It is May Eleventh. I just knew it would be a hot blazer this week. My steering-wheel would not allow me to touch it. Back safely at the 'Y', a courtyard party was going on. Several kids were playing inside the offices of Sir Tomas Cartwright, our esteemed manager.
I found out that he had been fired by the new owners, Egyptians. I could only surmise that they had come here in fear of their safety back in Cairo. I also wondered if they would treat Christians or Jews the same way they did in Egypt.
But I also wondered why the toilets now longer were kept up, and no longer was there a vacuum. My did they wish us out? Too bad the letter of eviction did not have a date. Of course it was all about greed and money.(Actually it was a termination notice.)
I woke up at at about five o'clock. No longer did hear my next door neighbor scream. The cell to my right no longer played rap music. A few good men left for the few bucks these middle easterners threw at them. .
The downtown 'Y' had given our walking papers on May Day or the First. The eviction noticed went something like this. "To our valued guests, you are hereby given a 60 day notice to leave. We will provide the equivalent to two months rent three days before you vacate your room. Good Luck and Good By. At the top were the words, Relcoation Assistance Notice. (Guess the manager needed to relocate the 'o' and 'a'.
The notice was signed by Alvin Mansour, President of Oram Properties. He assured us of safe and affordable housing. Few of these tenants could understand the legalese. Yet they treated the passengers like those in steerage class.
Of course my mind wandered to Horst Cahn, and my Polish Ancestry. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party gave the Jews a similar sendoff, only they were sent to gas chambers instead of learning a new trade.
Yet I had two months to leave. I took a long hot shower, shaved with my Bic and organized my room. The last days of the 'Y' would be my celebration with the past. I wondered what room did Charles Lindbergh had stayed in for one dollar. Just maybe I slept in his bed.
Lindbergh had flown the 'Spirit' to France for the first Trans Atlantic trip across the ocean. 1927 to receive a big prize and a large parade on his return. He was the first to fly non-stop over the Atlantic. He had trained his plane off of Dutch Island in San Diego.
I made my hot boiled eggs in the kitchen. For the first time, there were towels by the sink and no cock roaches to join me for breakfast. The second floor T.V. no longer screamed religious programs or rap music. It was silent.
I paid my $800 rent, vacuumed, wrapped my back pack over me and out the front door I skipped. A homeless kid walked along with me screaming a lot-of-non-sense into my right ear. He walked to my inside. I came to India Avenue and saw the same gal, much older than her years. She wore wrinkles and a effervescent smile. Her hand reached out.
"Sir, could you spare some change", she begged. ""Not today" I replied. The one who had walked to me had stopped to pick up a cigarette butt. A few drops of rain hit me in the face. On my head I wore the same Chicago White Socks hat. I had found it at the Town and Country during the November Jazz Feast. I bumped my Compass Pass and entered the Coaster. The commuter train slept on track number three. My car was waiting at the Encinitas Train Station.
While on the train, my mind wondered back to the old historic hotel. Now it would be torn apart and remade into a W, Weston, or Winsome Hotel. The new hotel would feature air conditioners and also update their rates to two or perhaps three hundred a night.
The thousands who befriend San Diego will no longer afford the exorbitant fees to stay by the Harbor. For me, I was going to move anyway. The summer room temperature in my room hovers around ninety during the day.
It is time for me to just move along. Someday when I am rich I will return to my favorite hotel, the YMCA. I think I will now sing the song with the above title.
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