My life as a menial-task laborer (without portfolio) ended after five years as my folks left the motel business when I was twelve.
There was no good reason that they decided to get out. It was the steadiest, most stable income they would ever have. Actually, my mother was against it.
The real problem was that prosperity made my old man jumpy. He was a child of the depression (he always said, “I was born of poor but honest parents—not so honest, but awfully damned poor.”), so it was in his DNA that nothing good could last. On the other hand, it was an article of faith that something bad could go on forever.
He wanted to avoid the “forever” stuff by getting out of the motel business while the getting was good.
But “out” to what?
Didn’t really know. I think he was hoping for Divine Revelation.
It turned out that God had no opinion.
It was late spring and my brothers had graduated from high school and were more or less on their own by that time, so my folks and I packed up the car, headed west, and made a grand tour of our relatives’ hospitality.
That took us to Wyoming, Washington, California and Nevada. We drove as many miles as it took in one day to get from one relative to another. For a guy once in the motel business, my old man had no desire to spend money at someone else’s motel if there was a relative within one thousand miles instead.
One day, we drove nine hundred miles.
The supposed goal of this drivathon was to find a new occupation. Hopefully, one of the relatives might even have an idea.
But, like God, they had no opinion either.
So after a couple weeks, we limped back to our hometown where we had started.
Had to rent an apartment above a house. Not much out there at the time. While my dad umpired fast pitch softball games and considered his options, my mother found a job almost immediately.
One day my old man was shooting the breeze with the landlady who lived below us, telling her we wouldn’t be there very long. We’d be buying a house. She took this as gospel when actually it was baloney and went and rented out our apartment to someone else, starting the first of the month.
I guess it wasn’t all that nice of a place anyway, but it was a heck of a lot nicer than the place we had to scramble to find at the last minute. I think the Addams Family had lived there before.
The so-called apartment was in a house with four floors, and my room was an aerie with a peaked ceiling in the rafters. My parents room was on another floor completely. We shared a bathroom other tenants that I tried to avoid meeting. I was afraid Lurch might have stayed behind.
It was about this time that my old man and I were down at Rocky’s car lot, killing time so we didn’t have hang around in the nightmare on elm street.
They were enjoying BSing each other like usual when the subject of getting me a job came up. Of course, I could have raised the subject of getting my old man a job, too, but I was a meek kid raised to be seen and not heard.
Rocky said his kid, a year younger than me, was working out at the country club as a caddy. Said I should show up out there and tell the pro that Rocky had sent me.
So that’s what I did the next morning. Turned out any kid who showed up could be a caddy, whether he said “Rocky sent me” or “John Dillinger.”
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