Footprints: A Memoir

By John G. Aicher

Born in 1930 the author has lived through the major convulsions of the twentieth century, and has comments about many of them. A Korean War veteran and practicing lawyer in New York and Vermont, his memories of events in court, in prisons, and politics will hold your interest and stir your emotions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493154456

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Copyright © 2014 by John G. Aicher.

Library of Congress Control Number:    2013922810

ISBN:    Hardcover    978-1-4931-5444-9

Softcover    978-1-4931-5443-2

eBook    978-1-4931-5445-6

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Rev. date: 01/09/2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Vaya Con Dios

A Caine Mutineer

A Long Island Beach At War

A Closing

A Super Bowl Ring

Adoption

Ambivalence

Brian Lhota, Ofm

Courage

Donna

Double-Dutch

Emotional Overload

Faith

Father John Kakazaki

Firewood

George B. Mcphillips

Hiroshima

Hunting

Irrelevance

Forgotten War?

Larceny

Liberal Arts

Memorial Day

Monument Valley

Aunt Rose

Obituaries

Odyssey

Ownership

Pageantry

Phenomenon

Prom Night

Quincenera

Sap Season

Shea Stadium

Sirach And My Father

Sister Kunigunda And The Food Pantry

Skiing

Sports

Stitching

Ted Kennedy’s Funeral

Train And Tugboat Rides

Violence And Poetry

Weeding

Wednesday

A Fine Romance

Guns And Lunacy

Fishing

John And Jack

A New Brit

Mister Pip

Poetry

The Rockville Centre Housing Authority

Politics

Prisoners

Equity

Small Claims

Harlem

Guarantor Of The Lease

Monahan Ford

Pastrami King

Toothless In The Hospital

Operation Seascape

The New Jersey

Operation Snowstorm

Fort Sill

The Demilitarized Zone

E-1 Davis

Korea

Korea Part II

Korea Part III

DEDICATION

To:

Anne Therese Mulhern Aicher

Thank You

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Vaya Con Dios

The early summer of 1953 was a bittersweet time. My girlfriend, Anne Mulhern, and I cared deeply for each other, and were facing a situation familiar to our generation and the one before ours. A nasty little war was going on in Korea and as a new Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery, I had orders to leave for Korea on July 2.

Anne, who lived in Queens, and I and my parents who lived in Rockville Centre went to Lake Champlain in Vermont to spend a few days before I had to leave.

There was a popular ballad of that time, Vaya Con Dios, sung by Les Paul and Mary Ford. I didn’t know it then, but the title means Go with God. I knew from the lyrics that it was a song of loss and longing—all of which touched us in a special way.

Wherever you may be, I’ll be beside you,

Although you’re many million dreams away.

Each night I’ll say a prayer, a prayer to guide you,

To hasten every lonely hour of every lonely day.

In those few days, Anne and I spent much time on dance floors in Vermont roadhouses listening to that song. I liked it then, and still do.

In Korea, I became friends with a Puerto Rican lieutenant named Angel Norat. Angel had been through some terrible times in a meat grinder battle called Pork Chop Hill. He constantly needled me good naturedly by singing that song, and telling me Anne probably had a new boyfriend by now.

You don’t think she’s waiting for you, he said. She’s probably dating a draft dodger.

Vaya Con Dios, he would croon.

The night before I left my Artillery Battery for home, I playfully sang the song to him. I came home, Anne and I were married and over time raised our five children in Rockville Centre, retired to Vermont, and then years ago moved to Southold.

These many years later I am still reminded of that song and of Angel, who died in 1991, and is buried in Puerto Rico National Cemetery.

These days I volunteer on Wednesdays at a food pantry in Greenport. A good percentage of our visitors are Hispanic. Many of them speak little or no English. In broken Spanish I can ask simple questions: How many in your family, Do you need Pampers. Before leaving, they always respond Thank you in English.

A few weeks ago, on the spur of the moment, I said Vaya Con Dios to a woman and her small children.

They were startled, but gave me a big smile and said Muchas gracias, as if I had said something remarkable.

Of course, the expression is a farewell that long predates the 1950’s song.

I say it now whenever a Spanish speaking visitor leaves the pantry. Each time I am rewarded by the same sincere gratitude. They are walking away with more than food.

I wish Angel Norat were alive for me to tell him.

A Caine Mutineer

December 21 2011

I had attended to the execution of a will for a woman at my office in Ridgewood when she asked me if I made house calls. I usually didn’t, but if the client was unable to leave their home and was relatively near, I’d do it. She told me this man, middle aged, lived in her building a few blocks from the office, one of the many six family three story buildings immaculately mantained by their German immigrant landlords. He was a victim of agoraphobia—he hadn’t been outside his home for many years, and had neighbors do his shopping for him. He knew this lady was going to see me and asked her to seek my help in drawing a Will. I told her to have him call me.

He called that afternoon, and confirmed that he was terrified of going outdoors. I had misgivings about testamentary capacity for someone like this, but agreed to come to his apartment.

It was on the ground floor—what is known in the neighborhood as a railroad flat. It was neat and well kept. He was a bachelor and lived alone. I didn’t get into the details of his disorder, but asked enough questions to satisfy myself that he was perfectly capable of signing a Will. As usual, I took his family information, got the details of what he wanted to do, made an appointment for the execution and was ready to leave when he told me he wanted to show me something. He took an envelope from a drawer, put it aside, and told me that he was a World War II vet, that he had served in the Navy. He had served on a destroyer—minesweeper for three years, all of it in the Pacific. He told me of some odd behavior by the ship’s captain, of a terrifying experience during a storm at sea, and then opened the envelope and emptied the contents on the table.

Most of them were photos of him, the ship, and his shipmates. Some were of small groups, some of larger, including the ships’ officers. He pointed out one in particular, the ship’s Executive Officer.

The last item he showed me was a small card, a Certificate Of Service containing the dates of his continuing service on board the ship, the USS Southard.

The card was signed by the Executive Officer of the ship in a clear distinct handwriting. Herman Wouk, Exec. It led to an interesting conversation in that modest railroad flat in Ridgewood, Brooklyn.

A Long Island Beach At War

There are increasingly few of us who experienced ocean beaches during World War II. I was thirteen years old during the summer of 1944, living in Rockville Centre. Our preferred beach destination at the time was the Hempstead Town Beach at Point Lookout, a few hundred yards west of Jones Inlet and its adjoining beach for the residents of the Village of Point Lookout.

Getting to Point Lookout from Rockville Centre at the time consisted of walking to Long Beach Road, then hitchhiking south to Long Beach, thence east to the beach, unless you were lucky to get a ride from someone going directly to Point Lookout. Hitchhiking at the time was relatively safe. I remember seeing clusters of teen aged girls hugging towels and blankets with their thumbs out, and I don’t remember ever hearing of dire results or warnings. Everyone made it to the beach, sooner or later.

It was important to get reasonably burned early on to develop a tan; there was nothing nerdier than white skin in the summertime. Most of us are now paying a penalty of some sort for that behavior.

The beach itself showed ample results of the ongoing war. German U Boats were having a field day in the North Atlantic. Liberty ships were being sunk as fast as they were launched. The normally pristine sands were cluttered with tar balls from fuel, and wooden wreckage would be found on the shoreline by early arrivals. The high tide line would often be a line of heavy dark oil, several hundred yards long. Most unsettling of all was the presence of an Anti Aircraft Battery on the beach right in front of the Lido Beach Hotel, about a half mile west of the Town Beach. Periodically a light aircraft would appear in the western sky, not too high, and flying slowly east just offshore. It would be towing a funnel shaped red target. When it reached a certain point the AA Battery would commence firing what I learned were numbers of heavy fifty caliber machine guns at the target. The smoke and din were incredible, the occasional tracer bullets clearly identifiable, and once in a while the towing cable was severed. (I hope the pilot of the tow plane was well paid.) I also remember on two occasions Grumman Hellcats (Navy carrier-based fighter planes developed to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero) appeared relatively close to the shoreline, parallel to it, and fired short bursts from its heavy machine guns into the water. That was definitely an exciting attention-getter for us teens, if nerve-wracking for our parents. I have a vivid recollection of white smoke trailing the leading edges of the wings, and water spouts erupting from the ocean. (A neighbor, Frank Haughey, worked at Grumman. One day he brought me to work with him, and I climbed into the cockpit of a brand new F6F Hellcat, sat in the pilot’s seat, fingering the stick and the red button on its tip—the trigger. I was John Wayne. I didn’t want to leave.)

The Town Beach hosted, well above the high tide mark, The Pavilion, a Spanish style white structure with hamburgers, hot dogs and soda available on the first floor, and graced with a large open second floor with a working juke box. It was the center of teen aged social activity, including dancing, usually to the big band sound of Harry James, or the Mills Brother’s Paper Doll, a favorite of the time. The juke box held a multitude of 78 RPM records. Each record cost a nickel, and it never stopped playing on weekends.

There are now beach clubs where empty beaches welcomed visitors and sailors from a Navy installation at Lido. The only upsetment is caused by the occasional storm.

And my sixteen year old Granddaughter is now a fully certified lifeguard on the Oceanfront, something unheard of in 1944. It doesn’t get any better for an 83 year old geezer.

A CLOSING

February 29, 2012

For over forty years I was a real estate attorney. One of my clients was a New York State Savings Bank which was active in the mortgage business in New York City and Long Island, so I spent a great deal of time closing mortgage loans for them, mostly purchase money mortgages where the proceeds of the mortgage were used to complete the purchase of real property, usually a one family home. Most of these closings, as they are called in New York (settlements in Federal form jargon, and going to escrow, mysteriously, on the left coast) were routine, consisting of paper signings, reviewing documents, writing checks, adjusting for taxes and calming nervous purchasers making the largest investments of their lives. All the bargaining and negotiations should have taken place at the time of signing the Contract of Sale. One closing came to fisticuffs when a purchaser, a Chinese immigrant, objected when a seller, asked to explain what a comment meant, casually allowed as how I don’t know, it’s all Chinese to me. When I closed Rudy Giuliani’s co-op loan when he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District in Manhattan he and his wife at the time were so disinterested they could have been on a beach in Florida.

But one in particular stands out so dramatically in my mind that all the details have been burned in my memory.

This closing took place in my Law Library, a large room dominated by a gigantic table in the center of the room. The walls, except for two windows and the door, were lined floor to ceiling with shelves containing books detailing decisions in cases in most of the courts in New York, including all the Appellate courts. I was seated at one end of the table, the seller on my left, purchasers on my right, and opposite me at the other end was Francis X. Cunningham, a lawyer representing the Title Insurance Company. Both buyer and sellers were represented by counsel, and in reviewing the papers I noticed that while the Title Company had reported the property was owned by John Doe and Mary Doe, his wife, the contract seller was John Doe as surviving tenant by the entirety with Mary Doe, his wife. Not unusual at all. The wife had died. It was complicated a little because the Contract had not been signed personally by John Doe, but by his Attorney in Fact under a Power of Attorney. Tenancy by the Entirety, by the way, is the usual manner of ownership by married couples in New York. Among other things, it means that in the event of death of one, the other becomes owner of the entire property by operation of law regardless of Wills and any other necessity. In this case, at the closing the Attorney in Fact was sitting in the place of the seller, with his lawyer who I did not know. One effect of this is that the Principal who signed the Power of Attorney must call during the closing to confirm he is alive, since the Power of Attorney is only valid during his lifetime.

It was while we were waiting for the call from the Principal that the bomb was dropped.

Anthony Cartafalsa, attorney for the buyers and an old friend, casually asked,

Where is John Doe?

Answer—Upstate.

Where, upstate?.

Answer—Attica.

What for?

Answer—matter of factly—Murder. He killed his wife.

Francis Cunningham and I looked up at each other. Cunningham’s company had just been saved a considerable loss. We then looked at Cartafalsa, who became furious. There would be no closing.

Turned out the attorney for the seller was a criminal lawyer figuring to make a buck on a simple closing, unaware that it has been settled law in New York for over a century that you cannot profit from a murder. When we informed him of the law he objected, saying that only effected Wills and Intestacy, but not a Tenancy by the Entirety. I quickly looked up the citation, picked up a book off a shelf containing a Court of Appeals decision from the 1860’s and showed it to him. He was, to put it mildly, embarassed. The murderer and his wife had two children under ten years old, living with the dead wife’s sister. They, and not the murderous husband, owned the property—a six family dwelling in Brooklyn. To sell the property would require a Supreme Court proceeding, appointment of Guardians and an official appraiser, and approval by a Supreme Court Justice.

When the call came from Attica, the attorney took the phone into a corner and spoke very briefly out of our hearing. Cartafalsa’s clients were eventually reimbursed by the seller’s attorney for considerable costs. He immediately demanded and received information about the location of the children and notified the dead wife’s sister of the circumstances, and how it affected her two charges.

It was not a typical day at the office.

A SUPER BOWL RING

October 14, 2011

There was a time when I was co-chair of an annual fund raising event at St. Agnes Cathedral Parish in Rockville Centre. It was a formal dinner dance to be held at the old Garden City Hotel. (Shortly into the planning phase for the gala the hotel ownership announced it was soon to be demolished, which is another story entirely.)

We had decided to have a preliminary event, an Underwriters Dinner, a black tie stag do with pricey tickets to underwrite the costs of the main event, thereby enabling the church to collect the entire sum paid for at the Dinner Dance, including ticket sales and program listings. The Underwriters Dinner would be held at a local country club. Entertainment would consist of Hildegarde, a popular chanteuse known for her German accented singing and her elbow length white gloves as she accompanied herself on the piano, and a young comedian named Jackie Mason, whose material, his agent assured us, was suitable for a gathering that would include a Bishop and a number of priests. We also invited a number of local offficials, and one John Schmitt—a young man who played center on a New York Jets football team that had the previous year won, in a smashing upset, a Super Bowl Championship. He was the only Jet who was a resident of Long Island.

The Underwriters Dinner was a sellout. The entertainment was excellent, the dinner equally so, but the highlight for me was that, as Chairman of the event, I chose to sit next to John Schmitt. (The co-chair of the main event was a woman, Jean Fenaughty, ineligible to attend this stag dinner. It was a long time ago. No comment.)

John was a local man, a graduate of Hofstra, and a great dinner companion. We talked a little about football, about the Jets, about his life, about things in general, and finally I noticed on his finger a huge ring. I asked about it, and he said It’s my Super Bowl Ring, took it off and handed it to me. It fit around two of my fingers, and was encrusted with jewels and legends about the Super Bowl Championship. On him it wasn’t ostentatious, because he had big hands, befitting a big man.

A few weeks ago we visited our son John and his family in the evening after returning from a week-long trip to Virginia. John asked me if I had read the story about a Long Island resident who had recovered his Super Bowl Ring some forty years after having lost it while swimming at Waikiki in Hawaii. I told John I hadn’t read the story, but knowing John Schmitt was the only Jet who lived on Long Island those many years ago, asked was the resident’s name John Schmitt. He cranked up his Ipad, found the story and yes, indeed, it was John Schmitt. This was the ring I had tried on over four decades ago.

Schmitt had lost the ring and searched for it until he was exhausted, then gave up. A lifeguard eventually found it, brought it home and put it in a box. He and his wife died some time ago, and their niece, who inherited the belongings and had a sense of social responsibility apparently lacking in her uncle and aunt, researched the ring. It contains the legend, in gold lettering, New York Jets, on one side, and World Champions on the other. It was also appraised with a value between $10,000 and $12,000, based solely on the metal and gems. It had a 52 prominently displayed—Schmitt’s uniform number. The niece and her husband realized the importance of this ring to someone and eschewed a financial reward. They did some quick research and contacted Schmitt. Schmitt offered to pay for the niece’s transportation so she could personally return the ring to him. The newspaper photos of him show a man who has taken care of himself.

A nice guy. Sometimes good things happen.

The New York Jets, now in New Jersey, haven’t won a Super Bowl since.

ADOPTION

Anne and I watched a made for TV movie, The Corn Is Green the other night. It starred Katherine Hepburn at a time when her Essential Tremor symptoms were beginning to show, but she was still masterful. The plot featured an adoption by the Hepburn character of a boy fathered by Hepburn’s student whose track to Oxford and a life out of the coal mines was threatened by the child’s birth. As usual, when I read, see, or hear of adoption my mind flashes back to December 1969, the time I was the attorney for a couple in a private adoption.

The husband was a general surgeon, his wife a nurse. They had been married for some time and were unable to conceive. I received a call one day from an obstetrician who asked if I was the attorney for Doctor X. I said yes, and he told me he was about to help deliver a child from an eighteen year old unmarried woman who wished to give the child up for adoption, that he was a friend of Doctor X, and had been asked to contact me.

I met the young woman in a private hospital room with the necessary paperwork. She and the child’s father were in love, but neither wanted a child, although they intended to marry shortly. She was a tall, attractive woman, and handed me a picture taken of her and her boyfriend, the father. He was a good looking young man who was taller than she, well over six feet. She signed the papers, and I left, waiting for a call. A few days later Doctor X called and told me the baby, a boy, had been born, he and the mother were fine, and I called the hospital and arranged to pick up the mother and child. I parked on a side street, while Doctor X and his wife were parked at the entrance to the hospital, Elmhurst General.

I met the mother in her hospital room, where she was dressed to leave. She had not seen her baby. The nurse brought in the boy and offered it to the mother. She said, No! Give it to him! sharply, indicating me. She refused to look at the baby. We rode down in the elevator and I took her out a side entrance, opened my car door, and told her I would return shortly. I walked around to the entrance where the clients were waiting. When they saw me approaching they left the car, and I handed the baby to Doctor X. He and his wife were beaming. Here is your son.

I returned to my car and asked the mother for directions to her apartment. It wasn’t far away, and not a word was said between us. I parked the car, opened her door and helped her out, and carried her bag to the entrance. It was a basement apartment in a private home. She unlocked her front door, and I followed her inside. In a prominent place against a wall to the left was a large fish tank. She walked quickly to the tank, turned on a light, picked up a box of fish food and started a remarkable conversation with the fish. How are my babies? Did you miss me? I’m so sorry I was gone for a few days. Making kissing noises. I was astonished.

I told her I would be in touch, because the adoption would not be final until she appeared before a Surrogate, in this case New York County. She assured me she would not change her mind in the six month hiatus.

At the appointed time six months later I met with her again in the chambers of Surrogate Silverman, a no-nonsense Judge of excellent reputation. He questioned her vigorously for over a half hour. He knew she had reservations on a plane to fly to the West Coast to meet her boyfriend, the father, where they were to be married. He was in the Army, and Vietnam was aflame. The Judge actually sounded angry with her. You and the father are to be wed, and abandon your child? You have no regrets about what you are doing? She wasn’t effected the least. I was worried whether under the withering assault she would weaken and change her mind. Finally, after an exhaustive exchange the Judge said I have no choice, under the circumstances. and signed the final order of adoption. It was finished. I met Doctor X and his wife outside the Surrogate’s chambers and gave them a copy of the order.

All the above quotes are accurate. It’s unlikely I’ll ever forget them.

A few months later, the New York Legislature passed a law permitting abortion on demand.

The obstetrician who delivered the baby gave up his obstetrical practice and became a full-time abortionist.

The official file is sealed in the New York County Surrrogate’s office. My file is in the basement, waiting for a call from a middle aged man looking for information about his birth parents. My file includes the picture the mother gave me of both parents.

I overheard a comment once by someone who thought the Practice of Law would be boring.

AMBIVALENCE

I have heard ambivalence described as the feeling you experience watching your Mother-in-Law drive off a cliff in your brand-new Cadillac. Harsh! Well, I never owned a Cadillac and my Mother-in-Law was a wonderful woman who died young, three months after my wedding to her daughter, depriving her and our children of what would have been a beautiful relationship. So, how about this for ambivalence:

On June 8, 1952 I received my Bachelor’s Degree from St. Bonaventure University. At the same time I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. After the dual ceremony the cap, gown and Bachelor’s Hood had to be returned to the University. My Dad offered to take care of the returnable items while I socialized with the other graduates, my mother and the young woman who had accepted my proposal of marriage the evening before. A few minutes later my Dad appeared and presented me with the Hood. He had met a Friar and offered to buy the Hood, since his son was the first member of his family to graduate from College, and it was an important memento. The Friar, who my Dad described as a big bear of a man, said, Take it. You’ve paid for it many times over. As we were leaving the campus a few minutes later, we passed a Friar. My Dad identified him as the one who gave him the Hood. He was Father Silas Rooney, OFM—former Major League Catcher, Athletic Director of the University, and brother of Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers for many years had been using University facilities for pre-season training in the summer.

Art Rooney was one of the great characters in sports. If St. Bonaventure had a good football player, Mr. Rooney gave him a tryout. One of them, Jack Butler, played for the Steelers many years, most of them as an All Pro defensive back. I think the Steelers are the only professional football team that does not have a herd of scantily dressed young women pretending to lead cheers at their games. You had to love the guy. His son is Chairman Emeritus of the team, and is the current Ambassador to Ireland. His Grandson is the current owner of the Steelers. Pittsburgh fans love the Rooneys and their team. On the other hand, their quarterback is a brute, having been accused