MY TIME AS A DESK CLERK, BARTENDER AND WINE STEWARD
In the summer of 1968, when I was working at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon as part of the United Church of Christ's "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks" program for seminary students, I had a paying job in the main Lodge - several paying jobs in fact. My main job was the night desk clerk. Because I was 24 and most of the other student workers were under 21, I was a fill-in for the bartender in the bar and wine steward in the dining room.
As the night desk clerk, I had to check people in who came late, answer the phone for calls from the rooms and be a guard over the front door. There was a "snack rack" at the desk where people could buy late night snacks. I am sure the Lodge lost money on that enterprise because every time I turned my head or got distracted by a phone call, the other student workers would steal candy bars and bags of peanuts and pretzels by the hands full. I never got blamed because I don't think anyone ever took an inventory of the situation.
One night, a couple arrived late for their reservation which they had guaranteed. I helped them take their luggage up the steps (no elevator) to the third floor. I put the key in the door of their room and turned on the lights. I heard a young woman and a young man dive under the covers and yell out it shock! I quickly, turn off the lights and shut the door. I told the couple that I must have read the room number wrongly. I apologized and we went back downstairs and found another room for the night. What actually happened was two of the student workers, thinking the room had not been bought, decided to "occupy" it for their own entertainment! I said nothing and they said nothing the next day!
The only real "disaster" that summer was the night some parents brought their little girl in the front door who had been "slapped" by a bear. She had opened the camper door to go to the nearby bathroom and the light scared a bear who was prowling right outside. The light scared the bear and so he slapped at the light and his claws drew several lines down her neck from her ears to her chest! Her clothes were soaked with blood. Her parents were screaming and holding her out toward me and looking at me to "do something." I really did not know what to do, but call the Park Ranger Station to come get her and take her to the hospital or at least offer first aid! It was so cold that night that the blood had quit flowing from her multiple scratches. The coldness made it coagulate. The Park Rangers got there in a few minutes and took her and her parents away - supposedly to the hospital.
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In the dining room, my job was to filet a cooked trout at the table. I learned how to remove the skeleton of a trout in one piece. Another of my jobs was to open bottles of wine and champagne bottles for special occasions. I knew how to uncork a wine bottle, but I knew nothing about opening champagne bottles. I remember clearly my very first effort at table side. It was the couple's anniversary. I stood near the table, not paying attention to where I was pointing the bottle, easing the cork out with my thumb. All of a sudden the cork came out and hit the woman in her temple with a loud pop! One of the waiters came rushing over to tell me that I needed "to always put a white towel over the cork when opening champagne!" The woman was very gracious about the catastrophe and the man did not insist on suing the Lodge for my mistake, but I learned an important lesson that I remember every time I open a champagne bottle!
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As a bartender, I was what you would call "definitely untrained." I knew so little that I had to read the book discretely placed under the bar and out of sight each time I mixed a drink. People knew I was a student and so sometimes they would tell me what they wanted and how to mix it. I am sure they got more liquor in their drink than I was supposed to pour, but nobody mentioned it out loud.
I especially remember an older woman who sat at the bar on a bar stool so she could talk and enjoy one martini after another. At some point, I thought she was getting to her "limit" so I prepared myself to say "enough!" As she started on the "last" martini I served her, she tried to drink it all with one sweep! She leaned forward at first and then started to lean back, but continued to lean back until she fell completely backwards and onto the floor! She got up, brushed herself off, wiped her lips with a cocktail napkin and said "thank you very much" as she disappeared waddling up the steps to her room!
On my last night as a fill-in bar tender, there was a "tradition" that I did not know about! To celebrate the occasion, bartenders had to consume a famous "Volcano" drink which consisted of a jigger of everything in the bar! I am not much of a drinker, beyond a gin and tonic maybe once a month, but I was not about to break a sacred Crater Lake "tradition." It was a nasty drink, but I did finish it. As I was finishing it, I couple feel my limbs going numb so I timed myself to head to my room as soon as I could finish.
I started up the steps. I made it up to the second floor. As I started up the steps to the third floor I was using my hands to reach for the steps until I reached the third floor. By the time I reached the fourth floor, I was on my hands and knees. Having reached the fourth floor where the student workers lived, I crawled down the hallway to my room and pulled myself up by the doorknob and fell into my bed. I don't remember the rest of the night, but I certainly woke up with one gigantic headache the next day!
I found out that day that I had earned the right to have my name engraved on the bar's "hero plaque" for finishing a "Volcano!" I guess you can say that that was the last time I have been called a "traditionalist" - right there in a national park bar back in 1968!