The Three Stooges

What a glorious year it was, the year of 2001. It was one of the best years of my life. The Emerald Inn where I had been managing for a lot of years was being sold, and I had been promised a full year's salary in severance if I stayed until the sale was complete and oversaw the transference of the hotel to the new owners. I had never had that kind of cash at one time, and I was looking forward to taking the entire summer of 2001 off. I had been working seven days a week for years, and quite frankly, I was wiped out.

Not only was that happening, but my wonderful daughter was getting married, and my son and his wife were expecting their first child, so I was about to become Grandpa for the first time. To top it off , the Seattle Mariners were in the process of winning a record 116 games that season.(I live and die with the Seattle Mariners.) Life could not be any better!

It all went as planned. I walked my daughter down the aisle in a picture book wedding in April, and on June 1st, the hotel changed hands, and I had thousands of dollars in the bank. Then on June10th, Tai Robert---------came into the world, and I was the proudest Grandpa this world has ever seen. What a beautiful child he was. His mother was of Japanese heritage, and of course my son was a handsome dude,( how could he not be, after all I am his father.) The Mariners continued their winning way, and Seattle even hosted the All Star Game. I took the entire summer off and spent time on the beach, eating, and laying around all day. Life was good.

I had planned on going back into the hotel world in the Fall, and the summer went by quickly. It was now Sept. 11, and tragedy struck with lightening speed, turning the whole nation upside down.
It was that week that i received a call from a hotel owner, a competitor of my former hotel, and he had gone in partnership and had purchased a lovely extended stay hotel in the downtown area. Would I be interested in being the General Manager of his property? Would I. I had always wanted to manage an extended stay hotel because I was quite frankly, burned out on complaining tourists and having a complete turn over every day. With an extended stay hotel, the guests are set for weeks and even months at a time. The hotel was located between two mega-hospitals, and Seattle University was only two blocks away. It was perfect. Right? Wrong, er rather I should say"Wong" because it was there that i went to work for Mr, Wong, and his two partners, whom I soon dubbed the "Three Stooges"

next-two wongs don't make a right.

When House Was A Home-Cedar Street Revisted

We were so excited. We were moving to the big time. There were two streets in Wallace that had kind of prestigious addresses, King Street and Cedar Street. We were moving to Cedar Street. Ah yes, the rich street where doctors, lawyers and the giants of the mining industry lived.
We lived right next door to HJ Hull of Hull, Hull, and Hull. Straight across the street were the Rices, and two bankers who actually owned the First National Bank of Wallace. The next block down had Dr. Fitzgerald, Dr. Dyer, and other mining executives. One block up had Dr. Ellis and Henry L Day of Day Mines. Yes, indeed, we had arrived.

OK, we were not rich by any stretch of the imagination. My Dad was a miner. So, what we doing nestled between all of these rich folks? Well, you see, my Dad wanted to give us a home that we would be proud of, and what a home it was! No, it was not like the glass mansions of today, it was old, very, very old, but oh so full of charm and personality. We had four bedrooms, a full kitchen, an old-fashioned pantry with actual flour and vegetable bins, a dining room, a living room, french doors, two bathrooms, and an elegant staircase with a rich wood banister that lead to the bedrooms on the second floor. We had to pay a king's ransom to purchase it. Dad paid a whole $9,500.00.Try to buy even a garage for that price in today's market!

The difference between then and now is not just the price, but you see, my Dad gave us a home, not just a house.Now, so many buy houses, but they don't buy homes, and there is a vast difference. Cedar Street was a home, and I still get misty eyed when I drive past that old house on Cedar. When I was in my thirties, my folks sold the old place and moved to Osburn because the house on Cedar was simply way too big for an aging couple to maintain. I was so sad when they moved, but the memories of Cedar Street will never die in my heart.Every Christmas, wherever I am living, I think of Cedar Street, and my heart grows warm. That old house is Christmas to me.

For you see, we had a home, not a house.

My 20,950th Birthday

We celebrate our lives one day each year, the day that we came into this world. My birthday by the year is October 16th. So , on that day, I reflect on the past , prognosticate about the future, and start a new year on my life. But, what if we measured our birthday by the day instead of the year.? How would we live our lives?

I found out today that I have lived 20,950 days on this earth. Wow, makes me sound really old!
Now, while I can remember most years of my life and a little about what I did in those specific years, but,hm,-can't seem to remember much about those 20,950 specific days. I was taught as a child to make everyday count. So, if I start today, and make everyday count, I am sure my life will be much different than when I total my age in years. What do you think?

I have seen 20,950 sunrises and sunsets. Each of them begin and end a life. Each day is a new life.

I read a great quote about measuring your life in days. "your time is short, don't waste it living someone else's' life."

Today, my life is a blank sheet of paper, the story is untold, and I alone can write this chapter. What will I write today?

Happy 20,950th birthday to me, and Happy Birthday to all of you.

Caution Ahead-Men and Tax Dollars At Work

The old river road was just too washed out and dangerous for the mailman to deliver the mail to the river residents, so he was using the long route to make sure the residents all got their bills and letter from their loved ones on time. One problem-the Postal Service said that the extra miles were not in the contract. So, the families stopped getting their mail, and could no longer know how Aunt Matilda's arthritis was doing. Mind you, they had no idea why they were no longer getting mail because----Drum roll please-the Postal Service had mailed out notices that that the mail was not being delivered anymore! Wow, is our government on the ball or what?

Recently, the Federal Government decided to bail out the poor old banks because they had made atrocious business decisions and needed the government to bail them out. OK, so far so bad, but the banks, already supposedly in financial distress decided to celebrate their good fortune. Bank of America threw a ten million dollar Super Bowel Party and Carnival, and Wells Fargo planned a junket for some of their good folks to Las Vegas for a grand celebration. To Wells Fargo's credit, excuse the pun, they cancelled the Vegas trip after Congress said"Whoa Nelly" Bank of America ,however, said that the ten million they spent on the Super Bowel bash didn't come out of the bail out money they had received. Excuse me! if they had an extra ten million lying around for a party, please tell why they needed 45 billion in bail out money?

Now we have before Congress an almost trillion dollar bail out plan for whole economy. Included in this stimulus is millions set aside for stop smoking programs, and STD programs. Please, please, tell me how these will stimulate the economy? The States are salivating over the prospects of getting their hands in the pot of gold. Schools are drawing up plans for ridiculous programs, and Alaska is planning on building a bridge to the North Pole. Just kidding about that one. Remember their plan to build a bridge to nowhere last year?

OK, I know we need to do something, and we need to do it quickly, but every dollar should be used to create real jobs, and real needs of we, the people. We are only going to get one crack at this, and if this huge stimulus does not work, you had better learn how to read and speak Chinese very quickly. The Federal Government will probably send us all notices that they have merged with China, but we will never know because the Post Office had gone out of business. Indeed!

"And how many will there be in your room?"

Why did we always ask the question when checking a guest in a room? Well, of course there was the profit of getting more money for double or single occupancy, and then there were other reasons. Some people were just downright sneaky. Interpretation? They were planning a party.



I know, I know, that is stunning news to you, but it is true. You just can't trust some people.







Chuck, as we called him, was a high school senior, the son of the manager, and the grandson of the owner, and he was shall we say, a little slack on his duties as the swing clerk. Let me tell you a little bit about Chuckie. He took his school studies very seriously. We were discussing cites and states and I asked him a few geography questions. I bet him that he could not name the west coast states. I was wrong. Not only could Chuckie name some states , he knew some additional ones. I was really surprised to learn Los Angeles was a state. Somehow that little fact had escaped me through my years in grade school, junior high, high school, and college. Wow, you learn something new everyday. So, you see, Chuckie was not the most dependable clerk I had ever worked with. I mean, after all, his Dad was the General Manger and part owner, and his grandfather was the owner, and was a very wealthy man. Why bother learning the facts when you had a future inheritance?



I came on shift that night to do the books for the day, and as was custom, I went through the registration cards to get the feel for what kind of guests I had in-house that night. I noticed nothing unusual, and went about my accounting duties. About and hour later, I got the call that there was noise coming from a second floor room. I did my usual thing and called the room. I had checked the registration card first, and I knew that there should only be two people in that room. The room was registered to two females, but the address was one in the same city where the hotel was located. This was always a red flag in my business, especially when the people were young.





I called the room, and a young lady answered the phone. I explained that I had a complaint about noise, and asked how many people were in the room. "Only two", the young lady told me. She said they had been listening to some music, and that it would not happen again. I was satisfied, and went about my business.





I need to explain a little how this hotel was arranged to facilitate your understanding of what would happen about an hour later. Outside was a courtyard, and in that courtyard was a covered swimming pool, and in a room built close to the pool was a jacuzzi and a sauna. The courtyard was nnot visible from the front desk where I was doing the books. I heard what seemed like an inordinate amount of noise outside, and I knew it was coming from the pool area. I put down my accounting forms and went to investigate the cause of the noise. It lead to the jacuzzi and sauna room. I opened the door, and there to greet my surprised eyes were twenty or so young people, no more the 17 or 18 years old. Surprised? Yep, but even more surprising was the fact that they were all stark naked. It seems like this was the senior class from one of the cities high schools, and that this was an annual event. Good old Chuckie had let in all of his buddies from school.



Well, now what to do next? I am there, and twenty sets of young eyes are looking at me, and so I gulped and said that they would have to leave. Of course the roar of the jacuzzi drowned out my words, and one young lady popped up out the of the swirling water, and said " we can't hear you, come over here". You betcha. Like I was going to walk over to a nude female minor. I could just see it now if I accidentally touched her in anyway. I yelled now" You have to get out of here now, or I will call the police". I exited the room to give them some privacy, and hoped that this was the end of it. Naive thinking, that was!



I thought everyone had left when I got another complaint call from the same floor as before. This time I just picked up the phone and called the police. The officers came, and up to the room they went. it seems that there were even more kids in the room. The officers came back down to the lobby laughing becasue they had pulled kids out of the bathroom, under the bed, in the closet and any place where they could possibly be. How they managed to get 40 kids in one hotel room meant for two people is beyond me.



The next morning two older male guests approached me and laughingly said, that we provided the best floor show that they had ever seen. They went on to describe how several young females had been been running around the parking lot nude. They thought it was a great show, but for some reason their wives did not think so. Hm, no sense of humor, I guess.



The next night I reamed Chuckie for over an hour. He, of course, said that he knew nothing about it. Last time that I heard, Chuckie was living in the state of Delusion, which is the bordering state to the state of LosAngeles.