PART 2 OF AT THE PLAZA

ruie and her motherWhen Mother and Daddy would come home I'd be sent to "my room." "Go take a bath and then go to bed", Mother would say. That was my punishment. I was never, ever spanked. "Never lay a hand on your kids," they'd say to anyone. "Gotta reach their minds, otherwise you've got a real problem on your hands" was their motto. Daddy's way was the lecture, talk me to death. He would lecture and lecture and lecture. It was like Chinese water torture. Mother couldn't stand it so she would leave and go downstairs to the hotel lobby and wait 'til Daddy would join her. "She won't do it again", he'd say with utter confidence. "I'm sure Mother would smile, pat his hand and say "yes, dear".

Once safe in "my room" I would color or read one of the many books Pretty Grandma had sent me. Sometimes I'd sit on the window ledge. We were on the second floor overlooking the busy street below and I'd sing and dream of being a great and famous entertainer one day.

Mother often left fifty cents for me on the dresser. This was money for me to go to a matinee. Children's matinees were boring; the kids were loud, and they threw popcorn and stuff. I'd wait and go to a later show in the afternoon and see movies like "Love Letters" with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. I must have seen that movie every afternoon for two weeks. I saw it recently on Movie Classics, I had good taste, it was a classic.

Besides the movies, I'd roam around the hotel. Walkathon dancers went to the rooftop to sunbathe in the nude. There were also some other things happening in the nude as well. I'd find the key ring Henry gave me for elevator access. Henry would get so busy, he couldn't pay that much attention to me. He wanted me to have fun because I think he thought of me as a sad, lonely little kid. So, I would go on the roof and spy on the dancers. I saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't see at any age. Early sex education, but then I didn't really know what they were doing, I just knew I wasn't supposed to be watching.

Champions in 1930 - In their heyday, dance marathons were one of America’s most widely attended and controversial forms of lie entertainment, employing an estimated 20,000 as promoters, emcees, floor judges, trainers, nurses and contestants (Kaplan 1935:31). …they ranged in size from small local shows with audiences of 200-300 to urban coliseum and armory shows seating as many as 5,000. The began in the 1920’s but took shape as Depression entertainment in the 1930’s…They made a brief comeback only to die a slow death during the late 1940’s. They were big business for a few years and almost a legitimate business. Source “Dance Marathons” For No Good Reason by Carol Martin.One day, I got really daring and climbed upon the wall around the top of the hotel. It was red brick, about two or three feet high. Every few feet there was a dip or ridge that had a patterned design. I remember looking down at my feet and putting one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, heel to toe. I put my arms out like I was on a high wire and had a make believe umbrella. I could feel the soft summer breeze on my face. I could hear the traffic below and people talking on the other side of the hotel roof. It was exhilarating and I never felt one ounce of fear. I was truly fearless. I walked the complete distance around the hotel, forgetting time, knowing I was on top of my world. Of course, Mother, Daddy and Henry never found out.

Walking on ledges at six, pushing my limits. One day, when I was 19, I happened to be near a similar rooftop wall, looked down and felt the dizzying reality of what might have been. Oh my God, I thought surely God had protected me. So many times, on that ridged wall with its nicks and cracks, I could have slipped. Suddenly, I knew, I had a purpose. God has a purpose for me because I should have been dead at six.

By 1973, I was a member of the Baha'i Faith. A big conference was to be held in St. Louis. My first Baha'i conference. I had recently divorced and become a single parent and was so looking forward to the trip. It was the first time I would see and hear a Hand of the Cause. Baha'is from around the world came. It took us three, maybe four hours, just to be registered at the hotel. I don't think St. Louis was ever the same after those three days. It was all so exciting that I was in a daze most of the time.

"What hotel will we stay in"? I asked a friend. "I don't know, she said, but they've arranged for group prices; it shouldn't be too pricey." When my mail came, along with the confirmation of plane and hotel reservations, I still remember the dark inked word The New Plaza Hotel jump out at me. It was a new hotel, just erected next to the old Plaza Hotel where I had stayed for so long as a child! The Plaza Hotel had become a city landmark, and was not to be torn down, instead a new hotel was added to the original building.

On my second morning of the conference, I walked over to the original Plaza Hotel. "Excuse me," I said to the hotel manager, is there anyone here by the name of Henry. He would have been a bellhop in 1940." To myself I muttered, "this is crazy, no one's going to even know Henry." "Yes, the hotel manager said, barely looking up at me. "Henry is our Captain, and he's in charge of bellhops. Why do you ask?" "Well, when I was a kid," I told the manager, this time gaining more of his gaze, "this was my home and Henry was my babysitter when we lived in this hotel." And, I told the manager about the Walkathons, about my parents, but mainly how wonderful Henry was!

Later that afternoon, I stood on the gold and purple carpet and watched a tall, dignified and very handsome Henry walk in measured pace toward me in the Plaza lobby

"Hey, Toots, I never forgot you. Boy, you were such a sweet but sad little kid, a piece of work. Still riding in elevators??

Henry was there at another time in my life and Daddy's. When Daddy returned to St. Louis to develop his music company, Henry was in the hotel the day Daddy was shot in the bar just across the street from the hotel. They called it an accidental suicide at the inquest. I was only 19 and came back to St. Louis to take care of things and bury my father. Henry remembered my coming to the hotel to retrieve Daddy's things. Unfortunately, there was nothing left for reasons I won't go into here except for one picture that Henry saved of my mother and me. Henry had taken it when he heard that I was coming to the hotel after the inquest. "Why didn't you speak to me that day at the hotel, Henry"? I asked. That day I would have given anything for a kind look from one of the kindest men in the world and my childhood angel. "I thought you needed to be alone, Toots, I wanted to respect your privacy. I saw that you had grown into such a pretty woman, and I knew you'd be okay. That's why I left the picture of you and your mother on the dresser. You had enough to handle."

'Abdu’l-Baha’ meeting a Sunday Children Bahá’í Class at the Lincoln Park across the Street from The Plaza Hotel, Chicago - May 5, 1912. `Abdu'l-Baha spent the morning of May 2nd, 1912 receiving groups of visitors at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago. The previous day He had laid the cornerstone of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in Wilmette. His faithful chronicler Mirza Mahmud Zarqani recorded in his diary.I went home from the St. Louis Conference thinking of the serendipity of meeting Henry, of seeing a new hotel, of being in such a different place in my life. I thought that the Plaza episode of my life was now closed. But then sometime in the 70's, a friend and I went to a Baha'i meeting in Laguna Beach, California. We were going to hear the sound of "Abdu'l Baha's voice for the first time. We also saw a little film which depicted Him walking away from the camera's eye, his back towards the camera, his arm around a little girl; and also some photos that were brought to the meeting. Once more the name "Plaza Hotel" nudged at my heart. I saw a picture of 'Abdu'l-Baha with a group of people, in a park setting and a building in the background. The caption read, 'Abdu'l-Baha, 1912 The Plaza Hotel, Chicago, Ill.

Images clicked within my mind, as the last shutter closed on the final image, tucking my life into place. The other Plaza Hotel where I was an odd kid riding on elevators, Henry, a loving force, and an eccentric babysitter; my parents to whom I was "the kid" and my sense of needing attention, and finding a spiritual purpose. I have that picture of my mother and me, with me, the picture Henry saved for me. Another frame provides a healing answer, healing in the meaning of an old hotel in a city where Walkathons happened and desperate people danced. A small name, The Plaza, but it shaped my life and somehow my feeling of a spiritual presence protecting me became stronger, just seeing the words, "The Plaza Hotel," and 'Abdu'l-Baha's picture. What are we going to do with the kid, no longer seemed a problem. The question and answer became, "What's the kid going to do," and that's another time.

© - Creative license has been taken with this story; but the essence is absolutely true.