Vignettes from Ancient Times – 1976 – 1977 and 1992

     It is truly unfortunate that my most interesting stories about life in the hotel business can’t be put in writing. The really good ones involve famous people, hotel owners, entertainers, mistresses, and members of the oldest profession. But for the sake of privacy, the following vignettes involve only me in my early days as a GM in Sheraton hotels in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Birmingham, Alabama. Certainly, the statute of limitations has expired by now, as I left Sheraton in 1992.

     After serving my five-year commitment in the military, I was fortunate enough to secure a position as an assistant to the general manager at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. Basically, it was a management trainee role. I was equally fortunate to have one of the most senior and best training GMs in the Sheraton Corporation. I worked in every department, even taking over for the executive housekeeper for a little while due to the expected opening of the position.

     After about a year and a half in this role, the day before Labor Day, I received a call from human resources at Sheraton’s headquarters, asking me to “babysit” the Sheraton Tulsa Airport hotel until a permanent GM could be assigned. The GM was leaving the next day, by “mutual agreement.” It wasn’t unusual for Sheraton to give you a day’s notice to move to a new assignment. It happened again eleven years later, when I moved from Palm Springs, California, to Bangkok, Thailand, but that is a story for another day. In any event, I didn’t mind, as the job carried a temporary GM’s title and I was very pleased about that.

     Upon arriving at the hotel late in the evening, there was a farewell party in the bar to say goodbye to the GM. It’s a little unusual not to get any verbal or written handover notes, but given the GM’s history, that might have been for the better. Everyone at the party was at least “two sheets to the wind,” but I tried to be as accommodating as possible and accept what was going on.  A lady who asked me to dance turned out to be a waitress in the bar. I heard the GM was indeed very “close” to the staff and loved his grog.

     The GM departed the next day, and I began my “babysitting” assignment, assuming it would last a week or two at the most. I thought I would soon be replaced and return to Dallas. (Also, Sheraton was going to sell the hotel, as it did not fit into their overall strategy.) Well, it wasn’t until a year and a half later that they sold the hotel, and I was the GM for the duration. 

     My days of being a bootlegger started my first day on the job in Tulsa.

     Some counties in Oklahoma were what we called “dry.” The county the hotel was in was one of those counties. 

     We used to say “the Baptists staggered into the polling station to vote dry.” You could bring a whole bottle of liquor into the bar and drink what you wanted, but you couldn’t buy a single drink. Obviously, being adjacent to an international airport meant that many of our guests arrived without a bottle and expected a drink.

     Every hotel in Tulsa accommodated those guests by serving them individual drinks, and so did my hotel since its inception. Thus . . . my bootlegging days began. I would take the hotel station wagon to the local liquor store and fill it up with booze, bringing it back to the hotel to keep the bar well stocked.

     It was a misdemeanor if you got caught selling an individual drink, and the unlucky bartenders and waitresses usually got caught. Fortunately, misdemeanors were wiped out after a certain number of years. Even so, I had to be extremely careful not to get caught in the bar during one of the raids by the local police.

     All the hotels had a system to notify the others that “Paul Revere is riding again.” On most occasions, we were able to shut down our illegal operations before they arrived. But obviously, if you were first on their list, the system didn’t help. We got caught several times, and on the third ding, we lost our liquor license and had to get a new one under a different name. It was quite easy, though, as many lawyers specialized in this area.

     Fortunately, I was never nabbed, so kept my record clean. Not too many of my classmates can claim that they were bootleggers!

A Fish Story

     Early one Monday morning, I received a call from the president of Sheraton Corporation. Now, I did know him, as he was a friend of my father. However, it’s like a newbie tac officer receiving a call from the Superintendent of West Point. Why on earth would he be calling me? After a few pleasantries, he asked me if I had any fish in the freezer. I said, “Well, yes, I am sure we have fish in the freezer,” as it was on our restaurant menu. What a strange question. “Well,” he said, “You have a friend of mine’s salmon in your freezer.” It turned out that the president of Avis Car Rental had flown in the night before from Alaska. He had been on a salmon fishing trip and had brought his fish with him on the plane. Upon arrival, he asked the receptionist to put his fish in our freezer, which she did.

     In a hotel of this size and location, anything not locked up had a tendency to go missing. So, it was a strict policy to lock all freezers and refrigerators at night. The chef on the opening breakfast shift had the keys. But, unfortunately, the gentleman checked out extremely early on Sunday for his flight to New York, leaving his fish locked up in our freezer. You can imagine the ennui of a fisherman having to leave his hard-earned, extremely expensive prized fish behind.

     This turned out to be the most expensive salmon per pound ever caught. My president advised me to put the salmon on the first flight to New York—with the appropriate means to keep it frozen the entire way—and to have a limousine waiting to pick it up and deliver it to the president of Avis at his New York office. Of course, valuing my job, I did so immediately . . . and went over budget that month.

     Sheraton decided to move me from Sydney, Australia, to Birmingham, Alabama, to open the 757-room Sheraton Civic Center Hotel. It involved a complete restoration of an old hotel and a new build of approximately 350 rooms. It was quite an experience, as when I arrived there was only one other Sheraton employee (a director of marketing), and all we had was one computer. Construction was about one-third done, and we had about sixteen months before the hotel’s opening. 

     Very soon after opening, we hosted a delegation from Saudi Arabia, including a prince and the king’s sister. It seems that when you have most of the money in the world and your sister needs a knee operation, you send her to one of the most famous orthopedic surgeons in the world. At that time, it was Dr. James Andrews. It just so happens that Dr. Andrews had operated on Roger Clemens, Michael Jordan, Drew Breese, Bo Jackson, Jack Nicklaus, and other celebrities.

     The visiting Arabs had twelve rooms and suites to stay in and four additional rooms for their luggage. The prince made it very clear that he was unhappy to have been given this assignment in the “backwater of nowhere.” He was always in a foul mood, as he pranced in and out of the hotel at all hours of the day and night, complete with a gold-headed walking stick.

     One night at about 10 p.m., I got an urgent call from the hotel saying that the prince wants to see me immediately. I put on a suit and headed to the hotel about thirty minutes away. When I arrived, the prince was seated in the lobby, holding court with his minions. As I approached, he rose up and threw a huge wad of $100 bills right at my chest. He said, “Here, you want money, here is money.” The Benjamins flew all over the floor of the lobby. I had no clue as to what he was referring to. My mind was racing, and my first thought was wouldn’t it be nice to punch the little dandy right in the nose. Of course, since I didn’t want to create an international incident, I decided against that option. What I thought of later is that I should have said, “Thank you, I will donate all this money to a local charity.” However, I didn’t do that either. I just remained silent until he sat back down and one of his minions explained to me that room service had failed to deliver a steak to a member of the delegation as ordered. An incident of epic proportions!

     As it turned out, room service took the order, but back in 1990, the phone systems weren’t advanced enough to list the room number of the person calling room service, and on this occasion, the caller hung up before the order taker could get the room number. It could have been any one of the delegation’s twelve rooms. The prince, having made his big show, cooled down and the incident drew to a close. Not sure what happened to the $100 bills, but I didn’t pick them up.