From the editor: 1968. . . I was working as a as night desk clerk at the Valley Inn and Country Club on Central Boulevard, a rundown motel well past its prime, necessitating changing guests from one room with inoperative airconditioning to another one no better.
More often than not, I would drive the bar employees home to Matamoros after my shift in my '59 VW Beatle, dropping 4 guys off at a block of rundown houses with a single water spigot for an entire city block. (The motel had an International Travelall for such purposes, but we were not allowed to drive it across the border.)
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| Brownsville Observer editor, 1967-8, living on Hackberry Lane |
Singer Dean Martin was alleged to be one of the VICC owners and the prospect of his appearance was repeatedly used to motivate us to work harder, but, of course, he never showed.
Rusty Draper, a country singer, was the only celebrity I remember checking in, although I recall a rich dude calling the switchboard at 1:00 AM demanding a Mercedes Benz mechanic immediately. (I did call the Philips 66 next to Fed Mart, but they had only one employee working and he could not leave the premises.)
A regular customer showed up two or three times a week, each time with a different lady, but refused to give his name. I always checked him in as "Mr. Fried Chicken" since at around 2:00 AM he would order two fried chicken dinners from Higgie's Cafe downtown.
Anyway, 1968 was among the most eventful years in U.S. history; assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. by Sirhan Sirhan and Martin Luther King by James Earl Ray, NASA's Apollo 8 orbiting the moon, the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, passing of the Civil Rights Bill, riots in various U.S. cities.
submitted by Rene Torres
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