 1938 National Championship team that finished 11-0 beating Carnegie Tech 15-7 in the Sugar Bowl. Don went on to play three years in the NFL before joining the Army Air Force where he continued to play football with his base’s team known the Randolph Ramblers. After the war, Don embarked on a successful Fort Worth based career that included many civic, industry and charitable honors. When he passed, Don was the oldest living former NFL player and the last living member of TCU’s 1938 team.

When it came to football, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Unfortunately it must have bounced too many times before falling into a hole so deep that most obits found it a must to reference Joe Don in his father’s last earthly recognition. Once again Don was usurped by the life and crimes of his only son.

Joe Don played for Pascal a high school in the Fort Worth area where he gained fame as a senior beating rival Arlington Heights on a thirty-five yard run in the fourth quarter to make the final score, 14-12.

In 1962, he was a bench warmer at Oklahoma University. OU was losing to Syracuse with five minutes left to play. Joe Don took it on himself to walk up to legendary head coach, Bud Wilkinson, to announce, “If you want to win the game, you’d better get me in there.”

Stunned, Wilkinson was speechless so Joe Don inserted himself into the game, told the quarterback to give him the ball and bolted for a sixty-three yard touchdown and an Oklahoma victory, 7-3. A magnificent runner and punter, Joe Don led the Sooners to a berth in the Orange Bowl.

Things went badly the following year. Wilkinson kicked Joe Don off the team following a smack down delivered by Looney to an assistant coach.

Despite this incident, the New York Football Giants picked Joe Don as their first-round draft choice in 1964. He lasted a grand total of 25 days with the team before the Giants traded him to the Baltimore Colts. This is how I described his tenure with the Maramen in my book, 17 Lost Seasons:

It was said of the 6-3, 230 pound back, “He can run, he can punt, he can block, but, most of all, he can run.” It also should be noted that Sooners’ head coach, Bud Wilkinson had cut the 21-year-old handsome Texas native mid-way through his junior year at the request of his teammates. Joe Don had run for 852 yards in 1962, averaged 6.2 yards per carry, scored 62 points and led the nation with a 43.4 yard punting average. When Wilkinson cut him the following year, the coach was quoted as saying, Joe Don was, “…a bad influence upon other members of the team, was indifferent about practice and discipline.”

“We’re not interested in the past,” responded head scout and former head coach, Jim Lee Howell when asked why the Giants drafted this product of four colleges in two states as their number one choice. Question: Didn’t anybody from the Giants think about contacting Bud Wilkinson, the Sooners’ world class head coach to ask just how screwed up Joe Don was and how much he lived up to his last name?

Perhaps it was the fact that his dad had played for the Eagles and served as an NFL official? Joe Don’s career with the Giants lasted twenty-five days during which he refused to participate in workouts and slept, on occasion, 22 hours a day.

The Giants traded him to the Baltimore Colts for cast-offs. Even though he helped the Colts to win a division championship, head coach Don Shula refused to let Joe Don punt: “I was afraid to put Looney in the game to punt because I didn’t know if he would punt. He might do anything.”

At his next stop with the Detroit Lions coach Harry Gilmer told Joe Don to go into the game and tell the quarterback to call a screen pass. Joe Don replied to his head coach, “If you want a messenger boy, call Western Union.”

From there he went to the Washington Redskins where he punched out an opposing player. The army sent him to Viet Nam where he began his love affair with automatic weapons. He then wound up in India under the tutelage of a peculiar swami who prophesized the world as we knew it would implode in the mid 1990s, the anti-Christ would make his appearance and guns would be used for currency. (The story that Joe Don punched out the swami’s elephant may be an urban legend.)

Joe Don believed he was prepared for the end of all things. He lived alone in Alpine, TX off the grid with his automatic assault guns in a solar-heated dome without electricity or a telephone.

The principal feature at his funeral service was some fellow playing Stardust on a piano.

Joe Don could have done worse than to be sent off to the sound of Hoagy Carmichael’s soothing hit melody.

What do you get if you purchase a rather sophisticated flying electronic toy and have untried rookies attempt to operate it in a restricted area? Answer: Great drama!

My son-in-law, Tom, decided to treat his children, Marlowe and Cace, to a small plastic drone from a company called Dromida. He selected Model DIDE01GG dubbed Ominus, a fully assembled quadcopter. (Ominus, what an appropriate name for what was to follow!)

The proprietor of Toy City in Keene, NH and one of his customer’s recommended the unit to Tom as being, safe, reliable and easy to use.

The copter advertised itself as “fun to fly,” “easy to fly,” and “nearly impossible to break.” Tom charged the batteries for the flying machine and its controller on his return from the store. I was out and missed the arrival at the house and by the time I arrived first flight preparations were well along.

I watched from a safe distance on the porch as Tom ventured outside, set the copter on a table and engaged the controls. Smoothly and effortlessly the copter popped into the air rising about ten to fifteen feet. Working the controls Tom sent it forward, backwards and sideways. First flight ended in a crash about 15 seconds later.  The duration of subsequent flights varied as Tom began to master his expertise of the controls but all ended in crashes of one sort or another. But the copter was none the worse for these crashes. Although the quadcopter remained undamaged, our household quadruped, four-year-old Golden Retriever, Max, decided this darting, semi-controlled interloper was something he wanted no part of. Max joined me on the porch.

Marlowe and Cace joined the fray and the copter headed up higher and traveled further away. Granted, the house is located in a decent clearing but the fact is we live in the woods and it quickly reached a tree line. It cleared the trees for brief seconds then fell into a strand about 100 yards away as control was lost.

Drama descended on the once happy scene as a desperate search began. Tom spotted it dangling from a tall spruce tree too high to permit ground retrieval. Even so, being a dutiful father, Tom grabbed an extension ladder and attempted to climb up the tree, no small feat. He first had to clear low branches using a saw and clippers that prevented the ladder from being made at least somewhat secure.

I held the ladder more for morale support than in doing any real good. The copter was just too high but he couldn’t get anywhere near the copter to flick it off the tree even with a ten-foot pole. But Tom effort was a tie; no retrieval but he didn’t fall and break a leg, arm, etc. in the attempt.

One by one, crushed family members left the scene and returned to other activities. I decided to clean up some of the items we had used that day for the spring clean-up. One was an electric power washer used to clean an outdoor deck. It’s heavy and I decided to move it back to my GMC Arcadia on a hand-truck. Mission accomplished and with no further need for the hand-truck, I headed for the shed where we keep it. The ground was uneven so I looked down as I walked to avoid obstacles. So it came as a surprise when I heard a whooshing sound coming from the trees to my right. I looked up just as the copter hit the ground no more than a yard from where I stood. The tree had given up its prey safe and sound making me its emissary to return the unit restoring peace, tranquility and joy.

After dinner, eight-year-old Cace, who had taken the afternoon’s loss the hardest, walked pass me as I sat on the porch. In his hands he carried the copter and the controller. “Say, buddy, where are you going with those?”

“Outside to fly it.”

“Sorry, Cace,” no more flights today.” I replied as I decided to play the bad guy.

With less fuss than I expected, he accepted his grandfather’s edict.

One miracle a day is enough!

 Author’s note: Next weeks blog will be published on Thursday. 

Marlow, NH: Each year brings its own set of challenges when it comes time to awaken the New Hampshire house from its winter snooze. There are easy openings and hard openings and 2015 was leaning towards the hard side. At our first arrival in April we tackled immediate problems as expeditiously as possible. Power, water and communications are top priorities in that order.

We knew the dishwasher was broken when we left in December so we ordered a new one to be delivered and installed when we returned for the Memorial Day weekend. DirecTV was also out so we arranged a visit by their technician. A toilet was out of kilter needing the plumber but that could be done while we’re not here. Prior to this season’s opener, I ordered a new cutting blade and a tune-up kit from the D.R. Trimmer Company for my field and brush mower. A local fellow who advertises “small engine repairs” serviced this machine and a conventional gas-powered lawn mower. He finished servicing them before we arrived. When I called to find out what I owed him he said, “I had to get a new battery for the field and brush mover and I used the new parts you left but I couldn’t get the lawn mower to work until I got the shit out of the carburetor.”

We came up on Wednesday and two guys from Sears arrived on Thursday to install a new dishwasher and take away the old one. All went well until they began to pull the old one out of the kitchen. “Hey, bud,” the leader said. “We have a problem. This thing is hard-wired, not plugged in and we’re not licensed to work on it. You need an electrician.”

That wasn’t good news. Mary Ann looked at him and said, “How do we find one who’ll work on it before the weekend?”

“Oh, you should call the Sears store where you bought it. This happens all the time.”

With that they left right after we signed a receipt that they delivered the new one. Mary Ann called Sears and spoke to a woman in the store. Yes, she could try to get us an electrician to install it tomorrow but before he would come, we’d have to pay $190. She asked, “Do you have a Sear’s card?”

When Mary Ann answered, “No,” she said, “Well, you’ll have to come into the store to use another card before we can dispatch him.”

She said she’d call back but she didn’t. Instead a licensed installer called us. “If my wife takes the kids to school, I can be there by 8 AM tomorrow. If not, I have a job in Walpole at 10 and I’ll be there after 11.” His name was Jason. He told Mary Ann the cost was $175 and he’d take a check; go figure?

The DirecTV tech came a little after four and solved the problem fairly quickly. The dish had become misaligned which was why it wasn’t receiving a signal. But then he got into a conversation with Mary Ann about upgrading to a wireless system that would allow us to watch TV on our I Pads or on televisions anywhere in the house. When she spoke to an agent at DirecTV the cost kept going up and up until she finally said, “Never mind.”

That night in bed as black thoughts crossed my mind, a new one snuck in, “When was the last time we had the septic system drained?”  I kept my own counsel until morning then checked my records. The system was last serviced in June of 2012 and was due for servicing June of 2015. Ahead of the curve on that near-miss, I made an appointment to have it drained on June 2.

Jason arrived as promised a little past 8 AM. He disconnected the old unit, installed the new one and put on the power. One problem; no water. Then, opening valves to find out why, unbeknownst to us, he drained all of the hot water. This happened just as Mary Ann was about to take a shower. When she told us there was no hot water, I was ready to panic. No dishwasher and now no hot water for the holiday weekend, not good, not good at all.

Jason remained calm. He realized the loss of hot water was temporary and he re-connected the dishwasher. “Give it an hour for the water to get hot and put the dishwasher on. It should work. If not call me and I’ll come back this afternoon.”

He was right and that problem was solved.

So much for this year’s opening day dramas. Tom, Beth and Cace arrived for opening day chores later on Friday. Their daughter, Marlowe, was already with us. On Saturday, they went to Marlow’s Memorial Day service before we started working. They felt the ceremony was touching, a simple mix of the National Anthem, God Bless America, Amazing Grace and Taps.

Chores commenced. I made a couple of runs to the garbage transfer station to rid ourselves of junk left over from Christmas, Tom went to work on the lawn, Cace cut down seedlings, we power-washed the deck, prepped the septic tank by clearing the dirt that covered it, cleaned outdoor furniture, etc.

The summer season of 2015 was underway.

American maritime paintings that depict scenes from the mid Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth Century are popular because they are special. They interpret a black and white era in brilliant colors inviting our eyes to observe a newly industrialized America flexing its muscle, expanding its dominance over the land, the rivers and the oceans.

Artists like John Stoddard and Michael Blaser depict a multitude of steamboats of all sizes and description serving river cities and towns on the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi rivers. They portray daily river life from sunrise to sunset and even at night time.

Famous steamboats fill their portfolios, Belle Memphis, Bayou Sara, J.M. White, Belle Amour, Dean Adams and The Island Queen. Their portraits present a world of commerce on these rivers, the commerce of an America propelled by determination, prosperity, and confidence.

Sailing upriver on board the modern steamboat, American Queen, passengers can re-live this era by examining its many paintings that line the boat’s passageways, lounges and public rooms. But the land and the towns that line the Mississippi tell a different story, a story of change and not for the better, of being bypassed, made redundant and abandoned to exist in nostalgia that once was their glory.

I first witnessed the state of Mississippi River towns in 2010 during a baseball trip that took my mates and me from St. Paul to St. Louis. Here is how I described our journey as we drove south in Iowa along the Mississippi River:

We drive back into Davenport to see the place during daylight and discover that this is the first of several “ghost towns” we will drive through. It seems that only the poor and disconnected live in these towns any longer while retail business has fled to suburban malls. Downtown: empty storefronts look back at us and many abandoned housing units dot the nearby, once-upon-a-time, residential neighborhoods within this once prosperous city. We witness this same phenomenon in Burlington, Fort Madison and Keokuk, Iowa.

Late in April, 2015, Mary Ann and I traveled on board the American Queen upriver from New Orleans to Memphis. The trip took seven days, the massive 40-ton paddle wheel behind the stern pushing the steamboat against the current at five miles an hour against the “Big Muddy” or the “Father of All Waters.” Along the way we stopped at by-passed towns, in Mississippi and Arkansas; Natchez, Helena-West Helena and Clarksdale.

What took us seven days could be covered by automobile in about six and a half hours on Interstate-55, but the point of making this trip was to experience this part of our country. The American Queen was the only passenger boat on the river in regular service.

But commerce remained strong on this great inland river though it has minimum contact with the land especially in the Delta between Vicksburg and Memphis. Great fleets of barges tied together into groups of 12 to 20 called “tows” are maneuvered up and down the river pushed along by powerful towboats. The barges carry cargo in bulk, coal, grain; soy, wheat, oats, corn or any other bulk commodity including sand and stone. Downriver for exports, upriver for imports- the tows never stop at the towns. They move from one fleeting area to another, where they tie off at landings away from human traffic. Full barges are brought along side floating cranes which lift their cargoes in huge buckets up into the holds of ocean-going ships. Likewise they load empty barges with imported bulk cargoes to be taken upriver to inland ports.

The river towns prospered during the time of king cotton when this industry dominated the land, the people and their life-style. Cultivating, harvesting, cleaning, inspecting, warehousing and shipping cotton ruled the land and those who lived there. Starting during the First World War, the put-upon lowly black field workers and sharecroppers began to quit the land taking their families north up the center of the country to cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. seeking a new life. The Great Depression slowed this migration to a crawl, but the need for workers serve in the plants of our “Arsenal for Democracy, as World War II arrived turned this trickle into a flood as masses of black field workers left the land. Cotton doe forced to automate eliminating field jobs forever. After the war, interstates by-passed the river towns, railroad traffic gave way to the airlines while malls and big-box stores starved local mom and pop merchants. One by one downtown retail stores gave up the ghost as did the hotels and restaurants.

What remains today is nostalgia, heritage and the Delta Blues. Natchez has a black-tie Festival of Music each May, a Mississippi River Race in October and Christmas in Natchez, a festival of lights. Helena has the King Biscuit Blues Festival each October that attracts 100,000 fans or more and the Wild Hog Music Festival and Motor Cycle in April. (Damn, we must have just missed that one by a week.) We also missed the Juke Joint Festival held in April in Clarksdale.

Nostalgia, heritage and the Delta Blues, that’s what they hope to sell. Despite these towns’ being down and out, here’s the message I heard their folks screaming out, “We are not going to disappear.”

B.B. King just passed. A boy born on a Mississippi plantation who had his first paid gig in Clarksdale. Like Muddy Waters or Bessie Smith, he came into this world when cotton was king and now their memory and the music they invented help to keep these towns alive and I believe sustain their future; nostalgia, heritage and the Delta Blues.

The following is an excerpt from my journal: “Up River: Steamin on the Big Muddy.” If you are interested in reading the complete journal please contact me at: jjdnyg62@aol.com

Having made my way to the engine room bar to enjoy a Jameson’s on the rocks I decided to let it breathe while I made a visit the engine room. Mark, the Chief Engineer was sitting at his desk when I arrived. A young man in his thirties, he was eager to talk about his charges, twin horizontal steam engines that power the paddle wheel. He explained that they came off of an Army Corp of Engineers dredge built in 1932. The engines were re-built and dropped into the hull of the American Queen during construction.

I observe the two huge pistons leading from the engines to the wheel assembly, their forward and retreating motions forcing the paddle wheel to turn repeatedly at just the same rotation pushing the boat up the river. Simple and reliable.

His engine room was spotless filled with panels of electronic gauges and lights. I asked, “Do you control the steam engines from here and how do you receive orders from the pilot house?”

He pointed to a board of lights and explained what engine settings each light meant. “If they want a change in setting, a strobe light goes on and an alarm sounds. Then I acknowledge the command by pressing the return button before I change the settings.”

”How do you change the settings?”

He pointed to four wrought-iron levers that dropped from the overhead, “Using those.”

“Wow,” I thought, “this young man is a real engineer who controls the massive paddle wheel the same way locomotive engineers once controlled the driver wheels on their steam engines. What a job!”

He did point out that the automatic pitch propellers and thrusters were controlled directly in the pilot house but, in my mind that changed nothing. “Was it difficult learning how to manipulate those handles?”

“A bit, if I don’t move them smoothly it can cause serious vibrations to occur.”

I am clearly impressed as I take my leave to return to my waiting Irish.

The Tornado: St Francisville, LA

Each cabin is equipped with HD television that received all of the networks and most news stations. For some reason that was never explained to me; the ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasts originated from their New York stations including local news.

Having returned from my morning coffee run, I entered the cabin to hear Al Roker’s voice of doom warning that severe weather including tornados was approaching central Louisiana. Less than an hour later the sky turned black as ominous low-flying clouds descended on the boat. Lightning lit the sky with boomers echoing a squall’s approach. Satellite TV went out as the storm zeroed in. Simultaneously, my IPhone flashed a tornado alert for the next half-hour warning me to seek shelter immediately.

I was dressed and ready to go but Mary Ann had just finished her shower and was absolutely unprepared and unwilling to leave the cabin without putting on makeup and blowing her hair. I kissed her goodbye, “Let me remember you just as you are.”

She replied, “Don’t forget to bring me cereal and milk.” (It appears some people don’t show proper respect for Armageddon!)

I was seated in the dining room on the main deck with five other people already engaged in lively conversation also seemingly oblivious to our doom. I chose to “shut up, eat up and get up.” The boat’s entertainment m/c now acting in the guise of safety director warned us over the P/A to remain inside in the same light, sing-song voice he used for various activities. He didn’t quite project an air of confident, competent command especially when he ended his announcement with “…and have a super day.” (Accent on the SUP.) Personally I’d have preferred a voice like George C. Scott playing Patton or Charlton Heston as Moses to reassure me.

Mary Ann rang my cell phone to tell me not to return to the cabin. “The rain is coming down sideways and the deck is flooded.”

I agreed to wait until it slackened as our cabin didn’t have access to a central internal corridor and only opened to the outside deck. Later, when we called Helen and Don to let them know what they missed, Helen laughed, “You should have banged on the adjoining door to the inside cabin and announced, ‘Make yourself decent, we’re coming through.”

Mister happy followed–up with another announcement that the fleet of hop-on, hop-off buses was out of action blocked by a fallen tree across the two lane road leading to and from the landing. “A tree is down from the storm and the town has to get someone to clear it.” Fortunately they did, the rain stopped for a while. The worst was over. Mary Ann asked, “Did you really think we were in danger?”

“No, I really didn’t fear for our safety. But I was concerned that the boat could have been damaged by a tornado and our cruise ended just like that. I saw us put on buses for Baton Rouge and being sent home with a $1,000 voucher for a future cruise.”

When Mary Ann spoke to Michael she noted, “It was amazing, even with all of that wind, the boat didn’t rock one bit,” forcing me to explain that was because it was resting on the mud bottom which is what they do to stabilize the boat when using a landing.

Boondoggle: To waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects.

Early in the Twentieth Century one of the first additions of New York City’s original subway was to extend the tunnels and tracks to South Ferry at the southern tip of Manhattan providing commuters access to Staten Island and Brooklyn ferries. Two loops were constructed allowing trains to turn around and return uptown without switches. The inner loop directed trains to the East Side and the outer to the West Side.

Old joke. Question: “Why is Lower Manhattan so bright?”

Answer:   “Because it’s closer to the Battery.”

Over time, these 1905 unique tunnels proved inadequate for modern service because of the tight turning radius. The inner loop could only accommodate four cars and was removed from revenue service in 1977. The outer loop was improved as well as could be expected including retractable platform extensions that eliminated gaps once trains were positioned. Yet the configuration of these platforms led to delays and, as the length of trains increased, South Ferry Station became a bottleneck as it could only accommodate the first five cars of a ten-car train.

“No good deed goes unpunished.” When a national catastrophe strikes, Uncle will respond with a massive influx of money. Entrenched state bureaucracies are well-prepared to divert as many of these dollars as possible to their own ends. Witness the so-called “Shovel-Ready Initiatives” funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. A whole bunch of that money was used by state governments to offset the loss of revenue from their normal tax flow due to the recession. Admittedly, funding schools, police, and fire protection for a year or two is a good thing; but maintaining essential services was not the intended use of re-build America funds.

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001 Bush 43 and Congress eagerly stepped up to the plate to fund the massive recovery effort to re-build the World Trade Center and replace lost infrastructure. When the towers came down, their wreckage penetrated into the subway line that ran under Greenwich Street severing the West Side connection from Chambers Street to South Ferry. It was essential the line be restored but included in the MTA’s plan for re-construction was a proposal to build a new South Street Station. The plan envisioned a two-track, single-island platform stub that could accommodate all ten cars. It would be equipped with state-of-the-art electronics, seven escalators, two ADA  compliant elevators and all of the bells and whistles that money could buy.

Uncle contributed $420 of the $530 million it took to build the new tunnel and station  and when it opened in 2009, the Governor, New York’s two US Senators, two congressmen, two borough presidents, state and city representatives, US secretary of transportation and MTA big shots all gathered together to praise this vital addition to Lower Manhattan.

Unfortunately, only three years later Superstorm Sandy flooded a large swath of Lower Manhattan.  The storm overwhelmed the make-shift sandbag and plywood barriers erected to protect the station…“flooding the station – floor to ceiling – with 15 million gallons of seawater, sewage and debris…effectively destroying the station and its critical equipment.”

In 2013, the MTA noted: “The rebuilding effort will take an estimated $600 million and as long as three years.” Fortunately, the old loop, taken out of service when the new South Ferry station opened, didn’t suffer the same fate and within six months of this disaster, it reopened after $2 million in needed restoration work.

Work on rebuilding the new station is finally making progress. So far, flood-proofing has been completed and in December of 2014, the MTA awarded a 31-month, $194 million contract to replace track, mechanical and electrical equipment and rebuild the station making the total spent or awarded to date equal $326 Million.

If that figure holds, total cost for the original construction and the reconstruction will equal $856 million. A few more million here and a few more million there and pretty soon that billion dollar mark will be in range. “A billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

(Everett Dirksen)

We’ll have to wait until July of 2017 at the earliest to discover just how much this boondoggle finally cost the tax payers.

Oh, I’m sure its value will be celebrated by the new gaggle of VIPs who attend the future re-opening. But may I just offer one cautionary thought to project into the future. As the high and mighty pontificate about all the benefits of this magnificent reincarnation, please don’t seal off the old loop; just in case.

(Special Tuesday edition sent onboard the AMERICAN QUEEN north of Natchez, MS)

Picture, if you will, four ethnically Polish brothers, growing up, in middle America, mid-Twentieth Century; three of the four played football. One brother, Dick, was a mainstay tackle for my team, the New York Giants.

In 1957, Jim Brown, Cleveland’s sensational rookie fullback led the team in rushing with 942 yards. Lost in Jim Brown’s wake and all but forgotten that season was former starter, Ed Modzelewski (pronounced moe-juh-LESS-kee). Modzelewski, known as “Big Mo” had rushed for 619 yards just two years earlier but after being relegated to the role of substitute Big Mo’s playing time was reduced to just 21 yards in ten carries. Big Mo played little the next two seasons and retired following the 1959 season rather than play for a new expansion team, the Dallas Cowboys.

Big Mo was the sixth player picked in the 1952 NFL draft after finishing his college career at the University of Maryland where he played from 1949 to 1951. The Terrapins were anointed National Champions in 1951 after an undefeated season that included upsetting the previously unbeaten Tennessee Volunteers, 28-13 in the Sugar Bowl. Big Mo was named the outstanding player of that game after running for 153 yards. His coach, Jim Tatum, proclaimed after the game, “He’s the best fullback in the country.”

Years later, a reporter caught up with Big Mo at his home in West Sedona, Arizona. “Relics of those glory years are tucked away out of sight.” Ed noted, “Most of (my stuff) is in the garage. My Sugar Bowl trophy got broken years ago by our four kids. All I have is the bottom part.”

Ed ran a successful food franchise business after he retired. He died on February 28, 2015 at 86.

Brother Dick, two years younger was deemed “Little Mo”. Ed and Dick played together for two seasons at Maryland including the 1951 championship. In his senior year, Little Mo received the Outland Trophy as the best lineman in the country. Drafted by the Redskins, he also played for the Steelers before being traded to the New York Giants in 1956 where he became part of the greatest defensive team of that era. Playing tackle, Little Mo joined Andy Robustelli, Roosevelt Grier and Jim Kacavage. This group of men together with their middle linebacker, Sam Huff, stole the publicity spotlight becoming the first defensive football stars in the NFL. It didn’t hurt that television enhanced their exposure, or that they played in the media capital of the country or that the Giants won the NFL Championship Game in 1956 demolishing the Chicago Bears, 47 to 7.

Although this was their only championship victory, as a unit they played in four more title games. Little Mo was the least flamboyant of the group which suited his team ethic. He was the sheriff of the line of scrimmage, the lineman who rarely chased after the ball carrier or who rushed the passer. Instead he patrolled the line of scrimmage and eliminated the opponent’s blockers so his mates could make the big play.

Baby brother, Eugene played at New Mexico State from 1961 to 1965 with the nickname, “No Mo.” Drafted in 1966 by both the Browns and the army, Gene served in Viet Nam and never returned to the game. He was 60 when he died in 2004.

Football didn’t call oldest brother Joe who was the chef at the family restaurant in Cleveland.

After a successful 1963 season, the Giants owner, Wellington Mara and head coach, Allie Sherman grew concerned that too many stars were aging. They instituted a disastrous youth movement that promptly caused the team to collapse. The Giants wouldn’t return to the playoffs until 1981.

First to go; Little Mo traded to the Browns in 1964 for Bobby Crespino, a tight end. The Browns considered Crespino to be a bust. Their No.1 draft choice in 1961, he only caught a total of six passes in three seasons.

The Giants lied to their fans and proclaimed that Little Mo wanted to finish his career in his home town. Dick saw it for what it was; a “dump job.”

In his words: “A few weeks after the trade, I went to see (Cleveland owner, Art) Modell about my contract. I was so mad about the trade, I could hardly talk. I told him, ‘Give me a blank contract.’ I signed it and shoved it back at him. ‘Write in whatever amount you want.’ Then I steamed out the door. Modell always said he paid me more than he intended because I did that. But frankly, I was so mad, I didn’t care. I think he gave me $17,500 which was more than I made in New York.”

Little Mo went on to be a starter in 1964 when teammate, Jim Parker fell to injuries. The Browns won the NFL Title Game that year and Dick picked up his second championship ring. The Giants finished last in their division with a 2-10-2 record.

Little Mo remained in pro football as a player and a coach until 1990. Dick is 84.

As Modzelewski grew older, his anger grew less defined; Little Mo forgave the Giants and made them his chosen team of record. He signed a one-day contract and officially retired from the NFL as Number 77, defensive tackle, New York Football Giants.

I only traveled south of the Mason-Dixon Line during the Jim Crow era three times, all of them to Florida by airplane in 1957, 1959 and 1960. None of those trips counted toward experiencing what life was like in the segregated South even though Florida was then as separate and unequal as any other southern state. Why? Each time, I flew non-stop between New York and Miami, twice on Eastern and once on National Airlines. Passing over the invisible Mason-Dixon Line at 20,000 feet or higher, Jim Crow was impossible to see, feel or experience.

I took these flights to visit my father then stationed at Homestead AFB. John Sr. was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, a navigator / weapons officer by trade flying B-47 bombers as part of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). I have no recollection of any form of segregation or discrimination whatsoever on the base. I remained isolated from the Jim Crow South on every level during my travels and stays in Florida. The FAA controlled air travel, the services were fully integrated, my father and his family lived in base housing and most of their friends were other USAF officers and their families.

The South began to explode in a great Civil Rights campaign just after my December 1960 visit. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led the battle in spirit and in action. Lyndon B. Johnson aided these efforts when he became President of the United States. MLK Jr. fought with undaunted courage and LBJ did what no other President could do, he engineered passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. These two men, each in their own way were at the right place and time to force open the gates so that many other brave men and women could turn the course of race relations in the USA on its head and make us a better, though still incomplete, nation.

Had my father insisted that I travel by train on any one of these visits, my experience may have been very different. Back then, passenger trains still carried as many travelers as the airlines. Seaboard and Atlantic Coast Lines dominated the coastal route from New York’s Pennsylvania Station to Jacksonville, Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami while the Illinois Central owned the traffic out of Chicago reaching south to cities on the Gulf Coast from Gainesville, Tampa and Sarasota to Fort Myers.

Their trains had magical names; Illinois Central had the Panama Limited and the City of Miami, ACL operated the Silver Meteor, Silver Comet and Silver Star. Seaboard offered the Champion and the Palmetto. But nowhere in the glossy brochures or advertisements for these luxury trains did any of these railroads or travel agents explain or even mention that service was subject to Jim Crow once passengers crossed that invisible line, the “Cotton Curtain.”

Had I set out from Penn Station to visit the “old man” on one of those trips, I would have traveled south in a reserved seat on the Pennsylvania Railroad with a through coach ticket south of Union Station. On the ride from New York through Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore to Washington DC, black and white passengers would cohabitate the coaches but white conductors and black porters would advise black customers continuing south of DC to move into the Jim Crow coaches in the front of the train before it departed Union Station. (If these passengers were riding Illinois Central trains from Chicago, they would receive the same admonition once they reached the Ohio River where the train would cross from Illinois into Kentucky.)

The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 changed all that but not over night. Jim Crow had been in existence since the end of Reconstruction in 1876 and old habits died hard both for Southern whites and blacks. Conductors who worked the trains south of DC continued to enforce the-now illegal Jim Crow laws by ordering the porters to herd black travelers into Jim Crow coaches. Some of these same travelers voluntarily moved to avoid confrontations.

Some porters didn’t follow orders and counseled their charges that they were entitled to the same reserved seat through to their destination. One such porter was George Swanson Starling.* Mr. Starling had fled Florida at the end of World War II after unsuccessfully trying to organize orange grove pickers. He escaped to New York City one step ahead of the sheriff.

By the mid-1960s Mr. Swanson was one of Seaboard’s veteran porters who would take aside passengers on the run from Baltimore to DC to explain their rights. “Going below Washington, they want us to move y’all up front in the Jim Crow car. But if you paid an extra fee to reserve this seat, you are entitled to keep this seat to your point of destination. But they not gonna tell you that. They gonna tell you, you got to move up front.”

“Just tell ‘em, ‘Look, I have a reserved seat from New York to Jacksonville and I’m not moving anywhere. Now if you want me to move, you get the cops and come and move me. I’m not voluntarily moving anywhere.”

That was the kind of courage it took to implement the Civil Rights Act and change the landscape. They defied illegal orders at the risk of employment retribution to carry the day. George Swanson Starling did what he had to do. He wouldn’t think so but he was a hero.

* Mr. Starling is featured in: The Warmth of Other Suns, The epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.

Thursday, April 9, 2015 was one of those cold, damp days in New York that just gets you down. I hope it was the final curtain call of what was a truly rotten winter season.

The day found me mumbling over the need to don too much clothing for my trip into Manhattan. Bored by my dull, drab well-worn winter raincoat, I selected a bright blue baseball cap to protect me from the rain. The cap carried the Durham Bull’s logo; a big “D” in bright orange with a bull charging through the D.

I bought this hat last year on a baseball trip that included a Durham Bulls home game. It’s a good fit and it can bring interesting comments. Most people confuse it with the Denver Broncos hat because of the D and as that football team has similar colors.

But today my hat would be upstaged. After arriving in Penn Station, I made my way to the Eighth Avenue subway to catch an uptown local to the 50^th Street station. Boarding an E Train, I found an unoccupied space to stand, grabbed an overhead bar for support and braced myself for the inevitable lurch as the motorman resumed his northbound journey.

It was only after I adjusted myself to the rhythm of the moving train that I noticed a chap wearing a dirty white baseball cap standing near to me. The writing on the side facing me read in navy blue, “2010 St. Andrews.”  That grabbed my attention compelling me to give him a second look. He was about my age, could have been a tourist and I guessed he might have been traveling with the woman sitting in front of him. Once the train came to a stop at 42^nd Street, the seat next to her opened up permitting him to join her. They began to chat confirming my assumption and I continued my examination of his hat. Instead of a logo of some sort the peak bore the Claret Jug, the trophy awarded to the winner of the British Open Golf Tournament or, as our British cousins egotistically refer to it, “The Open.”

For the record, The 2010 Open was played at the Old Course at St. Andrews from the 15 to 18 of July 2010. It was the 28^th time The Open was played at this golf club and the 150^th anniversary of The Open’s founding in 1860. The champion was Louis Oostuizen who won the tournament with a 16-under-par total of 272 beating Lee Westwood by seven strokes.

Bravely, I decided to break the subway’s unwritten code and spoke to this stranger, “Excuse me, that’s quite a unique baseball cap.” When he didn’t respond, I explained, “Your hat is a souvenir from the British Open, the most prestigious golf tournament in the world from a year when it was played at St. Andrews, the most prestigious golf club on earth.”

The woman responded, “He doesn’t know anything about golf.”

“I see. Well, trust me you own a rare cap. Where did you get it?”

“At a tag sale in The Bronx.”

By this time, the train began to brake as it entered my station. “Believe me, that’s a great hat.”  was all I could say before I had to leave the train.

I stepped out onto the platform. The doors closed behind me and the train accelerated away leaving me to contemplate the circumstances that brought his hat from Scotland to a tag sale in The Bronx. I shrugged in wonder as I made my way to the cold, wet street.