MY LIFE LONG AGO AT THE VALLEY INN MOTEL

In 1967 I was 19 and working from midnight till 8:00 AM as a bellman at the Valley Inn Motel on Central Blvd. 

Every hotel or full service motel has its own distinct personality at night.  The tone can be set by the night desk clerk as he or she mixes it up on a nightly basis with the regulars and the passers through.  

The Valley Inn Motel on Central Blvd. owned by the Valley Inn & Country Club was in full decay mode by the mid-sixties when Paul Sanders and I worked the front desk.  The regulars knew what we weren't and the first-timers would soon be underwhelmed.

My most frequent role as bellman was to move guests from one hot room to another.  Entering the replacement room,  I would quickly turn down the thermostat and noise would be made as if cooling would soon occur.  Eventually, guests would stop complaining and simply go to sleep.

Our regulars included "Mr. Fried Chicken."  An auditor found that an odd name on the registry until it was explained that twice a week he would come in with a different lady, not give us his name and, at 2 AM order two fried chicken dinners from Higgies, the only all night restaurant in Brownsville at the time.

Paul Sanders, the night desk clerk, was 21, the son of a Lutheran minister, engaged to be married, but had suddenly dropped out of Oregon State University one semester shy of graduation.  He explained that his whole life was already programmed and he didn't like that feeling.  

Paul had traveled extensively thoughout Mexico, had tired of a relationship with a profesora at the Universidad Nacional de Mexico and had taken the poorest paying, but most interesting job he found at the border, making $1.10 an hour for booking guests, checking up, answering the switchboard, pacifiying complainers and pontificating all night his world view to any who would listen.  

I claimed .80 per hour plus non-existent tips for putting two sofa cushions together in the manager's office and sleeping till morning.  I would keep one ear open to the lobby conversation in case it interested me enough to join in.

Of course, I was always on call.

Typically, I would be repeating the room number to myself as I headed down the long hall, finally realizing what my mission was after many steps.

During the night I would have to take over the switchboard as Paul would be seriously trying to balance the night's books.  

The switchboard connected all of the motel rooms and all of the country club phones.  I would have to find a long distance operator for any long distance calls.  For room to room, it was a simply matter of  plugging a flexible cord into that room's slot.  A mechanical timer reminded us to issue wake up calls if we remembered to set the timer.

If a single phone was off the hook at any of the V.I.C.C. homes, it would take away one of our lines, so I would usually have to drive over there, knock on that door and explain the problem.

Brownsville Observer editor at 19

One 50ish lady, after getting my knock one night, left her phone off the hook the next night, only to answer the door clad in bra and panties.  I did not take advantage and she stopped that trick after a couple nights.

Although the Valley Inn was run down, the Travel Lodge across the street was more so.  Plus, we had the connection with the country club with singer/actor Dean Martin supposedly owning one of the country club units.  His pending arrival was the occasional rumor that never materialized but was used to put us on full alert.  

My big celebrity guest was country singer Rusty Draper.  I had to move him and his wife from a hot motel room to a suite at the country club.  The large number of bags I loaded created visions of a five dollar tip in my head.  

Draper used his thumb to flip me a quarter from across the room.  "Get yourself a beer kid."

Santiago Na-me', the classical guitarist with the fake last name pronounced "na.may" usually serenaded a girl in the parking lot after the club closed.  Paul always gave the nonpaying singer a room not yet tidied up by the maids.  

Santiago also played at Michael's Pizza next to the Gibson store further down Central Blvd. 

Pierre, a 5'3" shrimper from Morgantown, LA would entertain us with stories from the Gulf.  Pierre kept a wash cloth and an 8 penny nail in his pocket to demonstrate to anyone who would watch how he could drive a nail into a board with his palm, leathered from years of heading shrimp.

FWIW, I ran into Paul or bumped into him a few years later. 

"I'm Jesus Christ," he said as stumbled into me.

Obviously drunk, sporting a long beard, I quickly ascertained that Paul had become a shrimper and succumbed to the "wine, women and song" lifestyle for which they were notorious.

Oh well, maybe it was better than the programmed life in Oregon he dreaded.