A toast to brides and grooms and the parents that love them

June. The month of weddings. Love and romance. The month where your Facebook wall is slathered with a never-ending stream of wedding pictures. Or, more accurately, the before-the-wedding pictures of bachelor and bachelorette party pictures. Friends getting together, celebrating brides and grooms, having final single flings, plotting pranks. There are also lots of pictures of people on their way to a wedding, bachelor or bachelorette party. So far this year, aside from some young women wearing panties as hats and a group of young men celebrating pending nuptials with some over-Freudian cigars, most of the stuff I’ve seen so far has been pretty tame.

Ahhh, romance.

Back on Valentine’s Day I wrote about two of my all-time favorite real-life love stories that I encountered during my days as a hotel bellman and manager (Flashback! http://poetluckerate.wordpress.com/2013/02/) While hotels are hotbeds of romance and romantic stories, they are also prime locales for all the things associated with weddings: ugly bridesmaid dresses, family bickering, mismatched families coming together, brides’ fathers contemplating bankruptcy from the festivities, that sort of thing.

Weddings are an odd occurrence, especially when one (or both) of the principals are from out-of-town, and two, oftentimes disparate families come together. This can make for a lot of awkwardness, one-upmanship and friction.

Or hilarity.

The Holiday Inn Metrodome in Minneapolis, where I spent much of the 1990’s working as a bellman, was a very nice fourteen-story facility right off the edge of downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota campus. This made us a prime spot for all sorts of university and student related functions.

An especially handy spot if you and your significant other are graduating from the university on one weekend, and getting married the next and neither one of you is a native of the area. One young couple had set up such a scenario so that their respective sets of parents could each make one trip, catch graduation and the wedding, and as a bonus, could spend the week between the two events bonding with one another.

Spolier alert! The four parents got along famously, but they really cemented their bond in an unexpected way at their children’s wedding reception.

As one of the hotel’s few locally grown (and older) bellmen, I was the go-to guy for the obscure and trivial. I had been introduced to the bride and groom by the sales manager who took care of the wedding arrangements, and when the parents arrived prior to graduation, I became their hotel host/concierge/designated problem solver and logistics manager – especially once other family members began to arrive.

It was a fun week for the two fiftyish couples, profitable for me as they were all generous tippers. I finagled them some tee times, took them shopping, got them set up with a personal sightseeing tour, drive them around in the hotel van. We got to know each other very well, and by week’s end had developed a very comfortable, casual style of business.

On the Saturday of the wedding, the couple got married without a hitch at a church just off campus, before returning to the hotel for an afternoon reception and evening dance. Everything was proceeding smoothly until about an hour into the reception. The two dads, tuxedo clad with bewildered looks and shaking their heads, came to lobby seeking me out. The sought to huddle with me quietly by the bellstand. Each peeling a twenty from their wallets, they proffered them to me with the following instructions:

“Mark, we are going across the street to Sergeant Preston’s to have a drink”.

“Maybe more than one. Probably more than one”.

“We need you to bring two luggage carts back to the ballroom for the wedding gifts. Our wives will be waiting for you. But if anybody is looking for us….”

“Anybody”.

“…you have no idea where we went”.

“Unless it’s an emergency”.

“A serious, need- to-call-the-cops or something emergency”.

“And even then, only if you think someone might die”.

“Yeah. That’s the only reason you would know where we were. We clear on that”?

“Sure”. I nodded.

“Good luck, Mark”.

“Be brave”.

With that, they each gave me a ‘carry on, brave soldier’ pat on the shoulder, walked out the door headed for Sergeant Preston’s bar.

Me, I grabbed a couple of luggage carts and headed for the ballroom area at the back of the hotel. When I made the turn down the long hallway to the ballroom they were using, I could see four people standing out in the hallway across from their ballroom in animated discussion: the bride, the groom, their respective mothers. As I got closer, I could tell there was a strong difference of opinion on…something. The bride, clearly exasperated, was plaintively admonishing both her mother and new mother-in-law that “This isn’t funny! What are we going to do”?! The two mothers, resplendent in their wedding day attire, were laughing so hard they were doubled over, hands on knees, tears streaming down their cheeks.

The groom stood off to the side of it all looking totally befuddled, declining to or not sure how  to get involved.

Seeing me approach, but with some I-don’t-think-I-want-to-get-in-the-middle-of-this caution, the two mothers began waving for me to advance.

“Oh good! Here’s Mark”! Said one, through her tears and laughter.

“You have to see this”! Added the other, also struggling to control her laughter.

They each grabbed one of my arms and walked me to the ballroom doorway. In one corner of the room stood a number of the younger guests, mostly bridesmaids and groomsmen, looking concerned and sharing comments like,“Well, who did YOU tell”? “I only told a couple of people”! “I didn’t think this many would really do it” ! Most of them seemed rather embarrassed; the bridesmaids in particular. Meanwhile, other guests were sitting at the scattered tables, eating, drinking, conversing and trying to ignore the group in the corner, most probably dying to see what would happen next.

The mother’s pointed me toward the front of the room, where a chair sat empty, but surrounded by gifts and crumbled wrapping paper – the remnants of the gift opening, a fairly common occurrence at small receptions like this.

“Look at that”! Sputtered the mom of bride, turning me toward the chair and focusing me on the stacks of gifts.

“Mother, this isn’t funny”!  repeated the bride, now with some resignation.

The mom of the groom was barely containing her laughter, which totally went for naught when she saw the look on my face as I realized what the mothers found so amusing about the assembled gifts.

They were almost all toasters.

There were two, four and six slice toasters. Ordinary, put-the-bread-in-and-push-the-lever-down toasters and high-tech gizmos with multiple darkness and texture settings. There were futuristic looking, stainless steel toasters, wide slot toasters (for ‘bagel and English muffin lovers’, according to the box). There was a twelve-slice toaster – our hotel kitchen didn’t even have a twelve-slicer. There were toasters in a variety of colors, sizes and styles, from at least ten different stores. Box upon box upon box – each containing a toaster – stacked around the bride’s chair. All toasters, all the time. And there were still some wrapped packages she had yet to open, that based on their size and shape, were probably bread roasters as well

Final tally for the day: 71 gifts. 58 of them toasters.
Final outcome as a wedding story: Priceless

As I began loading up the wedding booty for transport to the lobby, the two mothers graciously took the floor to express their appreciation of the joke, telling everyone what a wonderful memory this would be, and that while they bride and groom were off on their honeymoon, they (the moms) would return as many of the gift toasters as they could. The mom’s public appreciation of the joke broke the tense mood; the party regained its festive nature.

I brought the carts of toasters to the lobby and then retrieved the two dads from Sergeant Preston’s so they could get their rental cars from the parking ramp so I could load them with toasters. I found them sitting on adjoining stools at Preston’s bar, and they were greatly relieved to have me deliver the ‘all clear’.

As the story was related to me later in its entirety by the parents and the bride, the gift opening was going fine until about the eighth or ninth toaster, when the bride began to suspect something afoot and a nervous buzz began going through the crowd of guests; “they haven’t opened mine yet”! “I got them a toaster, too”! and so on as the unintended scope of their joke became clear.  By the time the bride unveiled toaster number twenty (or eighteen, depending on the source) both the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom had to step out into the hallway to keep their composure.

Reentering the room to see the bride opening yet another toaster (number thirty or so, by most accounts) and hearing her mutter with no enthusiasm whatsoever “it’s lovely” sent the moms into uncontrollable fits of laughter, which led to the dads quietly ducking out, and then my subsequent appearance on the scene.

To her credit, by the end of the night the bride had begun to see the humor and appreciate the reactions of her mother and new mother-in-law. By the next day, before leaving on her honeymoon, she was actually retelling the story with quite a bit of elaboration and humor – including the postscript:

As the night wound down, both dads made closing toasts, in tandem and repeatedly, to the happy couple.

“Before we go, a final toast…”

“Er”.

“I’d like to propose a final toast…”

“Er”.

“Here’s a toast…”

“Er”.

One of the most enjoyable weddings I have ever been to. And I wasn’t even on the guest list.

There are these stray scraps of paper with blog ideas just laying on my desk…

First, a couple of baseball notes from my hometown stomping grounds of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

I found this tidbit the other day in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where the very popular, minor league St. Paul Saints will soon be building a new ballpark downtown, leaving behind their current home – venerable Midway Stadium, which will then be transformed into an industrial park. I quote from the paper: “The stadium authority will demolish Midway Stadium, a job estimated to cost about $700,000, and then spend millions to clean up pollution and prepare the soil”.

Interesting. What sort of pollution would there be to clean up from an old ballpark? Are there toxic levels of brown mustard and ketchup sediment to be removed via end loader and sealed lead-lined tubs? Two decades of peanut shells and players spit morphing into radon gas needing to be vented by guys in woolen, pin-striped hazmat suits? What is the acceptable level of pickle relish PPM in topsoil, anyway?

It’s probably just ground water contamination from all those years of spilled beer.

Prediction: At least 100 people who read that last line and live near a ballpark will now try to dig makeshift wells in their yards.  Trust me.

Then there was this little nugget in an interview with Minnesota Twins pitcher Glen Perkins, who grew up just outside of St. Paul and is now living the dream playing for his hometown team.

“I grew up here, and I grew up cheering for the Twins and you idolize them. You always think you can’t talk to the players, you can’t approach them. You think that person is untouchable. I think that’s why I like Twitter so much. You can interact with them. What I hate more than anything is when I go eat lunch at Chipotle or I go to Target, and an hour later I get a tweet that says, “Hey, were you at Chipotle?” Or, “Were you at Target?” I always think, “You should just come up and say, ‘Hi.’ ” What I strive to do is relate to the fans because, hell, 10 years ago I was a fan”.

“Hell, ten years ago I was a fan”. A throwback kinda guy in the modern world of Twitter. What’s not to love here? Rock on, Mr. Perkins.

My current linguistic pet peeve might get a rise out of you, too.

Three years ago, I taught a summer school program for ‘rising eighth graders’ – a phrase that simply made me roll my eyes. The class was an English enrichment program for young men who had just completed the seventh grade, and the school wanted to give these seventh graders a leg-up on what they would be dealing with in the fall as eighth graders – rising eighth graders. Whatever that means.

It was the first time I had heard the phrase ‘rising eighth graders’ and at the time I just found it pretentious. Now, my youngest son has completed eighth grade, is headed on to high school, and here comes the phrase variation: ‘rising freshmen’. The more I heard it used at graduation the more I’m thinking the term ‘rising’ for anything grade-advancement related is just…silly. AND pretentious. But it. Is. Everywhere.

Especially here in New Orleans.

I have heard educators at all levels referring to kids who have passed their 4th grade testing as ‘rising fifth graders’ and I have even heard pre-school children described as ‘rising kindergarteners’ . A quick Google of the phrase ‘rising ___ graders’ shows that the term has spread like an insidious etymological virus. Everybody is rising to something…odd because while they are all ‘rising’ their test scores and other metrics are remaining generally stagnant.

Sigh.

To me, if you are a fourth grader headed to fifth, a sixth grader headed to seventh, or a group of teenagers who have completed eighth grade and are now headed to high school – fantastic. Congratulations and kudos. Good luck and keep up the good work. Carry on, do what you need to do.

And keep in mind you are doing simply what is expected of you; clouds will not part with sunshine and harp music raining down upon you. You are not a flock of Phoenixes arising from some middle school ash heap.

Though a few of you sure look like it.

End of rant. Blood pressure no longer rising.

Spolier alert! Nifty segue here, if you try not to think about it…

I had some paperwork to fill out for something, and I was asked to identify my ethnicity. I asked my wife if it would be okay to check ‘indigenous’ as she frequently refers to my ‘various diatribes.’

Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.

Not to be outdone, eldest son Will is entering his senior year in high school and our mailbox is awash in mailings from colleges and universities prestigious and obscure. Most of the stuff gets tossed, as he has a pretty good idea of what he does/doesn’t want in prospective schools. One school he is interested in sent him a mailing  seeking some more involved demographic information. He immediately sat down to submit his info.

“These guys at least are asking about my ‘ethnicity’ instead of my ‘race’” he stated, adding dryly, “But do I still put ‘white’”? After we briefly recapped family genetics he filled out the post-paid card listing his ethnicity as ‘Nordic’.

That’ll skew somebody’s demographic breakdown.

And finally…

During the last week of school, one of my sophomore students was standing next to me in the hallway asking a question about something, when a pair of classmates walked by, loudly singing, generally acting ridiculous, throwing around a few choice profanities. In other words, a bit over-the-top, but certainly not unprecedented high school hallway behavior. The kid who was speaking to me stopped, watched the pair go by, then looked at me, frowning, sadly shaking his head. “Mr. Lucker…that makes me wanna change my race”.

I’m just glad it’s summer.

Lessons Learned in Mr. Lucker’s Class on the Last Day of School

If you are a high school sophomore, soon-to-be-a-but-probably-not-yet junior, and you bring a water gun (‘squirt gun’ in Mr. Lucker’s youthful vernacular) into Mr. Lucker’s classroom on the last day of class, and Mr. Lucker watches you (pseudo surreptitiously) fill  said squirt-gun from a water bottle, he will wait until you have jussssst about finished reloading before he confiscates the squirt gun by asking you for it.

Then, just so you understand where Mr. Lucker is coming from, once you sit down, he will silently empty said confiscated water gun by watering the potted plant sitting on his desk while you glare at him, he looks back at you, and everyone else is watching for your reaction.

Ostensibly, the squirt gun (sans water, of course) could be returned to you during the customary last-day teacher escort to the busses .

Unless, of course, you pout about it, asking Mr. Lucker repeatedly when you will get your water gun back, and when told that he is under no obligation at all to return said squirt gun to your possession, you walk out of his classroom and stomp around the hallway in a snit, complaining over and over “You got my water gun! When am I gonna get it back”!?

Mr. Lucker will then return to his desk and finish emptying the water gun into his plant dirt.

At this point you, and the rest of the class, understand that Mr. Lucker doesn’t abide last day shenanigans. Even in the last period on the last day. Especially the last period on the last day.

Class dismissed. Have a nice summer.

Shakespeare: tragedy, comedy…and whatever it is my students do with it

While getting my sophomore English classes ready to tackle Julius Caesar, we spend time wrapping up our unit on poetry with some Shakespearean sonnets, and then dive into a two-day crash-course in Elizabethan English, in part using a series of Elizabethan-to-Contemporary English ‘cheat sheets’. It makes for a nice segue from unit to unit and I have discovered that a few days focused on learning the language is worth the effort from a comprehension standpoint.

Some classes really get into it, some don’t – but there is one particular phrase that we always have some issues with: ho.

From one of our Elizabethan-to-Contemporary English glossaries:
ho—hey (roughly equivalent). “Lucius, ho!” [Brutus calling his servant]

There is, of course, some tittering the first couple of times this is said, but it is a very common phrase in Shakespearean language, and very soon the snickering becomes a natural, more comfortable, street-inflected ‘Hoe’ as opposed to the Elizabethan ‘Ho’.

“Lucius, ho!”
“Lucius! Hoe! Come hither”!

The distinction is not very subtle, and adds a whole different layer of linguistic oddity to my sojourn through the Bard, as there is a vast difference between summoning someone and calling someone…something.

Thou hast noooooo idea.

I always end our pre-Caesar week by having my students rewrite their daily start-of-class journal entry into a Shakespearean epic. (The Friday prompt I use is imagining or remembering a weekend outing with a friend, including a lot of dialogue). We then share some of the results out loud – usually to a mixture of laughter and bewilderment, whether they read what they have written or have me do it.

Among some of this semester’s dagger-stabs at Shakespearean ignominy and glory – verbatim:

‘I stood wall-eyed, “Whence did thee get that zany idea” I said, lapsed. “Thou art mad” I informed him. He discourses. “Thou shouldntst hark. I woo her”. I cursed him. I shook my head. “What are thee going to dost? Thee have a foe”’.

Heavy, he said “I know, come hither. Thou art verily something”. Balked and mated, he didn’t have the addiction of discourses words such as these”.

I am quite sure of that, actually.

“Today, Friday the 13, my friends and I heard tidings that we had to go appoint to the mall for some hours”.

“My best friend hark me Friday, doth thee went to hie eat out”.
“Perchance, an I doth not have anything to doth”.

For which we can all be grateful, I suppose.

This next one from a kid who rarely writes more than a sentence or two…again verbatim:

“It’s Friday e’en, methinks perchance I should call my friend to see an thee wants to skate. Methinks also about thee girlfriend. An thee hie hither, thee nots going to have a ride back home. I should privy the mom for a ride back home, but that’s too much. Adieu that idea, so thee calls my friend to come over. Soft, I left thee board in thee mom’s car”.

Hopefully, she’ll find it and give it back to the kid.

Some entries from our you-have-to-admire-the-honesty (HATH) department:

HATH #1 “Oft my morrow I am alone and maybe retired because I am an introvert. But were to I discourse and visit with my friends, we off hie to World Market and Barnes and Noble”.

HATH #2 “Twas a quaint morrow and methinks of a cunning idea. The idea was to mate with a friend”.

HATH #3 “Today I shall couch. I fancy some chicken for today. Perchance even some tacos. Were I for my dad wrought me the money. I don’t want to woo a job with my friend”.

And, as many of my students (and colleagues) frequently say: “We were conversating”:

We couldn’t think of anything to do. So finally something came to me.

Carla: Natalie, I thought of something
Natalie: Aye
Carla: Hark, the bowling alley.
Natalie: Perchance.
Carla: Okay because I couldn’t think of anything.

 Later that e’en we got dressed and my mom brought us.

Natalie: I bet I can rap a strike before thee
Carla: Methinks not.

Hair is always a popular topic with my students. ‘Going Shakespeare’ changes that not.

“It’s like this every Saturday night. Addiction hath I curl my hair. We go out after about two hours of unpregnant babbling”.

“This Friday I’m going to doth my best friend hair
It’s going to take all day but I don’t care
Thee will hie to the movies
whence everything is groovy”.

Stupendous efforts, all. But nobody else went quite in this direction:

One young woman, a recent transfer into my class and a very good, prolific writer, allowed me to read her lengthy and detailed entry, which centered on her mother giving her and her friends money to drive to a neighboring community to run an, umm…family errand.

“Speaketh to Mary, Liz, Kenny and Jame” I told her as we got onto the bus. Charlene nodded, pulling out her cellphone and texting all the names listed. I called mother telling her we’ll clean the home, also that we made plans for the morrow. Mother insisted we’d deliver money to Sir Bradley for some of his homemade brownies”.

She went on, making good use of ‘forsooth’ and ‘hither’ among others in describing their nervousness in being followed (innocently and coincidentally, it seems) by a police officer as they returned home with the purchased baked goods from a neighboring suburb.

I read the entire piece, looked at the girl, asked if the story was true. She nodded. “Really? You drove that far for brownies? Those kind of brownies”?

“You knew what I meant”?

“I grew up in the sixties and seventies. I know exactly what kind of brownies you meant.”

“Cool”.

They won’t get it yet, but by the middle of this week, when we get through the play, I can just stop, look at my class and say what every New Orleans English teacher wants to say to their students at a time like this:

“Etouffee, Brutus”?

Hanging with ghosts and great ideas

It is a brisk March Wednesday night in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Once a smitten, first time tourist, I am now a resident of the city, though not a permanent denizen of the Quarter.

I have lived here going on five years now, and remain infatuated with the city, and this unique segment of  it.

Some good friends of ours have a condeaux (colloquial spelling, so sayeth the whimsical plaque hanging on the courtyard wall) that they use for weekend getaways. They play tourist in their own hometown, taking in the sights of the Quarter and the Marigny; live music on Frenchmen Street, plays at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre, various restaurants. Sometimes they just hang in the Quarter.

When they are not test driving retirement, they sometimes make it available to friends. This is my lucky night.

Right around the corner, literally seventy, eighty feet as the crow flies, is the former home of Tennessee Williams. From the courtyard I am sitting in, I could easily toss a baseball onto Tennessee’s former roof. The proximity of his home to Peterson’s condeaux was a surprise to them, as I discovered it on my first visit to their getaway neighborhood, as I read the bronze historic marker affixed to the wall of the structure. That is my compulsion here in the Quarter, where it is nearly impossible to travel a full block without some sort of wall-mounted commemorative alloy indicator of some sort.

This is no New England ‘George-Washington-slept-here-yeah-right’ tourist gimmick.

A casual stroll in any direction of the French Quarter is a history lesson to be absorbed; the tribulations of Spanish ownership and French possession; the days of Jean Lafitte, Marie Leveaux and other sundry rogues are all venerated in ample, forged bronze. Jazz greats and their many milestones as a genre was birthed and the purest of American art forms evolved are also celebrated. There are notable pirates, heroes and villains. Painters and writers. Scalawags and incognito ne’er-do-wells share historical marker space with captains of industry and high society madams. Generals, governors, future presidents – an array of historical pomp and circumstance –all here for the fascinating, abbreviated reading. There are also trumpet players, trombonists, drummers, pianists and producers to be celebrated. All get their due, because they spent time here. They came here to pillage, conquer, control, carouse and create in. They came to write.

Tennessee Williams wrote here. So did William Faulkner. Tonight, I do too.

I picked up a six pack of Abita Amber on my way down to the Quarter, where the courtyard, a small café table and comfortable chair await. The beer is satisfying, the night crisp enough to keep it adequately chilled, the atmosphere and inspiration keeps keyboard fingers warm and nimble even as the unseasonable temperature dips into the forties.

Upon my arrival, while truffle-pigging a rare, elusively available, Quarter parking spot, I encountered a couple of horse and mule drawn carriages on tour, and hoped that once ensconced in the courtyard and at my keyboard, the sounds of hooves on pavement and cobblestone would add to the mystique. Instead, the thick walls, and the condeaux location at the back of what was once a fine antebellum home (their condeaux is the former slave quarters – all 300 square feet of it) leave me isolated from most of the traffic and neighborhood noise, save the occasional police siren and barking of a few large dogs.

I type, sip beer, revel in every moment.

The silence is crashed by surprising and lengthy horn blasts from the Steamboat Natchez, announcing her return from the evening dinner cruise up the Mississippi. The long, slow, steam whistle is comforting Greek chorus to the soft clicking of my laptop keys, and far surpasses hooves on asphalt for adding ambiance.

As I type, I realize that while I may be emulating Williams, my medium would be foreign to him. I have no paper or align or platen to spin; finished work, removal of the page with a clicking flourish satisfaction is not part of the equation here. I think back a few years, to an Internet offer that came my way: a program that turns the sounds of your laptop into that of a typewriter – clicking keys, end-of-line bell, carriage return zipping – all customizable and authentic to the sounds of your favorite vintage make and model typewriter.

At the time, it seemed mildly amusing but frivolous – and also likely to become very annoying after five minutes of use. Were I to receive the same offer tonight…?

Not so much.

Another sip of beer and I set the bottle down on the table to my left. I am no gin drinker and good whiskey was not in tonight’s budget, so I am less Williams or Faulkner than I am Kerouac wannabe, settling for beer. And while the bottle of Louisiana brew beside me is flavorful and satisfying, it is an accoutrement to the evening – not an office supply.

The night continues, the chill settling in, the writer’s block plaguing me of late is going the way of the mercury and crumbling to dust like so many of the two-century old red bricks that surround me – though far more quickly. The Quarter, at least my cozy locale, is quiet. The big dog down the street is no longer agitated – or at least in for the night. It has been a solid hour since any sirens, the steamboats are at rest wharf side.

Time passes by with ease, the ideas flow at the same pace. It remains quiet, save the tapping of words coming to life.

The sound of my fingers on laptop keys is different, new to me – a remake of a classic song you know, but don’t quite recognize. . Most often my writing is done in pseudo solitude with a soundtrack of city traffic, two ambling, and tag jingling dogs, video game playing teenagers, Sinatra or sixties via plugged-in ear buds. A life in motion, with soundtrack.

This is most definitely not that.

The sounds of my keyboarding begin to amuse me: I am no Buddy Rich of the laptop. My irregular pounding lacks rhythm or anything resembling a tempo or musical beat. I doubt my seven-finger-and-both-thumbs modified hunt-and-peck method would even qualify as good scat.

I type to the beat of my own drummer until I sense a restful sleep coming on. I shut down my laptop, take a last look around, head inside, closing French doors and hurricane shutters behind me; the clicking of the various ancient hinges and latches momentarily sounds like ice cubes being dropped into a glass. I imagine the ghost of Tennessee Williams seeking to borrow a cup of gin as I lock the door, smiling, and settle in for the night

# # #

Thursday morning in a French Quarter courtyard. A little past five, and as refreshing and satisfying as last night’s beer was, the morning coffee (New Orleans, not Irish) freshly brewed, locally roasted, offers even more. The morning is crisp – I can see my breath, rising and evaporating along with the steam from the coffee. I pick up where I left off the night before, awaiting a crooked dawn, knowing that my cozy alcove will let in only a hint of the day’s sunshine. I type, sip, prepare to fully welcome the day at hand.

The coffee is superb, as is the arrival of the morning sun, peeking as it does, over and around the surrounding roofs. In an hour I will need to finish the coffee, pack up laptop and leftover beer, and head for school – our last day before a long, Easter weekend. The kids were done yesterday, but teachers have a morning of training before parents begin arriving for early afternoon conferences. A light day, off to a relaxing start.

As I sip my coffee and watch the first rays of sunlight waving hello I wonder just how strange this tableau would seem to Messrs. Williams and Faulkner; a laptop, hot coffee, a fiber bar for breakfast. No liquid morning ‘pick me up’ is needed. Not here, not now.

I finish most of the half pot of coffee I brewed, put the rest into a travel mug. I pack up, lock up, and head for the street to find my car and head to school. As I step out into the coming-to-life Quarter, I am passed by a middle-aged man riding a bike, steering his bike with one hand, holding an in-progress can of beer in the other. As he passes me, he waves with the hand holding the beer, then takes a swig from it.

As I watch him head down Burgundy Street, a perfectly logical New Orleans thought comes to mind: “He’s probably a writer”. Laughing at my own joke, I get in the car and drive off into the sunrise to go to work.

Sometimes we list while shopping

New Orleans offers ample opportunity for St. Patrick’s Day weekend revelry – no big surprise. But for those of us of the middle age persuasion who no longer fit the party animal designation, there are other, viable (and cheaper) options via which to get our ‘party on’.

Like grocery store-hopping.

Today I was out and about, and I needed to swing into the grocery store for a few items, so I swung into a Rouses Market I don’t normally frequent, simply because it was handy. As usual, I entered through produce, and had to go through the liquor/beer/wine department on my way to frozen foods. While I was making my innocent swing through libation land I was accosted by the sampling ladies.

Attractive, personable women with and the souls of carnival barkers small tables were strategically stationed along main aisles and offering up regulation shot glass size samples of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey, three types of Guinness beer and ale, and Bailey’s Irish Cream – all of which are on special this weekend, of course. This extended my five-minute quick in/quick out by a few minutes, as I was engaged in a couple of amiable product-virtues conversations with the aforementioned sample ladies.

Besides, it seems impolite simply to chug-and-run.

It isn’t just at Rouses that I have encountered this holiday weekend phenomenon, as Winn-Dixie offers the same holiday themed sampling opportunities. The days before Christmas were a bonanza of egg nog and flavored rum variations.

It occurred to me that I had written of a similar experience last summer and I had, in a Facebook post:

“I just got done with the pre-July 4th family grocery shopping excursion and must say it was quite busy and…festive. Got most everything on the list and enjoyed most of the samples. The margarita mix was good as was the tequila. Tried five of the eight available wines; one of the reds was particularly boring. Of the two rums, the citrus was very tasty. Also tried both vodkas, which took a little longer as there was a chatty-lady survey involved, but she valued my feedback and asked for more detail. For the record, the cherry vodka was very good, the sweet tea vodka…not so much.

With any luck, Amy will discover she forgot to have me get something and I may have to go back to Winn-Dixie to get it….”

So if you are ever in our town over a holiday – any holiday – party on. And don’t forget the milk and eggs. Or you’ll have to go back to get ‘em. Maybe even in separate trips. To different stores.

It’s just something else to love about New Orleans: you can go grocery shopping and be half in-the-bag long before anybody gets a chance to ask, “Paper, or plastic”?

Homeroom Homeruns

We recently had an extended homeroom (two hours with fifteen juniors I usually only see twenty minutes a day) while we coded in bubbles on ACT test forms for testing later this month. (Not as easy as you might think: between college locales to send scores to and a career interest survey plus all the general I.D. and contact info, there is a lot of #2 pencil action to work through in those ten pages).

One of the young women in the class brought in a bottle of Gatorade – not an uncommon occurrence. She was the first student there, and we were chatting as I walked to the hallway to monitor hall activity when I heard her make a choking sound, followed quickly by an emphatic, “Ewww! Grrrrrrosssss”!

“You okay”? I inquired, moderately concerned and  turning around.

“Aggh! It’s this Gatorade! Mr. Lucker, don’t ever buy cucumber Gatorade”!

“Cucumber. Cucumber. Gatorade”? I thought she was joking or had misread the label

“Yeah! I thought it is a cool color, I thought it would taste good – it DOESN’T”! She held up in disgust for me to see.

Turns out the product is actually Gatorade’s new ‘lime-cucumber’ flavor. Not one I would have plucked off the shelf, but okay.

As a few other students filtered in, they saw the girl sitting at her desk, still muttering ‘yuck’ and wiping her lips vigorously with a napkin.

“What’s with you”? Asked one.

“This Gatorade is nasty. Its cucumber”!

“Let me try it”!

This is not an uncommon thing at school; students frequently share beverages, but being aware of the germ potential, their lips never touch the bottle – they simply raise the bottle high and pour. Their accuracy in hitting open mouths and nothing else is remarkable. If only their concentration skills extended to academics.

The first boy to take a gulp shrugged and said, “It tastes stupid”. He offered it to another young man, who looked at the flavor and declined, asking (logically, I thought) “Who wants to drink cucumbers”? The girls filtering in and offered a taste all declined, most scrunching up their noses and/or shaking their heads. Finally the bottle was passed to one of our football players who asked for it with a brusque, “Let me try that”!

Matt* poured a big swig down from a range of about six inches above his mouth, then went about smacking his lips repeatedly – reminiscent of Bugs Bunny rapidly chewing a carrot before asking “What’s up, Doc”? He swallowed, then thought for minute.

“Tastes like salad” was his matter-of-fact reply, adding hopefully, “Can I finish it”?

“Salad? Ewww! That’s disgusting”! Exclaimed a just arriving young woman to multiple murmurs of agreement.

I just shook my head and turned my focus to the crowded hallway.

The morning continued uneventfully bubbling in wide-ranging info on our ACT forms until we reached the section that asked for college locales to have test scores sent to. This required going to the separate instruction booklet they had been given and navigating a lengthy, small-font list of college and university codes. It was a bit confusing. I assisted those that needed it and returned to the front of the room for the next stage of our step-by-step, by-the-book process.

“Okay, now take a look at box ‘R’ on your forms”. I started to run through the instructions when one of the kids stated “Mr. Lucker, how you know all these forms and stuff”?

“It helps that I have a junior in my own home, so I’m getting proficient in all this ACT and college stuff. Now, in box ‘R’….”

“You have kids”?

“Three of them. Now the first thing in box ‘R’…” I was holding my copy of the form up to show them

“You got three kids”? Said one with surprise.

“Yes. Now, in box ‘R’…”

“You got a wife”?

“I do. Now…”

“I knew that he had a wife ‘cause I had his class last year. But I didn’t know you had three kids, Mr. Lucker”! Responded one girl, who indeed, was a student of mine last year.

Deep breath. “Okay. I have a wife, three kids, two boys and a girl, one grandson, two dogs – one big, one small…the goldfish died. I’m five-five, wear a size nine shoe and my blood type is O-positive. Can we finish this thing”? I was still holding the form in the air. There was a moment of silence as the class, staring at me, digested my statistics.

“Your fish died”? asked one girl with noticeable sadness in her voice.

I sighed. “Years ago. Can we finish this thing”? I waved the ACT form as a flag of surrender. Or ‘charge!’ – I’m not sure.

Their heads bobbed back down toward their desks and we finished box ‘R’ (and the rest of the form) without difficulty or detour.

Just another start to the day in room 261.

Oh, The Places He Took Us!

The past few days I have noticed a lot of Facebook posts celebrating Dr. Seuss on what would have been his 109th birthday. Being an aficionado of the good doctor, I join in the commemorations. In the numerous Seuss references, one thing puzzled me; so many of the tributes I saw mentioned Horton Hears a Who as his seminal work.

Huh.

I have nothing against the good elephant, but in the Seuss pantheon, I would think Horton probably sits at the far end of the banquet table, next to the kitchen door. His story did get made into a movie, but still.

I looked it up, and Horton is not even one of doc’s top ten sellers of all time on anybody’s list (Amazon, Publisher’s Weekly, etc.) always ranking behind…Fox in Sox. (Really? Fox in Sox? Hop on Pop I get. Fox in Sox? Not so much.)

We all know the Seuss stalwarts: The Grinch, The Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, Sam I Am, et al – true legends, each, starring in classic stories of life. But for my money you can’t beat Yertle the Turtle.

Yertle rocks – or at least, the story does. The hero of Yertle is actually a ‘simple turtle named Mack’, who at the end of the story bests the overbearing, eponymous Yertle, a turtle king who abuses his pond subjects in order to further his own ways. Not content to benevolently rule his little pond, King Yertle gets  bored and then gets dreams of turtle grandeur:

He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one’s back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.

Eventually, more turtles are summoned, and more, until Yertle can see well beyond his pond, and well…

“All mine!” Yertle cried. “Oh, the things I now rule!
I’m king of a cow! And I’m king of a mule!”

Mack, the turtle at the bottom of the stack, brings the whole escapade to a satisfying, muddy splat of an end by sneezing.

Good stuff, Maynard.

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories (Gertrude McFuzz and The Big Brag were the other two entries in the tome) was one of my favorite books growing up, and my 1958 first edition sits in my living room bookshelf to this day. I read Yertle to grandson Felix when he visited in November, and will happily do so in the future. Great literature is always great literature.

If you don’t know the story of Yertle the Turtle, get a copy. You’ll love Mack.

Another Dr. Seuss classic that is close to my heart is Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, Seuss’ last book and certainly one of his most enduring. The book chronicles a future ahead where choices will have to be made and the opportunities that abound, while freely admitting that there will be challenges:

“Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind.”

One of the many big payoffs comes toward the end of the book and this oft-quoted guarantee:

“Will you succeed? Yes, you will indeed. (98¾% guaranteed.)”

The book has become a staple of gifting high school and college grads to the point where, in many years, the book is outsold only by the Bible as a go-to gift for a grad. My daughter received her copy when she graduated from high school, then she returned the favor a few years later when I finally completed my B.A. at age forty-six. That day I also received another copy of OTPYG, from my friend Kay, an employment counseling colleague of mine. We once read the book to a group of unemployed job seekers that we had been co-teaching for a couple of days. It made for a moving end to some at times intense training.

It’s a delightfully powerful book.

Then of course, there is Gerald McBoing-Boing. Gerald is a six-year old boy who speaks in noises instead of words, much to the chagrin of his exasperated parents.

They say it all started
when Gerald was two—
That’s the age kids start talking—least, most of them do.
Well, when he started talking,
you know what he said?
He didn’t talk words—
he went boing boing instead!

Gerald McBoing-Boing was one of Seuss’s first stories and it was made into a film that won an Oscar in 1950 for best animated short, which eventually led to a series of cartoons. The Gerald artwork is far removed from what we know as ‘classic Seuss’ but it is a brilliant piece of work. Check out the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsyQDmEopw

You gotta love a kid who speaks like a springy door stopper – but of course, people don’t. Gerald is shunned by kids and other adults before finding out that being different has ts advantages. It is true genius, a wonderful lesson in empathy. Gerald alone is reason enough to tip the old striped top hat to Dr. Seuss.

If you haven’t known of some of these other Suessian delights, it’s time to get with it, still time to take flight. It isn’t just the animals in various apparel and stolen holidays and weird colored eggs.

He gave us so much more than Horton.

Now don’t write me about being a Horton hater – I most certainly am not. Horton is cool, I’m just not sure he is an ‘A’ list sort of guy. Horton Hears a Who is okay, but something always seemed like it was missing. I always thought Horton could be something more if he had been part of a trilogy, ala Lord of the Rings. Think about the cinematic potential of Horton Hears a Who, Horton Touches a Where? and, of course, Horton Tastes a WHAT?

Of course, Hollywood would then want to make Horton into something of a Gandolf type, so maybe not.

Now…just try to get THAT mixed imagery out of your head.

At least I didn’t go for a cheap There’s a Wocket in My Pocket!  laugh.

Happy birthday, doc!

A bag of roses

There is nothing like a true tale of romance, especially around Valentine’s Day.

I spent the bulk of my thirties working in the hospitality business, starting at the Holiday Inn Metrodome in Minneapolis. The hotel was a very nice, well run property right off the edge of downtown and along with the usual array of sports fans and business travelers, its setting in a vibrant theatre and restaurant hub made us a prime locale for many a romantic getaway for local folks .

I had easily mastered the art of making myself indispensable to my hotel guests. Unlike a lot of more upscale hotels, our front door staff wore a lot of different hats. As a multiple threat bellman, van driver and concierge I would greet guests, get them settled in, then provide as much assistance as I could for needs logistical and practical. Dinner suggestions and reservations, and transportation to-and-from various spots via one of our hotel vans were easy ways to make a special impression. Our corporate clientele (especially our regulars) was my specialty, but I was also pretty adept and quick thinking when it came to playing Cupids assistant for weekend trysters, honeymoon couples and other assorted tête-à-tête situations. By the time you were checked in and had your keys, I had you set to go.

My most memorable tale of hotel romance began one Friday afternoon just after Labor Day.

I had just come on duty for my three-to-eleven shift when a middle-aged guy alone in a car pulls up at the front door. I greet him warmly, he returns the pleasantries and I walk-and-talk him to the front desk. There is only one desk clerk on duty, and she is with a customer; my ideal scenario for getting to know guests quickly. I ask him the purpose of his visit, which turns out to be a surprise weekend getaway for him and his wife, commemorating both their twentieth wedding anniversary, and his wife’s recent promotion at work. Noting that he was there by himself, he explained that his wife was working until five, and that he wanted to get checked in and everything ready in the room so he could pick her up at work, then bring her right to the hotel instead of home – a big part of the surprise, as she was under the impression that they were simply going out for dinner with friends. He told me he had gone to great lengths to set up the whole ruse and hoped she would share his excitement.

He was pleased when I explained our van service. He already had dinner reservations made, so I quickly firmed up their transportation to and from dinner. I also offered to drive him to pick his wife up at work, but he wanted to play out his planned scenario; she wondering all the while why they were driving a route that was not sending them toward their south Minneapolis home.

We went out to the man’s car and started unloading his luggage; one suitcase for each of them, the man commenting that he had his sister-in-law pack his wife’s bag, so everything she should need would be in place, and would actually match. He had obviously done his homework and he was quite pleased about it. He also had a box with some miscellaneous stuff in it (chocolates, a gift-wrapped box)  and a cooler filled with ice and beverages. As I loaded the last of the items on the luggage cart, the man carefully reached into the front seat and pulled out a brown shopping bag, the top rolled over neatly, and he handed it to me. “Here, Mark, please put this on the top – and be very careful with it”.

It was very light and I couldn’t imagine what was in it, but I held it carefully in my right hand while steadily guiding my loaded cart through the lobby, onto the elevator, and up to the fourteenth floor and room 1429 – one of our two ‘honeymoon suites’ – complete with whirlpool for two, elevated bed and panoramic view of the Minneapolis skyline.

I gently placed the brown paper bag on the bed, set the cooler on the floor in the corner, and the suitcases on luggage stands while he proceeded to case the joint. He was obviously very pleased, and when I asked him if there was anything else I could assist him with, he sheepishly said, “Yeah, do you have a few minutes…and…are you very artistic”?

In my experience, not a typical guest response.

I explained that I just had wrapped up a one month stint of having some of my poetry-artwork displayed at a local coffeehouse, so I had some aesthetic expertise, and would try to be of whatever assistance I could. My curiosity was now really going to town. With an excited smile, he grabbed the bag off the bed and thrust it back into my hands. “I need your help spreading these around the room”! It was a shopping bag full of red rose petals, harvested just before he drove to the hotel.

From his wife’s backyard garden.

This was a new one on me. The next few minutes involved some impromptu interior decorating teamwork, as we looked at the layout of the room and brainstormed how to scatter the rose petals for maximum visual effect. We decided that a path of petals leading from the door was a must; from there we branched off, one pathway leading to the hot tub, the other to the bed. Of course, the bed itself would need a liberal upholstering of red , but a bit of a clash with the teal and rust colored bedspread. My solution was to do a nice turndown of the bedspread; the fleecy beige blanket underneath made a much less cluttered canvas for our rose petal artistry.

If I do say so myself. It ended up looking pretty sharp.

By the time we were finished, it all looked impressive, but he realized to his dismay that we were out of rose petals, and that he had wanted to save some for sprinkling in the hot tub and for…something else he had in mind he did not divulge, but did grin and blush about. With disappointment he asked if we could pick up some of what we had already scattered and redistribute them, but I had another thought: there was a florist nearby that could probably accommodate our petal needs fairly cheaply. He though it worth a shot, so after he parked his car I drove him to the florist (whose staff had assisted me many times) adding a half-joking suggestion that maybe he could even get his wife a corsage for the evening out. He thought that a grand idea; something he hadn’t thought of.

Just doin’ my job.

Hearing my telling of the guy’s story, the staff at Riverside Floral was more than accommodating. Ten minutes later we were on our way back to the hotel with a prom-like wrist corsage, a plastic bag full of red rose petals, and some sound advice I have kept on hand to this day: don’t put the rose petals in the hot tub until after the water had cooled a bit, as they would just shrivel up and not be very attractive or romantic in hot water.

That’s information I have yet to utilize personally – though it came in handy a few other times with other hotel guests at the Holiday Inn and elsewhere, and in few random conversations throughout the years with people looking for that little something extra in the romance department.

Good information is always useful somewhere along the line.

We returned to the hotel, I double checked with room service to make sure the champagne the guy had arranged for with his reservation would be on ice in the room by five, we said our goodbyes, and he graciously thanked me both verbally and monetarily. I didn’t see the man until their six-forty-five van run to the restaurant for their seven o’clock dinner reservation.

I saw them get off the elevator, and got my first glimpse at his wife. She, too was middle-aged, svelte, shoulder-length blonde hair, wearing a stylish, basic black dress, hip black pumps…and a wrist corsage she seemed to find awkward. Her dress was simple and stylish, but not in high-school homecoming dance way, which made the corsage seem a bit whimsical. Her sister had put together a very nice ensemble.  Her husband and I exchanged waves as he stopped by the desk to take care of something, and she walked over to the bellstand. She looked at me, thrust out her hand while shaking her head and barely suppressing a smile. “And you must be Mark, the guy who helped with all of this”. She held up her flower-bedecked left wrist, twisting it around to see it from all angles.

“Yes, ma’am. I guess I am. And how are you this evening”? I said uneasily, swallowing hard.  Her husband walked by, said “It’ll be just a minute” and disappeared into the gift shop.

“Well” she said, a bit incredulously, “I feel a bit like I’m going to the prom. And I haven’t been to a prom in thirty years”. She held up her left arm, twisted it back and forth a few times, perplexed. “I understand this part was all your idea”?

“Umm, yes, ma’am…I guess it was”. I replied – more than a bit self-consciously.

She shook her head, smiling. “Let’s seeeeee. You, my sister…I wonder who else is in on this”? I could only shrug in ignorance.

To my relief, her husband emerged from the gift shop, said “I see you’ve met Mark”.

“I have” she responded, with a chuckle. I got the impression that she was finding the whole situation a bit ridiculous, and didn’t want to hurt his feelings or ego. We got into the van, had an uneventful drive to the restaurant and I picked them up after dinner and returned them to the hotel. They were both gracious, and he was a very generous tipper.

She had not yet mentioned the rose petals.

The next day I was standing in the lobby and the wife walked up to me, greeting me warmly, and extending her hand. She seemed far more at ease than in our first meeting. I was scheduled to drive them downtown for a day of shopping and sightseeing. She thanked me for helping her husband set up her surprise weekend. I asked her if everything was okay with the room and with her stay over all, if there was anything else I could do to make their stay better.

“Oh, everything is just fine” she replied, cheerfully, adding, “Last night…was… just…just…” she seemed a bit sheepish, and at a loss for…more genteel words. “It was all wonderful. Last night was…wonderful. Everything was”. She paused, looking at the floor, seeming a bit embarrassed, then adding with a chuckle “The wrist corsage was a bit much. And the roses in the hot tub…” She shook her head and smiled, then sighed deeply. “And I understand you helped with sprinkling the roses, and getting some of them”?

“Yes, ma’am. His idea. I just helped him get some extra petals. He brought most of them with him”.

Her eyes opened wide, she shook her head ruefully and chuckled “Ohhhh, yeah. He told me all about THAT! Those rose petals were from MY garden, did he tell you that? I work hard on that garden”!

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure where this was going. But at least she was still smiling, still shaking her head in disbelief.

“You know, I was going to deadhead those roses for fall this weekend, anyway”. She paused, looked at me with mock seriousness. “If this had been in June…you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation. The only flowers here would be for his funeral”! She laughed heartily.

“So it’s okay, then”? I asked gingerly.

“Oh, It’s fine. I’m sure he deadheaded them properly”. She stood there for a moment, shaking her head again and laughing to herself. “This was just so not ‘him’ – getting my sister involved, planning a surprise weekend…rose petals…corsages…” her voice trailed off. “Crazy”.

“It’s been a really great weekend. Thank you, Mark”. She grabbed my hand gently and shook it warmly.

“You’re welcome. And congratulations on the promotion”.

“He told you about that, too”?

“He said it was part of the reason for the celebration along with your anniversary”.

“Wow”. Was all she could muster at that point. She seemed more than a little surprised that I had that information. She just stared at me.  ”Wow”.

Her husband came off the elevator, waved, walked up to us. “Ready to head downtown”? I asked jauntily. We got in the van and headed for the Nicollet Mall. The whole drive there I couldn’t help from glancing at them in my rearview mirror: when they sat down, she pulled him close to her side, her arm intertwined with his, her head on his shoulder. Sitting side-by-side on the bench seat of that garish green Ford Econoline van, you may have thought I was driving a couple of Hollywood hot shots to a red carpet somewhere in a shiny black stretch.

Looking in the mirror, I knew the shoe was now on the other foot. He was the one now who seemed genuinely surprised.

That made one of us.

‘Always’. A real life romantic fable for Valentines week

February fourteenth.

Whether you’ve been in a relationship for sixty years or twenty minutes, the day means something more than ‘Oh, its Thursday, Hamburger Helper for dinner night’. Even if it is, for most of us, this particular Thursday falling on February fourteenth, it probably better not be.

Just sayin’.

One of my favorite real life stories of romance I played only a tangential role in, but I am willing to bet it is still being remembered or being retold by someone, somewhere, twenty-plus years after the fact.

The locale for this tale was the Holiday Inn Metrodome in Minneapolis, where I worked as a bellman. The HIM was right off the edge of downtown and the University of Minnesota campus, a vibrant hub of theatre, restaurant and bar action known as the Seven Corners area. And as the name implied, we were a two-minute drive to the Metrodome, which made us a prime locale for professional and college sports fans.

The hotel’s location also made it a prime sport for romance. The fact that hotel offered shuttle bus service and van transportation within a five-mile radius of the hotel was also a nice draw – for guests and for bellmen. Guests could park their cars and party on with us as chauffeurs. The van driving part of the job not only added to the variety, it was also a prime income-generator. Add in the fact that we. as bellmen, were also the hotel’s concierge, and we could develop a pretty all-encompassing relationship with many of our guests.

We had a ring binder with the daily van schedule of scheduled runs (corporate clients, Dome events and such) and could schedule other runs at guest request. We had three vehicles at our disposal: a twenty-five passenger bus, and two small vans – an eight passenger and a five passenger. You generally tried to schedule runs to maximize use, and keep dealing with the same guests. If you were the guy who scheduled the run, and it was during your shift, you could add your initials to indicate it was going to be your run. Otherwise, the runs were made by whoever was available when it needed to be done.

I was a bit older than most of my college-aged colleagues and I quickly mastered the art of making myself a constant presence in my guests stay. Meet you at the door, help you with your bags and check- in, inquiring all along why you were here, and what I could do to make your stay easier and more enjoyable came pretty naturally to me. Oftentimes, by the time I had delivered guests and their bags to their room, I also had a dinner reservation made and the van run scheduled to get them there.

Yeah, I was pretty good. Enjoyed the job immensely, too.

One Saturday night I had some guests in town from Arizona; a mid-fiftyish couple who had grown up in the neighborhood around the hotel – before redevelopment and glitz. Returning to town for a family gathering, they had come in a few days early to revisit some old haunts and friends, and to celebrate the wife’s birthday. Meeting them on check in, I ingratiated myself (in part with my knowledge of the neighborhood as I also had family ties to the area) by setting up their dinner reservations, and scheduling their ride to the restaurant. Inquiring about a pickup and return to the hotel afterwards, they told me they would be meeting some friends after dinner for an evening of dancing, a favorite pastime of their youth, when the neighborhood featured three or four prominent places for young people to dance.

We commiserated about how those days were long gone; the college-oriented area now was loaded with plenty of hot spots featuring live music but very little dancing. I asked where they would be headed out to dance and they said they didn’t know for sure, but their friends knew of a place where they could at least get in a few spins around the floor to music ‘they could all relate to’.

Somewhere along the line, as we headed upstairs to get them checked in, the husband mentioned the fact that he was looking forward to dancing with his wife to ‘their’ song: the Irving Berlin standard, ‘Always’. “You mean ‘I’ll be loving you…always’ – that ‘Always’”? I asked. “Yep.” the man replied. “We danced to it on our first date at the old Marigold Ballroom, and it was the first dance at our wedding”. His wife added a skeptical “Wherever we go, I hope they have it or know it”! We got them checked in as I promised to see them for the ride to dinner.

But first, I had some memorable-evening-planning to do. First, I went to see the piano player.

Our compact lobby lounge had an upstairs; a balcony area overlooking the lobby. Most of the week it was quiet, many guests even unaware there was an upstairs to the bar area. But on weekend nights, the black baby grand up there was manned by Bill Duna, a music professor and masterful pianist. Bill was very personable and musically knowledgeable, always game for serenading guests (and staff) with unusual requests: all he needed to set a scene was the song needed and a cue from me and no matter what he was playing, it would suddenly segue into whatever song it was I had requested. (This was usually accomplished with a hand gesture or head nod of some sort, and I often imagined myself as Rick Blaine to Bill’s Sam – but that is a whole other post).

Asking Bill if he knew ‘Always’ was silly; he responded with mock annoyance by simply knocking out the chorus on his ivories – punctuated with an ending flourish and a big smile.

Ready to go.

Thus, when our happy couple stepped off the elevator and into the lobby, a quick “Oh, Bill”! turned a jaunty ‘Sunny Side of the Street’ into a much more melancholy and sensual ‘Always’ – causing a few lobby patrons to look around bewildered and stopping the couple dead-in-their-tracks. Puzzled, they looked all around the lobby before realizing where the piano music was coming from – above them, on the balcony. Then they looked up at Bill, smiled and waved, they both looked at me. I told them I thought since it was ‘their song’ we might as well have Bill serenade them out the door. They waved again to Bill, and we got them into the van for their ride to dinner.

As was our practice, before pulling away from the hotel, I grabbed the microphone of our Motorola two-way radio to informed the operator on duty that I was out of the lobby for a bit, headed downtown to Murray’s restaurant. Only this time my report was less a procedural courtesy, more a cue to Todd, our operator that night. Todd was a college student who nicely supplemented his income as a wedding singer. I had also asked him if he knew ‘Always’ (he of course did) and if he would be willing to sing a verse or two for our guests over the radio as I drove them to dinner.

I didn’t know he’d do the entire song.

As we pulled away from the hotel, I radioed my destination, got an o.k. from Todd, said “Ten-four” and hung my mic on the little silver clip on the dash by my right knee. We had no sooner made the turn out of the driveway when the Motorola crackled to life with Todd’s A cappella baritone:

“I’ll be loving you, always
With a love that’s true, always

When the things you’ve planned
Need a helping hand
I will understand
Always…”

Thinking Todd was finished, I started to apologize for the sound quality – but Todd wasn’t finished!

“Days may not be fair, always
That’s when I’ll be there, always
Not for just an hour
Not for just a day
Not for just a year
But always…”

The couple was laughing heartily, the husband shaking his head as we drove through downtown traffic as Todd continued to croon away on the Motorola, until I keyed the microphone so his audience of two could have their applause heard back at the hotel, where, I found out upon my return, a small crowd of staff had converged to hear Todd singing to my passengers.

When we arrived at Murray’s, the couple asked his name, and if they could express their thanks to Todd, and I gave them the radio mic to do so while I went around to get the door for them. As they left the van, the man pulled out his wallet, peeled off a couple of twenties and a ten, instructing me to give one twenty to Todd, the ten to Bill, and take myself out to dinner with the other twenty.

“You know” the husband said “Sitting in the back of that van with Todd singing on the radio, was like being back in high school in the back seat of my father’s Ford listening to A.M. radio. Thank you, Mark. And thank Todd, too”.

We shook hands and they headed into Murray’s for dinner, both shaking their heads and laughing at their mini-concert for two.

We were big on teamwork at the Holiday Inn.