Odd Jobs/ Working my way in the hotel world

Did you ever wonder what it's like to dress up in a silly outfit and try to do manual labor? These things were hot and sweaty even in the winter. Also, imagine if you will, a 6'7" Bellman. It was expected that I could carry many  bags at once, which I could. No one messed with me, and I was always very polite. Even when the European Royalty Bus Tour came through Monterey. They were retired princes and princesses and a few retired dukes thrown in and they tipped nickels and dimes. Even in '77 nickels and dimes were insulting. We were a partial residential hotel and so there were retired folk who lived in the hotel because their family didn't want them or they had outlived their family.  There was an eighty year old woman who come down to the lobby every Friday night all dressed up and sit, waiting for her mother to come pick her up. At ten o'clock she would go back up to her room. Mrs. Hitchox was bedridden and blind. I took her dinner every night. She had outlived her children and husband and there were no grandchildren. She had been in Moscow during the Russian Revolution. Her father was with the American Embassy. At 14, she was being courted by a very rich Russian Prince, but her family felt she was too young. When the revolution came, they had to leave and her family took the rail to China. Years later, in college in NYC, she found her Russian Prince driving a taxi cab one night.

You learn to hate the sound this thing makes.

One morning while I was still a houseman, I was striping beds and out plops a wallet stuffed with hundreds and a whole bunch of traveler checks besides. I was idealistic then. I knew if I counted it, I'd be tempted to keep the cash at least. I took it straight away down and turned it in to the manager. It turned out there was a thousand in cash and about another 2 in checks. It belonged to a cab driver from NYC who had hidden it because he had a hooker up to the room and didn't want to be ripped off. No reward, but the management decided I could be trusted, so they promoted me to being a bellman and promoted me again later.