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Growing Up On Jefferson Street , set 9

“Skirt Casually Unzipped With A Glass of Booze In Her Hand” and “Taking Care of Business”

Dear Marilyn,

One of the favorite jobs in my life was that of bus Boy at the Eugene Hotel. Finally, I had a foot into the real world of adults and I loved it. Here are a few highlights.

Skirt Half Unzipped With a Glass of Booze in Her Hand
by
Jack Loughary

Excitement is an overstatement, but there was something about the context of the bus boy occupation in the Eugene Hotel when I was 15 that had both a quasi military and show business flavor. To start with, we worked split shifts. It was not uncommon to work a 2 hour breakfast shift, then return for a 2 hour lunch assignment and then end the day with a three or four hour dinner performance. This often entailed three separate arrivals and departures. Upon arrival I went to the men’s locker room located in the first level basement and changed from street clothes to the uniform provided by the hotel. In the case of bus boys, this consisted of a white shirt and black bow tie, which we provided and a starched tight fitted bus jacket. We were issued one each week, but allowed a fresh one in the middle of the week if things got really greasy. It was subtle, but I enjoyed this simple preparation routine that helped define the job.

Schedules were made a week in advance but often adjusted to meet changing circumstances. You might be assigned to the coffee shop or dining room or work a scheduled banquet. The latter often involved a significant amount of set up time and working with a waitress or two as a team. The hotel at that time did not employ waiters, which I suppose reflected the small town character of Eugene. There was no stigma attached be being a bellman, but men just didn’t wait tables.

The bus boy crew consisted of four Filipino men and the redheaded white kid. We set tables, bussed dishes, worked banquets, vacuumed carpets and did whatever else was necessary to support the waitresses. We also did room service, the component of the job that advanced my social awareness and psycho-sexual sophistication level more rapidly than anything I could imagine. More about that later.

The Lead Bus Boy was named Buster. He was in his late twenties or early thirties. Buster supervised us, kept us organized and scheduled, and saw to it that level of service was consistently high. He was fluent in English, albeit with a heavy pigeon flavor. Buster was married and had two young children. On several occasions his wife and two very young children would arrive at the hotel kitchen to visit briefly with Buster and the other busboys. Buster was extremely proud of them. He told me once that he rented a small house in town, but not where. I never knew where the other Filipinos lived. At first I didn’t know where the Filipinos stored their street clothing and personal belongings at the hotel, but it was not in the staff locker room. Bellmen, elevator operators, and other male-uniformed staff members had clothes lockers in the locker room which also contained lavatory facilities. I knew it was strictly for whites; no one needed to tell me so.

Buster was five feet one or two at the most, of slight build and well proportioned, except his fingers which were very long. When he talked, especially when giving instructions, his fingers were in constant motion, rolling, pointing, shaping the air much like a maestro. Each performance was concluded by his hands coming together and then slowing dropping to his sides.

Bus boys were expected to stand quietly in the most inconspicuous place one could locate or create. I learned from Buster that when a bus boy moved about the room, or entered or left it, the maneuver should as done quietly and with as little movement possible so as not to call attention to the work being preformed or otherwise imposing on the privacy of guests. This ghost-like persona did not come naturally to me. It required practice until becoming second nature, a psychological uniform donned every time one passed out of the swinging double doors of the kitchen until returning through them. I am still very much aware of the presence of people in my immediate environment as I navigate supermarkets aisles, restaurants, buildings, outdoor public spaces and any crowded space, thus being to some extent able to control traffic by being aware of it. I believe this is behavior I learned at the Hotel. I am still continually amazed at how so few people are space conscious and thus blunder about unaware of the concerns and preferences of their fellow humans. Heads up next trip to the supermarket.

Room meal service provided a glimpse at adult behavior that was rarely offered to 15 year olds, at least those with whom I traveled. There is something about a hotel bedroom that encourages revelation. First, there is no place to hide except the toilet. Clothes tend to be strung out on a bed or draped over a bed post, personal grooming materials and lingerie spread out over the bathroom counter and dresser, and most important, occupants are often less than fully clothed. So there you are, 15 years old, standing next to this half clad woman in her nylons and garter belt (now, I assume panty hose, but then I don’t get around much any more), blouse partially unbuttoned, skirt half unzipped with a glass of booze in her hand. What is it they say these days: Hot?

Geez! In some cases when they were not married to their roommate, the women were prone to displaying their maternal instincts and skills by, if not fondling, then at least touching and patting the red-headed kid in the white coat and black bow tie. Not that it wasn’t pleasant, it was just that one had not the slightest notion of how to respond. It was one of those situations in which if you pay attention, be quiet and keep your eyes open, you can gain a life long education in a very short period of time.

The pace at the Eugene Hotel was relatively fast and demanding and the perceived pressure was often exhilarating. Breakfasts were the least complex periods. Guests and workers were rested, the menu was simple and thus easy to bus, the cooks and other kitchen staff and waitresses were not yet frustrated or tired. Lunch could be a bit more demanding in that many guests in addition to eating were attempting to conduct business or make social points. In addition, many guests and staff had experienced sufficient amounts of frustration by then to engage in more aggressive behavior.

But it was the dinner shift, particularly on the weekends that was most interesting. During the football and basketball seasons there were frequent post game parties which added volume to the schedule of Eugene’s active social set. The bar was full, the party rooms booked, and Art Holeman’s dance band played in the ballroom. This was a rare moment for me because Art’s day job had been band teacher when I was in the last year of junior high. There I was, working along side my greatest idol!

Love, Your fantasy-prone brother,

Jack

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Dear Jack,

I loved this memory of your early years. It is so poignant in regard to describing an occupation that is so necessary to people’s comfort, and yet its actors become invisible. Like all service people who toil for small wages and yet make our world comfortable, they, in large part, remain like shadows in our environment. You discovered that there was another world besides that of white Eugene, who had their own set of values, biases and understandings. I think it was an important part of your becoming the caring person that you are.

While you were busy learning the ways of hotel life, I was still struggling to discover some way, any way, of earning dollars for my bank account. It was clear that household labor was not going to be my route to riches. Certainly an accepted agenda for females of the time, but not one that was going to get me started on the rise to fame.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
by
MARILYN LOUGHARY KOK

My major problem was that I had yet to find a job that fulfilled my “search for bliss”. The bean fields had been a rather big flop. It is true that I made enough money to purchase my school clothes, but I was very aware of its small reward for hard work. My year at the elevator door had been an equally discouraging pastime. It did teach me that monotony was not my forte. My summer at the cannery was a repeat performance, long hours and a bit better pay, which you will recall was largely sitting in the coffers of the union.

By this time I was eighteen. trying to figure out career goals and needing a summer job. I did spend a couple of months working in the business office at the University of Oregon. Here, I thought, would be the place where I would find the perfect job that would lead me toward a life time career.

On the appointed day I appeared at the job, earlier than specified and was greeted cheerfully by the office manager. Since I had declared that I had taken a typing course (I had) in high school, she immediately sat me down at a table, handed me a paper and told me to make two copies of it.

As you may recall, the way one made copies of something in those days was by inserting carbons between sheets of paper. There were no copy machines, no computers with delete buttons, and not even a typewriter that could erase. This particular sheet of paper consisted of several rows of sets of numbers, something like a hundred social security numbers might resemble today. After spending 3, yes, that’s 3, hours on this project, mostly taken up with abundant use of erasers and ripping out reams of paper from the rollers, the manager came by wondering what the heck I had been doing all morning. “Getting ready to be fired” is what I was silently thinking. But, no, she simply moved me into a room where several young girls were typing speedily away on some kind of material that did not involve the typing of numbers. (Somehow, I had never perfected memorizing the top row of the fingerboard.) As the closing hour approached I was sure that my first and final day at the office had occurred. But, to my surprise, I was asked to report to work the next day.

Came the morning, I was moved to the Student Union building where I was to help with fall registration. My assignment was to check to see that the students had their advisor’s signature on their registration card. In those days in 1952, every student was required to race all over campus obtaining the instructor’s signature on every class he/she was planning on taking, followed by their advisor’s approval.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Keep in mind that I was a lowly incoming freshman, with little knowledge of the college world and a determination to take my job seriously.

It was true that my typing skills were questionable, but my ability to brow beat was excellent. Nary a student got my okay stamp who hadn’t followed the letter of the rule, and nary a friend did I make that day.

My final job on campus was with the University Theater. I had a slight acquaintance with the theater’s manager and she needed people to “man” the ticket booth. It was a pleasant job that gave me a lot of time for reading and free tickets for all the theater productions. I was back where I had started years before. Instead of acting out movies with my friend Charlotte, I was at last working in a theater.

And that’s Progress!

Your still-looking-for–that-dream-job sister, Marilyn

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