Thu 29 May 2008
“Lots of young kids around but I was too naïve to realize how charmung I was”
Posted by Cara under general , communicationsI was recently having dinner with some friends when the topic of elevator operators came up (who knows how these conversations over dinner evolve) and I told everyone that, in fact, my father had once been an elevator operator, much to their amusement.
It was one of those faint memories…something he’d mentioned to me ages ago that I found hilarious and then stored away in the back of my mind. And as soon as I recalled the story, I wanted more information, so I wrote to my father to ask him to provide some, which, naturally, he did.
(As always, I’m leaving the spelling and grammar intact, so as not to lessen the charm of these correspondences.)
From:Cara McDonough
To: Fred Rotondaro
Date: Wed, May 28, 2008
Didn’t you once hold a job as an elevator operator? Can you tell me about that?
From: Fred Rotondaro
To: Cara McDonough
Date: Wed, May 28, 2008
Ablut 50yearsago at the shawnee inn in the poco mount-ns. Owned by fred waring, a famous orchestra leader. Did it right out of high school.
It was fun. We got a room and naturally our. Meals0 0
Lots of young kids around but I was too naïve to realize how charmung I was.
The eleva(or was hand operated.
Pull. The lever down and you went down. Up and you went up.
But only three floors.
I don’t remember the people I ferried around except for one round faced guyb who I thought played the partner of jack webbin the tv series dragnat. Turned out he was a priest.
Wrong again
Pop
May 29th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Hey, if you ask any of the tenets one of the coolest features of Seattle’s Smith Tower (once the tallest building west of the Mississippi) is the fact that to this day the Otis bricks are hand operated. It is pretty surreal to go 35 floors in a manual operation.
e
May 30th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I once googled camp appy. your site was the first one that popped up. Now there is an actual camp website / listserv and a reunion coming up. On the latest listserv email, it said that your address was one of the missing ones. If you are interested in attending the reunion, you may want to check out the website and contact the parties in charge.