Six years ago, when I announced that I would be retiring from WABC at the end of January 2016, I was asked many times one question: “What are you going to do when you retire?” I had a glib stock answer that satisfied just about everyone…“Whatever I want,” I’d reply. However, I remember one conversation with an acquaintance that wasn’t satisfied with my stock answer, and continued to press me. “No really. What are you going to do?” he asked, like I’d made a 30 point agenda! So for him, and anybody else who may have wondered, here’s a look back at some of the things Susie and I have done the past six years! Because we’ve done a lot of “stuff” over the past six years. This will be a multi part blog, so here’s part one!

In 2016 when I retired, I joined Susie who had retired from the Mineola School District a couple of years before, because her job had turned into a nightmare of being spit on, stabbed with pencils, and the like. Telling her that I had never had any of that happen to me at ABC, we decided it was best for her to stop working while I continued a couple of more years. So when I walked out of WABC for the last time on January 29th, 2016, our life was ours to do as we pleased.

FREEDOM – One of the first changes in our life immediately after my January 29th retirement date was that we no longer had the need to travel down to Ocean City on a Friday afternoon, nor back to Mineola on a Sunday night. In fact, with the exception of our twice monthly “Nail Night” with Krissi and Mike, an occasional Doctor visit, or trips to see Susie’s Mom at the nursing home, we had little need to be in Mineola! When we did come back to Long Island, we traveled mid-week, and the same heading back to the shore.

THIS BLOG – It was also in those first days after I retired that we started this blog. We found a name, worked on the hosting logistics, came up with a design, and on February 27th, published our first blog post! Called Road Trip we detailed our relationship growing up with road trips and how they would be a huge part of “Our New Adventure.” (https://rnewadventures.com/2016/02/27/road-trip/)

FLORIDA – Then on March 4th, 2016, we left on our first road trip of our retirement…a trip to Florida! This was our first “we’re not working, so we can go now” trip, and the start of what was to become a yearly adventure of our retirement life. It included 5 days in Walt Disney World, where we happily enjoyed my Disney Retiree benefits (half price rooms, free park admission, and discounts on food and purchases) and even got written up in a Radio Newsletter back home when I talked about my Love/Hate relationship with the Walt Disney Company in our blog! We enjoyed a couple of Spring Training games, and visited with my cousins Jeanne and Walt in Barefoot Bay. Late in the afternoon of March 13th, we drove back into our Mineola driveway, making this one of the shortest of our yearly Florida adventures!

Final Florida Recap

2017 – Our next road trip to Florida started on Sunday, February 26th, 2017. This was part of a journey we called at the time “Kenny and Chris head off to Los Angelos, D’Elia Family Trek,” where Susie and I, along with Kenny’s twin sister Krissi and her boyfriend Mike were going to join the boys at various stops on the East Coast as they drove Kenny’s Hyundai Santa Fe to LA! It started in Atlantic City earlier in the weekend with Krissi and Mike joining us, but then they returned to NY. On Tuesday, February 28, we arrived at the Port Orleans Resort in Walt Disney World so the boys could enjoy some of my retiree benefits for three days. The two of them walked our feet off, but we had a great time! After 3 wonderful days, we packed the cars and were off. The next stop? The Big Easy…New Orleans! The boys were doing the drive in one day, as they were meeting Krissi and Mike there, while Mom and Dad took 2 days, so the young kids could have a day without the old folks! After 2 nights in NOLA, that included great food, great drinks, and a riverboat ride where Chris asked the family if he could propose to Kenny, it was time to get Krissi and Mike to the airport and the rest of us on our way. But wait, there’s more, we were not done with the boys! Next was a trip up north a bit in the state of Louisiana to the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in Bossier City, where we spent two more nights! The boys left the next day, to stay a couple of days with Chris’ Family in Tulsa, Oklahoma before heading to the Left Coast. The next morning we left for Ocean City, and 14 days after leaving, on Saturday, March 11th, we were at 854 Pennlyn Place. We didn’t spend as much time in Florida this year, but we sure had a lot of fun, without regard to work schedules!

And that’s the end of today’s section of our blog Taking Stock. Come back tomorrow as we complete our travels to Florida, and enjoy the warmth of summer, in the winter!

Six years ago today, on Friday, January 29th, 2016 I worked my last day at WABC Radio in New York City

Well over half my life had passed since that day in 1976 when I walked onto the 8th floor of the ABC Building at 1330 Avenue of the Americas. I started there as a 26 year old single guy, and retired as a 66 year old long time married Grandfather. Over those 40 years, I met and married my best friend, became a Dad 3 times, sent 3 kids off to college, saw my first son get married, became a Grandfather twice, and celebrated our 36th Wedding Anniversary with the same girl I met back in 1977 in the middle of a 5 month long NABET strike against ABC.

Along the way, I’ve worked with some of the best radio had to offer. From the MusicRadio days, there were legends like Dan Ingram, George Michael, and Ron Lundy. On the WPLJ side, there were great folks like Tony Pigg, Pat St. John, Jim Kerr, and Jimmy Fink. When WABC went talk in 1982, I was fortunate to work with great folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, John Gambling, plus some characters like Ed Koch, and Joy Behar. There were many great people I worked with, but if I listed them all, this would just be a blog of names!

When I started at MusicRadio 77, WABC in 1976, it was the most listened to station in the nation. It was the pinnacle of radio’s number one market, the place where everyone wanted to work, and the only radio station I wanted to work at. I grew up, and then grew old at that radio station, and the members of the WABC Family were my family, and WABC was my radio station. Over the years, Susie and I had been to countless weddings, even our good friend Rush Limbaugh’s very lavish one in Palm Beach where Elton John was the “after party” entertainment. I’d seen so many folks become parents, helped friends bury their parents, as my WABC Family helped me do twice 30 years apart, and been fortunate to meet, work with, and become friends with so many great people! How could I not think of it as my radio station?

Unfortunately, WABC was not the same radio station it had been when I was 26 years old, but then I wasn’t the same person either. 8 years before I retired, Disney/ABC had decided that radio was no longer a core business, and had sold off the ABC O&O Radio stations. I had already become a Disney/ABC Retiree when that happened, so in 2016 I was just retiring from WABC Radio not the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department of The American Broadcasting Company I had proudly been hired by in 1976, but the folks I worked with made it special. My last week at work was full of fun events in my honor like a pizza lunch, a full blown-out retirement party at a Mexican Restaurant in NYC, and a very special lunch with the guy that planned it all…Cumulus New York President and General Manager Chad Lopez . Of course, that last week also featured a snow storm that made me 3 hours late to work, thanks to the Long Island Rail Road (FYI….there has not been one day in the last six years that I have missed that railroad!).

After my last day of work, on that Friday night, the love of my life, my best friend, partner in everything in life, and my wife, Susan Lynn D’Elia, gave me a bang-up retirement party at one of our favorite Mineola restaurants with friends, neighbors, and people I used to work with. It was a fitting end to what had been a long anticipated week, really 40 years in the making.

And that was six years ago! Hard to believe it’s been that long, but I did the math and I’m pretty sure I’m correct. It’s been a great six years, filled with relaxation, fun, and lots of wonderful new experiences – look for blogs about this in coming days called Taking Stock. I’m very proud of my years working for ABC, of the friends and experiences, but in reality it was just a means to an end. It was a way to pay for the life of our family. As great a job as it was, it was nothing compared to my job as a Husband, a Dad, a Grandfather, a Friend, a Boy Scout Leader, a Church Elder, and a Member of our Mineola Community. Seeing soccer, hockey, and softball games, Marching Band Competitions, Plays and Musicals, and being a part of my kids’ lives. Yes, it was a means to an end for me, not my life….but boy was it a great means to an end, and was Always Better Than Working For A Living!

Ed Koch was a very colorful 4 term congressman and a 3 term Mayor of New York City. Following his time as Mayor, one of the things he did was a daily talk show on WABC, and I was his engineer. During his political life, and when he did the radio show, he loved to measure his success by asking people, “How’m I doing?” I’m going to take a page out of the Mayor’s book, and ask myself, “How’m I doing?”

On January 11th of 2021, I posted a rather long blog post entitled “Writing”, in which I detailed some of my various blogs I’d started and then let go by the wayside. I talked about my desires and my intention, and then made a promise of sorts. Here’s a quote from that blog:

“Look, I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions, and honestly I don’t remember making one that even lasted beyond my January 2nd birthday, but I’m going to try one on for size in 2021. As we work our way through the second week of the new year, I am going to pledge that at the very minimum, I’ll publish one new blog post per week in 2021. That means a minimum of 52 posts during 2021, and hopefully many more! “

So, in Ed Koch style, it’s now time to ask the question, “How’m I doing?”

Well, since that post exactly one year ago today, and including this post, I have posted 51 blogs. So, nothing new with resolutions…I didn’t make my pledge to publish one new blog a week! I came close, but as we all know, close only counts in horseshoes!

Looking back on the year gone by, my best month was March, 2021 when I published 8 blogs, followed by April when I was responsible for 7 new blogs. The absolute worst months were October and November, when I only did 1 blog each month! There were a lot of months with two and three blogs on my list, but the only months I did indeed put up 4 new blogs were January, February, March, April, July, and December! I guess 50/50 is the best I had in 2021!

So, should I try again for 2022? I’d like to indeed, but if I do or don’t, we won’t know till January 11, 2023 when I look back at my stats! Stay tuned….

So, yesterday I started this look back at 2021 by detailing some of the things that happened in our lives during the first 6 months of the year!  Here now is a look at the last 6 months of 2021!

July saw us continue our regular summer routine of going to the beach, sitting for hours a day on our front porch, and being with our friends and neighbors!  Then late in the month, it was time for me to re-start something that should have been long finished, but for the pandemic!  In July of 2019 I had my left knee replaced.  My intention was to start the process to replace the right knee shortly after coming home from Florida in April of 2020, but then Covid showed up!  Well, this postponement had taken enough time, and I was ready for pain-free knees, so off we went to Dr. Zabinski in Somers Point to get the process started! 

At the very end of July, we celebrated a very special birthday with a very special neighbor!  Doie Barnes lives right next door to us on Pennlyn Place, and in WWII she was a member of the Women’s Marine Corp, and on the 30th of July, she celebrated her 100th Birthday!!  There was a huge ceremony at the flag raising ceremony that morning on the Ocean City Boardwalk, followed by a party at the American Legion Post!  It was a special day, and we were so happy to be able to share it with this great lady!!

August saw me taking care of surgery pre-op clearances with the hospital, our medical Doctor and our Dentist, starting the vitamin regime that Dr Zabinski calls for, and even making a decision about our leased 2018 Honda CRV.  Our lease was going to be up mid September, and as there were very few new cars around due to the “chip shortage,” we decided to extend the lease for 6 months!  We also went to a Straight No Chaser concert at the Ocean City Music Pier with our neighbors and good friends, Patti and Meade.  We’d bought these tickets way back in 2019 for a concert that had been canceled in the spring of 2020!  

As Labor Day rolled around at the beginning of September, Ocean City turned back into a small town, after 2 plus months of being a summer resort, and the quiet, calm months of our lives were back!  On Tuesday, September 14th,  I had my right knee replaced by Dr. Zabinski.  It was very different than the left knee, as this time, due to Covid protocols, Susie dropped me off at the front door of Shore Memorial at 6:30 AM, and picked me up in the same place at 4:30 PM!  I now had two prosthetic knees!  The rest of the month was given over to recuperation, physical therapy, and eating all the things I couldn’t before the surgery!

By the third week of October, I was done with PT and the next week was released with a clean bill of health from Dr. Zabinski!  I could again travel distances in the car, and go about my normal life, with painless knees!  Also, October saw the second part of our kitchen rehab take place, when our new subway tile backsplash was installed over the new counters!  Then later in the month, another key part of our rehab took place as we had new plantation shutters installed across the front of the house!  October also saw a visit from Kenny and Chris, who flew up to Atlantic City from Tampa airport.  They spent a week with us, before heading up to New York, and a reunion with his twin sister and her husband Mike!  In case you couldn’t guess, October was a busy month for us!

Unlike last year, on November 2nd we voted in person around the corner from our house.  Masks were the order of the day, but it was good to be enjoying this most basic American privilege in person!  Now that I’d been cleared for travel, it was time to once again see our kids and grandkids in North Carolina, and the second week of the month we drove down to spend 4 days with our North Carolina Family!  Having pretty much decided that we were going to buy our 2018 Honda CRV when the lease extension ended, we were very surprised when we got a call on November 23rd from the Honda dealer, telling us that a red 2022 CRV had just come off the truck.  We went back and forth on price, and when they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, we went over to take a look at the car.  That evening, we drove our new, red 2022 Honda CRV to Charlie’s for dinner!  Thanksgiving, 2020 was a lot different than Thanksgiving 2021, when we hunkered down in Ocean City with Kenny and Chris. It was the first time Kenny was home for Thanksgiving in 14 years!  We went everywhere and did everything in 2021, putting 700+ miles on the brand new car!  We traveled to Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with our son-in-law Mike’s family!  The next day, we loaded Krissi and Mike into the new car and headed up to New Rochelle to spend the night with them!  Saturday morning we headed to Long Island to participate in the big celebration for our Boy Scout Troop’s 100th Anniversary.  Sunday we saw Susie sister and her family, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at our favorite Mineola restaurant, Piccolo’s!  Yes quite a whirlwind weekend and a busy month, which also included both of us getting our Moderna Covid boosters and our flu shots!  

The beginning of December saw the last part of our rehab take place: the removal of our old tile floor in the dining room and kitchen, and the installation of our new laminate flooring.  We love it!  The second week of the month we had a brief visit from my cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt, as they made a much belated trip down to their winter residence in Barefoot Bay, Florida. Before we knew it, Christmas Eve was here, and Susie and I partook in some of our usual traditions and some new ones!  We’d been alone last Christmas and were not really upset about spending the holiday alone, but our alone time was not to be for long!  A Christmas surprise was in store, as our son Bill, his wife Lori and our three Grandkids traveled up from North Carolina on December 26th!  We had three wonderful days with our kids and our three little ones, Layla who is 7, Henry who is 6, and Annabelle who is 2 and a 1/2!  What a great treat to see them all and to spend time with the littlest D’Elias!!  

So that pretty much takes care of our 2021!  I know that as the year ended, a lot of people were happy to see it go, but honestly, our 2021 was so much better than 2020 that I really don’’t count us in that camp.  It sucked that Betty White died on the last day of the year, but you must admit that 99 years is a pretty good run!  Of course, with the Covid variant Omicron all over the place, and numbers growing, who knows what 2022 will hold for us, but life goes on and Susie and I are thankful that our whole family is doing well and just hope that continues.  Susie is looking forward to it being her turn, and getting a replacement hip, but then I’m getting ahead of myself!

A year ago at this time, we were all hoping that 2021 would be better than the majority of 2020 was. We were looking forward to Covid vaccines, getting back to going out to bars and restaurants, and seeing loved ones! So, in retrospect, how was it? Let’s take a look.

January started out as it always does, with my birthday on January 2nd. This year, Susie and I celebrated my 71st trip around the sun with a much quieter celebration than my 70th had been, but we had hope for the future! It wasn’t long before we were both eligible for the Covid vaccine in New Jersey, and we made it our daily job to get appointments. Everyday we signed onto the app, and looked all over the state for appointments. With a little work, and a lot of patience, we both got an appointment for our first shots, me on Thursday, January 21st in Rio Grande, and Susie one week later on the 28th in Glassboro!

In February we continued to do take-out and take all precautions when we went shopping, and then on the 19th for me, and the 25th for Susie, we got Moderna shot #2! We were on our way!

Exactly two weeks after Susie got her second shot, on March 11th, for the first time since just before we went to Florida the end of January 2020, we ate inside at Angelo’s Restaurant in Atlantic City! We called this our “Coming Out Day” as we were now both fully vaccinated and could return to our regular Thursday hangout spot! Then on March 24th, we again were back inside at Charlie’s! It wasn’t our usual Tuesday night at the back bar with our friend Sue, but since the back bar still wasn’t open, it was the second best thing! We may have been back inside, but things were still strange at our favorite spots. No drinking or eating at the bar, masks and strict separation guides, but it was progress! March also saw the start of our kitchen renovations, with the installation of new quartz counters and a marble fireplace surround. The green was going away at 854 Pennlyn!

April was a banner month for us, as on the first weekend of the month, we journeyed to North Carolina to see our son and daughter-in-law, and our Grandkids for the first time since the end of January 2020! Over a year without seeing your Grandkids and being able to hug them when they are 6 and under is a long time for Grandparents! We continued our weekly visits to Charlie’s and Angelo’s, and also had a wonderful visit from our daughter Krissi and her husband Mike, for the first time since a very socially distanced visit in late August of 2020! Then towards the end of the month, we were again in North Carolina for a joint birthday party for our Granddaughter Layla (7) and her baby sister Annabelle (2)! Yes, life was returning to normal!!

Just to prove that life was in fact coming back, after we left Billy and Lori’s, we didn’t head north, but rather south to visit our son Kenny and his husband Chris in Florida and see their new apartment in downtown St. Petersburg! It was a quick trip, spending 3 days in St. Petersburg, and then one in our beloved Indian Rocks Beach before heading north again! This time, we did something we hadn’t done when we ran home from Florida in March of 2020…we stopped in Darien, Georgia to once again enjoy the best fried shrimp we’ve ever had at B&J’s Steak and Seafood!

May saw us back on Long Island for the first time in over a year, as we took care of some Doctor visits, and then spent some great time with our dear friends Pat and Steve Grosskopf! From there we were off to New Rochelle and spending a night with Krissi and Mike at their new condo that we’d yet to see! Now we’d seen all our kids, our grandkids and checked out everything that was new in their lives! Life was getting more and more on track! Of course, May in our household would not be complete without celebrating the birthday of my beloved on May 28th! Susie claims that that birthday would be the last one she would celebrate, but I don’t know about that!!

June saw the island come alive, as many of our summer visitors arrived, ready to have summer fun in a place we are lucky enough to call home 365 days of the year! June also saw us refinancing our mortgage at an incredible 2.65% for a shorter term than we had left on the original! Incredible when you think that, when we’d bought our Mineola home in 1986, we’d started with a 13 3/4% loan!! On the 13th of the month, our son Bill flew up to Philly from Wake Forest, North Carolina with his two oldest kids, 7 year old Layla and 5 year old Henry. Within a couple of hours, Dad was back on a plane headed home, and Layla and Henry were in the car with Grandma and Grandpa heading to Ocean City! For the next 5 days, we got to spoil our Grandkids, and expose them to Ocean City, exactly like their Dad and Aunt and Uncle had been, way back in the 80s! We tried to do all the things we remembered doing with our kids, so our days were spent on the beach and boardwalk, playing mini golf, eating Hose Pizza (AKA Manco & Manco Pizza), picking out taffy at Shrivers, trying everything at the 34th street playground, enjoying the rides at Wonderland, and of course, all the beach activities like digging holes, flying kites and frolicking in the water. It was a great 5 days, but wait, there’s more!!

The end of their visit coincided with Father’s day weekend, and Susie and I loaded the car with Layla, Henry and all their new purchases, and headed down to Billy and Lori’s Lake House in Gaston, North Carolina. Coming via plane were our daughter Krissi and husband Mike, and son Kenny and his husband Chris! It was a huge D’Elia/Mikowicz/Fox Family Reunion/Father’s Day Weekend on the lake, and it couldn’t have been better! Yes, the world was starting to feel normal, and here Susie and I were with our three kids, their chosen partners, and our three beautiful Grandkids!

And that’s how the first 6 months of 2021 went for the D’Elias of Ocean City. Check back tomorrow to find out how we faired during the last six months of 2021!