Leaving the Job and All Its Baggage

By Petula Dvorak

Joseph Goverman's 60-year career in the hotel industry wasn't threatened by layoffs, mergers, takeovers, recessions or wars.

No, wheelie bags almost put Goverman out of a job.

"Boy, I tell ya, when the wheels came, I thought we were just about through," said Goverman, the 79-year-old bellman who retires today after six decades of hauling bags at the Capital Hilton.

"As soon as the wheels came, everyone wanted to pull their own bags. They didn't need us," he said. "We went from eight bellmen to four. Just two of us now."

Luggage was heavy, Harry S. Truman was president and Goverman was 19 when he began working at the Washington Statler Hotel at 16th and K streets NW in 1949.

It was an architectural marvel, only six years old and hailed in slick advertisements as "the world's largest completely air conditioned hotel" when Goverman walked under the zeon-lit portico and filled out an application.

He didn't get the job, he said. "Some college-educated kid got it ahead of me," said the Baltimore native. His application to the fancy hotels in the nation's capital was his attempt to duck his place in a long line of bakers.

"But just a couple days later, they called my mom. College-education man never showed up. So I got the job," said Goverman, who is built about as squarely as the bell stand he leans on in between jobs these days.

Back in the day, he carried bags for Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Rocky Marciano and Richard M. Nixon, before he was president.

"He was nice enough," he recalled of Nixon. "On the last day, he told me to write down my name. He said he'd get me a gift when he became president. Yeah! How many times I heard that one?" Goverman said, rolling his eyes toward the crystal chandeliers above his head. "Then a couple years later, a big car pulls up. A lady asks for me, you see. She gives me a pen, autographed by the president. Nixon."

He leans in close for the last part of the story: "I've got it in my safe deposit box."

The memories, of course, are not confined to the many celebrities who visited the 544-room hotel.

There was the time a man walked into the lobby with a sledgehammer on his shoulder. "I knew he was looking for trouble. Sure enough, he went to all the pay phones that used to be over there," he points down a wood-paneled hallway. "We don't have many pay phones anymore. But he walks over to those phones and starts smashing them up, yelling: 'I'll teach you to take my money!' "

Wheeled bags began popping up in larger numbers at curbside in the 1990s, Goverman said. Since then, Goverman and his fellow bellmen have spent much of their time keeping their art of hospitality alive.

French-speaking visitors are directed to Paul Jerome, a Haitian-born bellman who, at 62, has been with the hotel only 26 years. If visitors have questions about museums or restaurants, Goverman tells them to talk to the bell captain, Fede Sarabia, 59, a 27-year veteran.

"I think the bellman is a dying species in this world," said Sarabia, who marvels at the way Goverman instantly connects with guests.

But Goverman is ready to say goodbye.

"Once you're off, you're off. And that goes for retirement. I'm not coming back here," Goverman said.

Sarabia and Jerome predict that Goverman will miss them and the interactions with guests. Even on sick days, Goverman calls to check on how things are going and what's being served in the cafeteria.

On a dreary afternoon last week, Goverman answered a call to come to a room on the ninth floor. "How did you like your stay? Where are you folks from? Oh, lovely place. Terrific." He fist-bumps the kids, ruffles their hair. Pulls out tattered photos of his own brood.

His strong back helps him swing the bags up and onto the cart. And by the time the luggage is loaded on the shiny brass cart, the guy and Goverman are talking about last night's ballgame and whether the pitcher should just "hang it up."

At the end of their elevator ride, the woman hands the man a wad of bills. He widens his eyes and beckons her to hand over some more to give to the bellman, who walks a little slowly, but steadily.

Goverman will tell you that the rich, the kind who are chauffeured to the hotel and disgorge more than a dozen bags at the curb, tip less than more humble folk.

"I carried 17 bags for a billionaire who gave me a dollar. One dollar," Goverman remembers. That tightwad was Del Webb, who at the time owned the Yankees. Goverman said that Webb told him that he'd get him some tickets for that weekend's ballgame. "He told me, 'Go to the ballpark, give 'em your name at the box office. I'll take care of ya.' "

So Goverman told his wife and kids all about the gift, and everyone couldn't wait for the game. But when he took them to Griffith Stadium to watch the Washington Senators play the Yankees, there were no tickets waiting. "I had to pay my way in."

Goverman's last day is Tuesday. Unless something dramatic happens this week, that encounter will be his most disappointing moment as a bellman, he said.

So when Hilton officials heard the story, they decided to treat Goverman right. Glen Brown, general manager of the hotel, called around. Nowhere in the Hilton empire has anyone kept the same gig for 60 years. "It's a record," he said.

Brown decided that it was time to finally give Goverman that ballgame. His family is going in style: to an Orioles game in fancy box seats and a night in the swankiest suite at the Baltimore Hilton.

The bellman has one condition: "I'm not gonna carry any bags."