My days were all the same. Up at seven, breakfast in the back of the kitchen in the staff dining room – rows of banquet tables and folding chairs – with dozens of other haggard looking staff, then off to work. My first job was to pick up garbage and cigarette butts around the main lodge. I tied a garbage bag to my belt and arranged for the maintenance department to supply me with an old broomstick with a sharpened nail at the end so I could avoid bending over. Seeing as most nights I got less than 3 hours sleep, bending over was out of the question until at least after lunch. I learned quickly that the owner, Mr. Maurice East (a mountain of a man who managed his resorts with an iron fist) hated smoking and smokers so I made sure that every morning at 8:30 that I would be picking up butts at the main entrance as he arrived for work. “Good morning Mr. East. Yes smokers are disgusting. I’ll get this cleaned up in no time sir. Have a good day.” We developed a bond over the next few weeks as I was there every morning when he pulled up. He was so impressed that he didn’t mind that I spent the first few hours of every day hovering around the main entrance working hard at ridding the resort of the dreaded butts. My immediate bosses never dared have me do something else involving real work because Mr. East was happy.
In the afternoons I was back behind the “Harley’ making a racket and scheming to kill it. The maintenance department, especially Bucky (and more on him later), couldn’t understand why I had so much trouble with the lawn mower. I hit a pipe one day accidentally on purpose and put the dreaded machine in the shop for a couple of days. Unfortunately when it came back it was better than ever. I tried dumping into the lake. Bucky fixed it. I ran it so hard that it burned itself out of oil. Bucky saved it. One afternoon after spending three solid hours vibrating behind the mower I saw a gasoline-like can in the corner of the maintenance shack. I had my answer!
