C
Coop was holding court in the bell closet of the Sheraton Valley Forge, circa January 1987. He was leaning over and resting a polyester-jacketed forearm casually across his thigh; his leg propped atop a carpeted bench that ran down the center of the long win- dowless space. Huddled in various forms of repose around him were six or so other young bellmen in their rust-colored staff uniforms. We were listening to the nuanced nick- names for tips Coop was reciting, created by a generation of past bellmen since the hotel had opened in 1972.
An adenoidal young voice croaked through the hot closet. “So, what’s a dollar called?” This was Jeremy, a pimply-faced, reed-thin, brillo-headed seventeen-year-old part-time rookie, a low man on the bell cart’s polished brass pole. He spoke up amid a room most- ly full of other well-seasoned bell stand veterans who ranged in age from nineteen to twenty-six or so (and one lone, grizzled thirty year old in our midst).
“Shut it, nimrod!”
If Coop was the charming Otter of our own version of “Animal House” back then, Dean was the brash, fiery-eyed Bluto. “Let the man speak!”
He brrrrripped a belch in Jeremy’s general direction, and then looked back at Coop beseechingly to continue.
Jeremy, however, in his youthful ignorance, was nonplussed. “But, why do all the other bills get cool names and a dollar is just a dollar?”
“Will you SHUT IT?!” Dean roared as he leaned his craggy Neanderthal face menacingly into the frail doorman’s general range of vision.
“It’s cool, Dean-O.” Coop quickly interceded. “A ‘buck’ Jeremy. A dollar is just called a ‘buck,’ but it doesn’t really rank, ‘cause it’s just a ‘buck.’ The rookie looked at him with dawning comprehension.
Meanwhile, our stalwart bell captain, Warren, newly married and a Valley Forge Christian College student, shook his head in bemusement. It was all just a typical shift change in the bell closet.
Suddenly, we hear our shrill verbal claxon call from the desk. “FRONT!”
Some hotels ring a bell for service. “FRONT!” was our shrill signal, one that always remind- ed me of “COME!” as in a word used to train a dog to approach on command. A major wave of check-ins had just arrived.
And where am I during all this? Probably leaning against a carpeted wall (the entire bell closet was carpeted from wall-to-ceiling-to-wall-to-floor to protect the stored luggage,
Mid-Atlantic EVENTS Magazine 75
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