The Christmas Tree is perhaps the one universal symbol of the Christmas Season, and has been the centerpiece of our Christmas celebration for all our lives. If you read my recent blog about Christmas Memories (https://rnewadventures.com/2022/12/12/christmas-in-the-city/) you may remember me saying that in our family, the tradition was that your folks put up the tree and that Santa decorated it, and that was indeed the tradition till it wasn’t, but it spawned a new tradition, making the decorating of the Christmas Tree an event. I remember back in our Jackson Heights apartment sharing the task with my best friend David, and some friends we both went to high school with. When we moved to Bayside, the tradition was expanded to include even more folks. Some were people I went to college with and others were folks I worked with. It just became another occasion and a way to celebrate the joy of the holiday season, with family and friends who were like family.
In a comment about my last post, my college friend Andy Bellenkes said “I rejoice in the memories I cherish, celebrating a Christmas or two with the D’Elias, watching your Dad put up the lights along the roof line of your house, sitting with you, your Mom and Dad (and others whose identities at the moment I cannot recall) in the living room and feeling the familial warmth and friendship that in my memories so characterized your home.” Even after Susie and I got married, we continued this tradition at my folks house.
Here’s a picture from my folk’s house in Bayside, at what was Billy’s first Christmas Tree decorating at his Grandparent’s home. An evening populated with good friends I worked with at ABC.
That baby in my arms is just born William Ryan D’Elia, who now is the father of our
three Grandkids. The little girl in front of my Mom is Melinda McGuire Geraghty,
now the Mom of two adorable little people.
As our kids got older, we also continued the tradition at our Mineola house. Some years there were friends of the kids involved, sometimes it was just family, but it was always an event. The holiday toasting flutes would be brought out, the André would be poured, and somehow the tree would always get decorated! I must admit that I am married to a lady with a sort of Christmas Tree Ornament OCD, who would often times rearrange the ornaments after they’d been placed on the tree (especially when the kids were small, and couldn’t reach that high), but we never objected! It’s a tradition of ours that started in New Hyde Park, traveled with us to Mineola, and now resides on Pennlyn Place in Ocean City!
And then there were the ornaments themselves that had become a D’Elia Family Tradition! There were a few things that came from our folks, that Susie and I remember seeing on the trees we had growing up, giving us a kind of time continuum from our childhood. Then there are ornaments that have memories attached to them from our 44 married Christmases, either from places we bought them or from events in our life. Although our tree is beautiful to us, it’s not a designer tree, with carefully curated ornaments! It’s a road map of our family, and our 44 Christmases!
So there you have it…the story of one family’s Christmas Tree, and the central part it has played in our holiday celebration!
As Susie and I sit here in Ocean City on this Christmas Eve, and look at the 44th edition of Our Family’s Christmas Tree, we think back on all our wonderful Christmas memories from Christmases past, and we reflect on the blessings of Christmas that we’ve experienced. We hope that this Christmas finds you feeling blessed, and knowing that you are loved by those in your life! Merry Christmas……
Have you ever had one of those moments in your life that whatever your actions were, affected the rest of your life? Today is one of those days in the lives of Susie and myself. You see, it was 45 years ago today that Susie and I met, and I can honestly say it was love at first sight!
Back in the Summer of 1977, NABET was in the middle of a 5 and a half month strike against ABC. Rather than running the board on the 8th floor of the ABC Building for WABC and WPLJ, I was picketing 3 days a week for 3 hours at a time. Thankfully, I was a 27 year old single guy, so not going through the financial peril a lot of the older married folks were suffering through. It was a sad, kind of poor summer, but I did have lots more free time than I normally would., and that’s why I was able to accept an invitation to a Fourth of July backyard Bar-b-cue on Sunday July 3rd!
The party was given by my friend Bill Epperhart and his wife Maryanne. I met Bill when we both worked at the CW Post College Radio Station, WCWP, and now Bill worked at WNBC. Bill’s wife Maryanne was a Registered Nurse at the Glen Cove Community Hospital, as was the the young lady I met that day, Susan Lynn Johnson, RN! Turns out that Susie had called in sick that day to attend the party, and many years later we found out from Maryanne that getting us together was the main inspiration for the party!
I’m very happy to say that it worked! We were thrown together at the party when I helped Susie light some fireworks she’d brought back from a visit to her Great Aunt in North Carolina, and as I said before, it was really Love at First Sight! The following weekend we went out on our first real date, and at the Dynasty Chinese restaurant in Roslyn, my fortune cookie said, “You Will Marry Your Current Lover and Be Happy”. 45 Years later, the fortune cookie is still correct!!
Happy Anniversary baby! I L Y J T W Y A then, now, and forever!! XO XO XO XO XO XO
Today is January 6th, 2022. January 6th marks the Feast of the Epiphany, or the day that the Three Wise Men paid their visit to the Christ Child. January 6th is also known as Little Christmas, and like many across the world, it is the day in our house that the celebration of Christmas ends. After the 6th, the outside lights get turned off, and the tree and decorations get put away for another year. As today is Little Christmas, it will also be the last post on this blog having to do with our Christmas holiday.
For today’s blog, I’d like to tell a story about one of the most familiar symbols of Christmas, The Christmas Tree. According to Wikipedia, “Sources have offered a connection between the first documented Christmas trees in Alsace around 1600 and pre-Christian traditions. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmas time.”
Susie and I are never happier in the beginning of the Christmas season, then when we see our first Christmas Tree tied to the roof of a car, and never sadder than when we see our first undecorated, discarded Christmas Tree on the side of the road.
My story today goes back many years, to the first Christmas in 1968 after my folks and I moved from Jackson Heights to Bayside…..
I grew up in a four room, 4th floor walk-up (that means no elevator) apartment in Jackson Heights, a highly urbanized area of Queens. Jackson Heights is serviced by the very nearby #7 elevated subway line, which was literally just outside our windows. When we moved in early 1968 to a single family house in Bayside Hills, it was like we’d gone from the city to the country. Still a part of Queens county, Bayside is one of the most eastern areas of the county, and was one of the places we used to do Sunday drives to when I was a kid. On those days we said we were going on a drive to “the country,” and now we lived here!!
In Jackson Heights, when you bought a Christmas Tree, you got it from in front of the local A&P, or from a random guy set up on empty lot. In Bayside, when you bought a tree, you went to Kiel Brother’s Nursery and chose one from their section of hand-picked trees. That first Christmas Tree in December of 1968 was a beauty, and a central part of our first Christmas in our new home. It served us well before and during the Christmas season, but as we approached Little Christmas, it was time for it to go!
My Mom had read something about what to do with your tree when you were done with it in your house. Perhaps based on that Scandinavian tradition, she’d read that you should stick it in your backyard, and “decorate” it for the birds that had not gone south for the winter. Things like seed pods, peanut butter, suet, and other things that could give the birds stuck in the north substance when the ground was snow covered. As this was the first year in my folks 20+ years of married life that they had a backyard, I guess she was feeling “countrified” in our new home.
Only problem was that almost the day after we got the tree out of the house, it snowed…a lot! This left the D’Elia Family Christmas Tree buried deep in snow. It stayed buried for the next couple of months, as snow storms kept coming with incredible regularity. We really didn’t see it again till almost Spring thaw. By that time, my Mom had lost her desire to set the tree up, and honestly the need was probably almost non-existent. Rather than “decorate” the tree for the birds, it went out to the curb to wait for the garbage men to pick it up. Picking up trees in late December and early January is I’m sure a pretty common thing for New York City garbage men, but I always wondered what they thought that day in March when they picked up our very dead Christmas Tree!
So, on Little Christmas, as we end our Christmas celebration, Susie and I, and our whole family hope that you can keep the light and joy of the Christmas season in your life, until it’s time for Christmas, 2022! See you again, next year Christmas!
Exactly 6 years ago, we first posted the following blog. Today, on New Year’s Eve morning, I was thinking about the first one we spent as a married couple, and think it’s a fitting time to re-visit New Year’s Eve 1979! Hope you enjoy!
In 1979, a little over three months after Susie and I tied the knot at C.W. Post’s Interfaith Chapel, it was time for our first New Year’s Eve together! As a newly married couple, we knew it had to be special. So, what did we do? Well, we attended a private party with some of our closest friends that was held in conjunction with a nationally broadcast event. It was held in a very private and intimate setting on the 8th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that just happened to have a huge ABC logo on top of it. The truth…I had to work, as did a number of my other ABC friends, and we decided to have a bang-up holiday party on the 8th Floor of the ABC building, while on WABC, Howard Hoffman counted down the top 100 hits of 1979!! Significant others attended, as did some of our ABC friends who weren’t even scheduled to work that night – even our boss! We had a great time with great people, and didn’t leave till we saw the throngs of folks who had endured the ball drop in Times’ Square go down 53rd Street and pass the ABC Building.
There was food, booze, paper hats (courtesy of Susie and the NY Daily News), noise makers, and we were having such a good time, that when Howard’s shift ended at 10PM and we weren’t at #1 yet, he wouldn’t let the next DJ take over, and we continued the countdown. The next DJ (names will be withheld to protect the guilty) sat down and partied with us, and if the truth be told, was rather shit-faced by the time he finally got on the air. We all felt guilty about that, but luckily nothing came of his slightly inebriated air shift, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
So sit back now, and join us in Studio 8A of the ABC Building at 1330 Avenue of the Americas, as 42 years ago Susie and I celebrated our first New Year’s Eve as husband and wife, while Howard Hoffman counts down the top 100 of 1979, brought to you by Casablanca Records and Filmworks!
Something happened this Father’s Day weekend that has never happened before! The entire immediate D’Elia Family was together in one place for 2 days! Two parents, three siblings, three spouses, and three grandkids! But first, we had to get there!
After a wonderful week in Ocean City with our two oldest Grandkids (https://rnewadventures.com/2021/06/25/two-kids-at-the-beach/), the four of us were looking forward to the weekend at Lori and Bill’s Lake House, on Roanoke Rapids Lake in North Carolina. Lori and Bill were going to pick up Uncle Kenny and Uncle Chris at the airport, and then drive to the house. Waze said that the trip would take about 6 hours for us, so we figured with bathroom stops and a lunch break, we’d all get there about the same time, if we left about 8:30 in the morning. On Friday, we all got up, Susie got Layla and Henry some cereal and toast for breakfast, and Grandma and I got ourselves, and what we were taking with us ready. Just after 8:30 we pulled out of the driveway, and thought we were in great shape!
Waze took us up the AC Expressway to Philadelphia and then down I-95 towards Delaware. When we stopped at the Delaware Welcome Center to switch drivers, we’d made great time, and were right on schedule, but traffic was getting heavy. Then, as Susie drove through Maryland, we were bitterly attacked by Cicadas! First one bounced off the windshield, leaving a white streak, and then Susie saw a swarm of them flying across I-95! Size-wise, somewhere between an insect and a small bird, three or four more slammed into the front of the car and the windshield with a resounding thud! At one point, our Granddaughter Layla cried out, “Come On Now!” in reaction! When we switched drivers in southern Maryland, the front of the car was plastered with their remains! Yuck!
Traffic was heavy, but moving as we crossed into Virginia, and thankfully the Express Lanes around Washington had changed directions, and we were able to use them! Regular 95 South was a parking lot, and we were happy to pay for the convenience of driving at the speed limit! However, as we approached the end of the southern express lanes, our joy was replaced with dread! Of course, traffic was heavy when the Express Lanes merged with regular 95, but unlike what usually happens, we crawled for most of the rest of our trip! A couple of times Waze took us off 95, but honestly the relief was short lived. Suffice it to say that the trip that we’d figure to do in 7 hours with stops, took 10 full hours! The kids were troopers (even when they had lunch at 2:30) and although Henry wanted to know a lot if we were in North Carolina, they did real good! Then, suddenly we saw the North Carolina border, and within miles had exited 95 and were near the Lake House!!
It was the trip from Hell, but once we pulled up outside Lori and Bill’s Lake House, it was so worth every minute of every hour on the road! Bill, Kenny and Chris met us at the car, and after hugs were exchanged, quick work was made of emptying the Honda! Then the fun started. We went down to the house, hugged Lori and 2 year old Annabelle, and quickly started making plans to head out to the lake and their pontoon boat! Some munchies, some drinks, and family time on the lake…what could be better!
We sat around the fire pit on the deck way too late that night, and with 3 little kids, morning was early too! Another beautiful day in North Carolina, as we anticipated the arrival of Aunt Krissi and Uncle Mike, and the completion of our family circle. As we had a couple of hours till Krissi and Mike arrived from New York, a little more boating was on the agenda after those who wanted it had breakfast. Problem was, the boat wouldn’t start! We tried everything from jump starting the battery to pushing every button on the dash, but nothing. Bill tried calling his dealer’s service department, but on a beautiful Saturday in mid-June, he was told that perhaps they could get to him in a week or two. Not what our son wanted to hear! None the less, after Krissi and Mike arrived, the lake was still the spot for everybody, and a great time was had in and around the boat house!
That night, we all feasted on wonderful Cheesesteak Sandwiches that Lori created, along with Grandma D’Elia’s macaroni salad. To top off a wonderful day, there were s,mores on the back deck as the sun set on another wonderful day of Father’s Day weekend!
Sunday morning, actual Father’s Day, dawned with a wonderful gift for our son Bill…He and Lori had found a boat repairman to come look at the dead pontoon boat! The second piece of good news was the problem was just a blown fuse, which he replaced, and showed Bill where it was and how to do it, and even left him a couple of spares! Even better, the guy wouldn’t take any money! He just asked for a good review! Lori and Bill now have a new pontoon boat repair guy!
Layla and Henry gave their Daddy the Father’s Day cards they’d made with Grandma as well as the flag, pole, and bracket they’d wrapped in Ocean City. Grandpa got several wonderful cards, gift cards to Chipotle (from Kenny and Chris), Omaha Steaks (from Bill and Lori), a custom made New Rochelle baseball cap from Krissi and Mike, and a Grandpa cup from the little D’Elias to match the Grandma mug they’d gotten Grandma for Mother’s Day! Great gifts, but the greatest gift of all was the weekend with our family!!!
Gift giving over, it was time to hit the Lake on the pontoon boat and have fun!! Now with a happy oldest son/husband/father because his boat worked!!
Early that afternoon, Lori and Bill’s good friends and neighbors from Wake Forest, Courtney and Adam, showed up to join in our Father’s Day celebrations. Not only are the four parents good friends, but Adam and Courtney’s daughter Violet is a good friend of Layla’s and their son Crosby and our Henry are good friends! We loved Adam and Courtney and what could be better for our two oldest Grandkids than to have people to play with, well, besides Uncle Chris, Uncle Kenny, Uncle Mike and Aunt Krissi!
It was a fun afternoon on the boat, enjoying it as a platform to swim in the lake as well as some adventurous tubing courtesy of Captain Bill!!
Dinner that night was under the direction of Chef Uncle Chris, as he grilled several tri tip steaks that Grandma and Grandpa had brought from Ocean City, along with all kinds of delicious sides. Full and happy, the night concluded with Layla reading her story of she and Henry’s time with Grandma and Grandpa, with an able assist from Aunt Krissi!
It was a wonderful weekend, and a wonderful way to cap off an incredible week in Ocean City with Layla and Henry! Grandma and I were tired, but oh so happy! Thank you to Krissi and Mike and Kenny and Chris for flying to North Carolina, and for making the weekend probably the best Father’s Day ever! A special thanks to Lori and Bill for being the perfect hosts and for coming up with the idea originally. None of it would have happened had you not bought the Lake House and the boat, and once again, we applaud your decision, and the wonderful family memories that will come because of that decision…including this great Father’s Day Family Reunion!
Family is wonderful, especially when 3 generations get to spend time together! We truly love our 3 kids, their spouses, and of course, the 3 most incredible Grandkids in the world! Color us proud and very happy!!!
Late on the night of November 3, 1982, our oldest child, William Ryan D’Elia, came into our lives. About 7 months later, he had his first vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey, and his first exposure to the beaches and boardwalk I had known as a kid. 4 years later, he was joined by his sister and brother, and Krissi and Kenny’s Ocean City life started too! For the rest of their childhood years, part of every summer was spent in Ocean City. In a way, Bill, Krissi, and Kenny grew up here, as this was the beach and boardwalk they knew as kids, and still love today.
On Sunday, June 13th, Susie and I drove from Ocean City to the Philadelphia Airport (a trip that would have been immeasurably easier had the Yankees not been playing the Phillies at Citizen Bank Park near the airport) to meet a flight from Raleigh/Durham North Carolina. There were 3 special passengers on that flight…our son Bill and his two oldest kids, 7 year old Layla and 5 year old Henry, who were here to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa, and get to know the town that their Dad knew as a kid! After getting Daddy to the correct terminal for his return flight to Mommy and youngest sister, 2 year old Annabelle in North Carolina, Layla, Henry, Grandma, and Grandpa headed to their week of fun under the sun!
Our son had brought up the idea of this trip to us several months before, and we had busily been making plans. I think it was a toss up who was more excited: Layla and Henry or Grandpa and Grandma! We’d made plans, and Susie had lists of things we could do, but in the end, the beach, boardwalk, front porch of the house, and just enjoying our time with the kids was the best thing we did!
Of course, there had to be trips to the beach, with romps in the ocean, building sandcastles, burying each other, digging holes, finding shells, and kite flying. Turns out that Grandma and Layla did a better job getting the kite in the air than Grandpa and Henry, but in the end, the wind pulled the kite handle out of Layla’s hand, and even though the kids (and Grandma) chased it, the wind dumped it in the ocean. A nice man retrieved it, but it was a total loss. Wind: one – Layla: zero!
There was a trip to Hoys on Asbury Avenue where the kids got the required Ocean City sweatshirts, hats to keep the sun off their heads, and water shoes. For Susie and I, suddenly we were back in the 1980s and trying to keep our kids focussed on what they were looking for, and not the toys that were in the next aisle!
Ice Cream was always a part of our beach vacations back in the day, and the same can be said for Layla and Henry’s time with us. Not one, but two ,times did we head over to Custard Hut, where the hardest part was deciding what they were going to get, and keeping as much ice cream as possible off Henry! I know Grandma and Grandpa loved it, and I’m pretty sure the two little D’Elias did too!
Of course, there are things that are almost mandated by law that have to be included in an Ocean City vacation, and we followed all those rules too! From playing Mini-Golf (Henry has a decidedly “Happy Gillmore” like swing), to visiting the Discovery Seashell Museum (it was much better when our kids were young and run by people who loved the ocean as more of a passion than business), to doing as their Dad and Aunt and Uncle did as kids, and enjoying the big playground on 34th Street, to watching them make Salt Water Taffy at Shriver’s on the boardwalk, and then filling a bag with your choices!
A family rule is that no D’Elia can visit Ocean City, New Jersey without having at least one meal of “Hose Pizza”, and as good Grandparents, we followed that rule! The pizza place (it’s real name is Manco and Manco) has been part of the Ocean City Boardwalk since the 50s, and was one of the pizza places my Dad liked when we first came to Ocean City way back when I was five years old. The name “Hose Pizza” was given to it by our son Bill when he was 2 or 3, because unlike most pizza places, here they apply the tomato sauce via a hose, and once he saw that, when asked what he wanted to eat on the boardwalk, young Billy always said he wanted to go to “Hose Pizza”. The one we went to is the newest on 9th Street that used to be the old Strand Movie theater. Great to see that old building still being a part of Ocean City’s Boardwalk life, and great that Henry and Layla love “Hose Pizza” too, keeping a 4 generation relationship alive!
Ocean City’s Boardwalk features two big Amusement Piers, and what kind of Grandparents would we be if we didn’t spend at least one evening at the rides!! Layla and Henry enjoyed lots of rides at Gillian’s Wonderland, but agreed that they are pretty much done with the “baby rides”, and that next time they come, they’ll concentrate on only Big Kid Rides! They really liked the Bounce ride, the Superman ride, the Fun House, and the Glass Maze, where Henry refused to walk with his hands in front of him, and kept bumping his head on the mirrors! When I got them on the Merry-Go-Round, I told them to find Grandma and I, and wave at us every time they went around. About the 4th or 5th time around, Layla gave me a look, and I said to Susie, “Layla just gave me a Krissi look!”, you know, the one that says, “Shut up Dad and stop calling out my name!!!” Message received! Who says history doesn’t repeat!
A tradition we honored each trip to Ocean City when our kids were young, was getting an Ocean City T-shirt. It was a very involved process, that could take days to complete. First, they had to agree on which T-shirt shop we should go to. Then there was the process of picking out the design they wanted on the shirt. Last, they’d decide on the color T-shirt they wanted. These decisions often lasted the length of the trip, with the purchase finally happening on our last night on the boardwalk. We were able to speed the process up with Layla and Henry, and do it all in one day…our last day, on the boardwalk. We ended up at the same shop we usually shopped at with our kids, Layla and Henry knew that the design had to say Ocean City, NJ someplace (rule worked out when their Dad was 2 or 3), and they made sure it did. Design picked out, the two of them then had to decide what color T-shirt they wanted. With that taken care of, then it was time for the lady to put the design and the T-shirt into the heat machine, and make their shirts. I think Layla and Henry enjoyed following in their Dad’s footsteps, and Grandma and I did too!
That was some of the big stuff we did, but as I said up front, just enjoying our time with the kids doing simple stuff was just as wonderful! The first night they were here, I read them a story before going to bed. It was a story I’d written when their Dad and Aunt and Uncle were kids, and our three kids were the prime characters in the stories. They were called “Three Kids” stories, and I wrote a total of three of them. The morning after reading it, Layla came to me and asked if we could write a story about their time in Ocean City. She decided that we should call it “Two Kids at the Beach or Layla and Henry Visit Their Grandparents”. After we’d come home from somewhere, Layla would dictate what we should write while I typed on the computer. Multiple times during the day, Layla would come to me and say, “Let’s work on our story Grandpa,” and off we’d go for 10 or 15 minutes, and do just that. By the time Thursday was done, we had 7 pages, including some pictures. Grandma, the best editor around, corrected what we’d written, I printed it, and then Grandma laminated it so Layla can have it for a long time. I’m gonna miss those, “Let’s work on our story Grandpa” words from my smart, precocious Granddaughter!
We’re gonna miss those times we sat on the front porch and watched the world of Pennlyn Place go by. Like the morning Layla and I watched our 99 year old neighbor Doie ride her scooter down our driveway and up to the boardwalk for the daily Ocean City Flag Raising. That led to a discussion of Doie being a Marine in World War II and what being 99 means. Or watching Christina our mail lady arrive and have Layla say, “I’ll go down and get the mail Grandma and Grandpa.” Or Henry running down the stairs to put the garbage cans away after the Garbage Men emptied them and saying, “I got them Grandpa.” Or Layla waving to Emma across the street and watching her new Jeep come and go, and then talking to Emma’s Mom and Dad (sorry Bittenbenders if it seemed like Layla was stalking Emma a bit…). Or watching our neighbor’s dogs Beach Boy and Breaker Boy getting walked, and wondering when Doc was coming home. I had fun on Flag Day telling them what we were celebrating, and watching the kids decide they wanted to get a flag and flag pole for their Daddy for a Father’s Day present. They both became very comfortable in our house and we loved that.
There was meal time fun with Grandpa making eggs or Grandma fixing their waffles or cereal for breakfast, making sandwiches for lunch, cooking mac and cheese and hot dogs, or heating up pizza. There was the night we ordered Chinese Food and Layla and Henry eating everything, and then having Layla tell us, “It’s almost as good as North Carolina Chinese!” Or the day we discovered, as we sat down to eat, that yes, Henry does like McDonald’s cheese burgers, but NOT with ketchup and pickles! Or Henry and Grandma putting a puzzle together and Grandma working with both of them to make Father’s Day cards for their Daddy.
There was the day we switched cars around, and rather than go out in the Honda CR-V, we all piled into Grandpa’s old 2000 red Mustang convertible with the top down to go to the Acme Grocery and drive around Ocean City. The kids loved watching the top go up and down, which they did multiple times, but to quote what Layla wrote in her story, “Too hot, too much sun, too much wind and no room for feet in the back seat!”
So those are just some of the highlights of a wonderful week with Layla and Henry! I’ve heard it said that Grandchildren are the reward for not killing your own kids before they became adults. If that’s the case, we were richly rewarded last week. To spend the better part of 5 days with our two oldest, to learn from them, to see how they’ve grown, to get hugs and kisses, and called Grandma and Grandpa was a delicious treat for the two of us. To be able to watch them experiencing Ocean City, and to remember back to yesteryear when their Dad was their age, and doing the same things for the first time, was just a wonderful time capsule for us. It was a great week, and I just hope that it was as wonderful a week for Layla and Henry as it was for Susie and me! Thanks Lori and Billy for lending us your two oldest for a week!
A great week, only needs a great weekend to cap it off, and that’s exactly what we had next! Look for our next blog, Lake House Fun, coming soon to an internet near you!!
There was nothing better to do this time of the year, when Billy, Krissi, and Kenny were little, then to pile into the Ford Taurus station wagon, and drive around Mineola and the surrounding villages and look at what we called “Santa Lights.” That term came into being, because on one of our nights looking at the houses, one of the kids wanted to know why some houses were decorated, and others weren’t. Susie and I creatively informed our 3 little ones that the ones that were decorated had little kids living there, and the lights were so that Santa could more easily find the houses on Christmas Eve. Thus was born the term, “Santa Lights!”
Susie was pregnant with Krissi and Kenny when we moved into the Mineola house, and Billy hadn’t had his 4th birthday yet, so we indeed did have little ones at home in those early years in Mineola, and did our best with Santa Lights! We must have pictures someplace, but in the late 80s and early 90s, years of everyone not having a digital camera in their pocket, the numbers of pictures we have of things like our house decorations are not large. The Mineola house had a front porch, and ours was the site of an annual Christmas portrait! Right in the center, there was a fireplace (a fake fireplace that was in the first house we bought in New Hyde Park, and although never used inside, traveled to Mineola with us) that included a burning fire (well, a nailed together group of logs and a carefully placed flicker bulb which made it look like a roaring fire), which was outlined with lights, and complete with stockings hung from the chimney with care! To one side was a Christmas tree (a fake tree that was a hand me down from my work friend Johnny Donovan) , and one of our porch chairs, that Santa was sitting in (Santa was a plastic type character suit, that was stuffed with newspapers every year). Of course there were presents under the tree, and Christmas music playing from a hidden speaker! To the left of the porch, on the lawn, was an illuminated manger scene complete with a creche I’d made with firring strips! Very fitting we thought for a house that had 3 little Santa recipients in residence!
As the kids got older, and tastes changed, we went from colored lights to all white lights out front, and the fireplace, tree, Santa and the Manger scene morphed into garland and wreaths and lighting up the fence around the house. Things were added and we refined the look as the years went on, and honestly, as we got older and the kids no longer lived with us, we went for ease of decorating too! The last year we decorated the Mineola house was Christmas 2016, before we sold the house after 31 years. Here’s a look at that!
Although we no longer have little kids, and that faithful Taurus station wagon is long gone, we now live down at the beach in Ocean City, and looking at Santa Lights is still a nice way Susie and I like to spend some time at Christmastime! In fact, as I write this, we’ve already made three passes at Ocean City in our Honda CRV to check out the neighbors and their Santa Lights!
Here’s a look at some of our Pennlyn Neighbors…
Patty and Meade to our Left and Doc to our Right
And here’s what we can see from our front porch.
Here are some of our favorites that we saw around town!
Early in 1976, WHN Radio negotiated and signed a new contract with Local 1212 of IBEW. Because the WHN Transmitter in East Rutherford, NJ had recently been unmanned, the contract called for a reduction of 2 members of the Engineering Department. The contract detailed a generous separation pay of one year’s salary, along with one year of medical benefits, as well as the ability for those leaving to collect NYS Unemployment Insurance. One of the older guys in the department took the “buy out”, but when no one else was interested in leaving the department, after 4 years at the station, and being on the lowest rung of the seniority ladder, I was tapped to take the “buy out”. The one year of salary for me came to a figure somewhere in the mid $20,000, and what did I do with it? Well, I bought a boat!
For somewhere around $10,000, I traded in my 17 foot bow rider outboard for a brand new 1975 Wellcraft 21 foot Weekender. With a Ford 302 V/8 and an outdrive, a small cabin with two bunks, a place for a “head”, and a cockpit table, the boat was what kept me busy from my separation date in the early spring of 1976, till I started at WABC in August. It was a lot of fun setting up the boat at Coastwise Marine in Westport, Connecticut, and then when the weather turned to “boating weather”, getting a handle on running my new boat up and down the Saugatuck River, and in Long Island Sound! I was 26 years old, had money in the bank, a year of health insurance, and time on my hands. I immersed myself in the nautical way of life! In addition to buying and working on the boat, I took a Coast Guard Reserve Small Boat course, and joined a Nautical Book of the Month Club!
My book choices included things like Chapman Piloting: Seamanship & Small Boat Handling, Bowditch’s American Practical Navigator, as well as other useful books in my endeavor to master the act of running my small boat. There were also books about adventures people were having in small boats, and one of them that I still remember to this day was Lin and Larry Pardey’s Cruising in Seraffyn. The book told the story of Seraffyn, their wooden 24-foot engineless cutter and and how Lin and Larry built her with the hope of setting off for a few months of true freedom in spite of their limited finances. Their few months turned out to be a lifetime of sailing around the world, but that first book also turned out to be a carefully thought-out guide to living aboard a small boat, with fun and good seamanship as guiding principles. It was a true love story of Lin and Larry and a boat named Seraffyn, and the life it gave them!
I was captivated with the story and their adventures of first building, then launching, and ultimately cruising in Seraffyn. I was so captivated that when I was finished with the book, I wrote Lin and Larry a “fan letter” and sent it to them care of their publisher! About 6 months later, one day in the mail, I received a very obviously foreign Air Mail letter that was postmarked from Spain. It turned out that their publisher had forwarded my letter to them, and had it had finally caught up with them in Spain. The letter I got was from Lin, and she told me how happy they were to get my letter and that it had showed up at just the right time. Turns out they were in the midst of re-writing the follow up book called Seraffyn’s European Adventure. They’d had a particularly tough day, trying to work through some re-writes that their editor had asked for, and were at the breaking point. They really wondered if it was worth all the work, and if anyone cared. Then my letter showed up in the mail! Lin thanked me to expressing just what they needed to hear….to know that there was an audience out there in the literary world that cared about their life aboard Seraffyn, and that the work they were struggling with was indeed worth it. I treasured that letter and my connection with these two people, and in the end, I was very happy that I’d taken the time to write them and to encourage their continued effort to share their story with the rest of us.
The reason this memory came back to me, and I’m writing this now is because at the end of August, I was very sad to read in the NY Times that Larry Parday had died at the age of 80. During his lifetime, he had circumnavigated the world twice on wooden boats he had built, and along with his wife Lin, had told the tail of the life they lived. They were an incredible couple, led an extraordinary life, and were an inspiration to many, including a 26 year old between jobs with a new boat, and a love of a good sea tale!
Thank you Lin and Larry for your spirit of adventure. I hope the warm memory of their shared 55 year adventure will sustain Lin as she moves forward in life. Thank you for living the life many only dream about, and for connecting with me all those many years ago via that thin air mail stationary that contained your kind words of thanks. I have never forgotten you, or your letter!
Fair Winds and Following Seas sir, and thank you for sharing a life well lived with us!
Last week at this time, Susie and I were at what has become one of our favorite hotels, the Doubletree Resort in Hollywood Beach Florida. Located on A1A at 4200 South Ocean Drive in Hollywood Beach, right along the Intracoastal Waterway, and just next to the Hallandale Beach Bridge…it’s a perfect location.
This is our 3rd year staying here, and our longest stay, and honestly, we were wondering if we were going to be bored staying from Monday to Sunday. Well, we soon discovered we had nothing to fear, and from the time the valet took the Honda CRV from us on Monday afternoon, we never left the hotel again! We treated it like an all inclusive resort, and since we’ve been to the area a lot, including several times in recent years, there was no need to do anything but relax on the property!
The property is beautiful, the rooms wonderful, and the view from our 7th floor balcony is just incredible! What a wonderful view to go to sleep to each night and to wake up with every morning.
Then there is the pool…and what a pool it is! With it’s location right along the Intracoastal Waterway, we liked nothing better than to stand in the pool, and watch boat after boat after boat go by. The entire pool area is wonderful and the Lava Tiki Bar right next to the Intracoastal is a place we’ve spent so much time…both day and night! Great drinks, excellent food, and great staff!
Susie standing by “our chairs” at the pool! We spent 5 days in this chairs!
Speaking about the staff, to our mind they take an already good property and elevate it to Diamond Status! The first person we met was Joe, the Concierge/Bell Captain…. by the time I checked in, he and my Susie were best friends! He was from Brooklyn, had run a cemetery in Pennsylvania for many years, and knew exactly where Ocean City was. What a great guy and never failed to say hello every time we saw him all week!
In the morning we had great breakfasts in the Port South Grill, served by great servers including Jackie, and Stephen.
Our afternoons were spent at the pool and bartenders Frank, and Calford made excellent drinks and were quick with a smile and a joke!”
Every night but our last (too windy), we were outside at the Tiki Bar (why not..it’s March and 70+ degrees!) and enjoyed the drinks and companionship of John, Ian, and Frank behind the bar, and the friendship of Serge the server.
Our friend John at the Tiki Bar
Frank behind the Tiki Bar
Great Tiki Bar Meals
Great Tiki Bar Meals
Great Tiki Bar Meals
Great Tiki Bar Meals
In fact, after spending a night talking with Frank as he served us, the next morning, we were at the pool less than 10 minutes when he showed up next to us with two Bloody Marys saying, “Here are the Bloodies I promised you last night!”
Then there was the pool staff! Casandra at the towel hut and the hardest working man in the hotel, Carlos the Majordomo of the Doubletree Pool! He never stops! Great work ethic and a very nice man to boot!
A little windy on our last night there
Somebody else we interacted with was Karl at the front desk, who was so helpful to us when we had a little problem with our room’s Do Not Disturb sign. On one of our last mornings, we’d left about 11:30 and discovered that someone had taken our Do Not Disturb sign while we were in the room. When we came back at 5:30, the room was not made. So we went to the desk and spoke with Karl to get new towels and a new Do Not Disturb sign. The next day, when we went to the pool, we put our new Do Not Disturb sign in the room, but when we came back, we found another Do Not Disturb sign on our door knob, which caused our room not to be made up! Can you say Gas Lighting? Bottom line, we got our room made up that day, and left with a story to boot!
Now, just as an example of how well this hotel is maintained, our last morning coming out of the Port South restaurant we passed this gentleman, who spent his days touching up the paint around the hotel! Incredible!
So, I guess you understand we love this hotel, the location and especially the staff! We will be back to visit our “friends” again, because that’s what the staff is to us! Great job! Thanks for a wonderful, relaxing 6 nights! Sorry it’s over….oh, and by the way, we used Hilton Honors points and stayed for free! Winning!!
No, not the one that took place in a manger in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.I’m talking about the one that took place in a small village on the North Shore of Long Island in the year 1979.I’m talking about the first Christmas Susie and I spent as a married couple, in our apartment at One Firwood Road in the Manorhaven section of Port Washington!
Back in September, we celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary, so this Christmas will be the 40th Anniversary of the first Christmas we spent as married people.To back up a bit, right from the beginning of our relationship, I knew that Susie loved Christmas.It was by far her favorite holiday, and she loved the music, the decorations, the food, and everything about it!So, on Christmas Day, 1978, I asked her if she would spend the rest of her life with me, and be my Mrs.Clause, and she said yes!So, with that as a background, I’m sure you can imagine how important that first Christmas was for us!
The first item of business was decorating our apartment.One of the first purchases we made were two sets of red bells that blinked on and off in sequence, kind of like they were ringing.These we hung in the windowsof our second floor apartment, looking out onto Firwood Road.They were with us for years!Of course, a tree was a very important symbol of the holiday, and I wanted to make sure ours was perfect.It was going to be a real one, and Susie and I headed to Keil Brothers Florist on the corner of the LIE and Springfield Blvd, near my folks Bayside house.So let’s talk about that tree.
We circled the tree lot multiple times, and looked at a lot of trees, before we found the perfect one for our first Christmas.It was full, just tall enough, not too wide, and cost $75!Now, that seemed like a lot back then, but I needed to make our first Christmas perfect for Susie.As an aside, $75 in 1979 is equal to $265.71 in 2019…know any jerk that would pay $265.71 for a Christmas tree today??? So, we bought this perfect tree, had it tied to the roof of our car, and drove home to our apartment in Port Washington.
Then it was time to set the tree up in our living room.We got the stand out and prepared to cut off an inch or so from the bottom of the tree, when I remembered that we were supposed to stop at my folks house in Bayside and pick up the tree saw.We hadn’t done that!!So what did we do?Well, a couple of months before, we attended the NY Auto Show, and at one of the booths there, selling all manor of items, we watched a very fascinating presentation, and then bought a Ginsu Knife!Yes, we cut off the last inch of our first Christmas tree with our newly purchased Ginsu knife!Not only did it work (it took a long time but ultimately worked), but that very same Ginsu knife from 40 Christmases ago still resides in our utensil drawer in our Ocean City house!!As it was our first Christmas, there were not a lot of meaningful ornaments, but we did a pretty good job decorating that first Christmas tree, placing it right in the middle of our living room’s picture window, for all of Port Washington to see.
Growing up, because of the fact that my folks both were members of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Chorus, and might be doing one or two performances on Christmas Day, Christmas Eve had a bigger presence in our household.That first Christmas laid the groundwork for what Susie and I would do going forward in our life…Christmas Eve with my folks and Christmas day with her family.That first Christmas Eve, we celebrated with my folks, opening presents while eating Italian cold cut sandwiches. My folks had a friend in Minnesota who worked for Litton, and our present from my folks that first Christmas was one of the first microwave ovens we’d seen! Smartly, we chose to leave it at my folks when we headed home late to our Port Washington apartment.
One Firwood Road, was a small 4 unit apartment building, just across the street from Port Washington Harbor in one direction and across the street from the Empty Pockets Bar in the other.An Asian lady owned the building, and the woman in the apartment below us was the “manager”.She also was an interesting woman, who would bring home guys from her Saturday nights out, and we heard EVERYTHING!Well, on this particular Christmas Eve, apparently she’d decided that the crowd at the Empty Pockets was bit rowdy, so she decided to lock the front door of the building…a lock we didn’t have a key for!So here we were, late at night (1-2 AM) on our first Christmas Eve, after celebrating with my folks, and we were locked out of our apartment!It was late, cold,wet, and my new wife and I were locked out!So what did we do???We banged on the door and shouted till she showed up and let us in!I’m sure we disturbed her, and her latest biker “friend,” but we were in our home, and ready for the big fat man in the red suit to show up later that morning!
That first Christmas morning came very early for us, as we wanted to have some alone time to open presents in front of our first Christmas tree, while drinking a little champagne and orange juice, before joining the rest of the family.What we thought was going to be a special treat for us that morning, turned more into a joke.WABC Channel 7 had a special Christmas morning showing of Susie’s all time favorite movie, White Christmas.This was back in the day before we had multiple copies of that movie on video tape, DVD, or digitally, so this was indeed a special treat!Unfortunately, they showed the movie in a 60 minute time block, complete with commercials.They probably had about 45 minutes or less, to show a movie that runs over two hours.As you can probably imagine, the movie was cut to time rather than content, and frankly made little sense to us…and we both knew the movie!As I said, a potential special treat that turned into a joke!
And that was how Our First Christmas went!Later that day, we joined the rest of Susie’s family, and a great day was had, and for a brand new couple, Christmas #1 was under our belts!40 years later, there are lots more Christmas Memories mixed in, but there will only be one first, and that was ours!!The story of our Ginsu cut Christmas Tree, being locked out, and the very different White Christmas will forever be my memory of my first Christmas with my love, and the beginning of mixing the Johnson and D’Elia Families!
Then it was time to set the tree up in our living room.
R New Adventures 