Whether it is families taking a well-deserved vacation, or the lonely business traveler, you meet many different people when you work in a hotel. Most of these are just regular folks trying to make it through life with some measure of enjoyment. If they stay long enough, their idiosyncrasies begin to show and you learn pretty quickly what kind of people they are. This has always been one of my favorite aspects of hospitality and I will miss it the most. I have said many times that I hate people, but this just isn’t true. The only thing that makes our lives bearable is each other and it only took me forty-one years to figure that out.

I have also met some famous people in the hotels I have worked. As a young waiter, I served humanitarian and author, Terry Waite. He spent 1,760 days being held captive in Lebanon in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Mr. Waite was in Saint Louis for a lecture and eating by himself. I would have not known it was him had it not been for an adjoining table that offered to buy his dinner. I thought it would be funny, at the end of his meal, to ask, “Is there anything else I can bring you… bread… water?” He did not think it was funny.

I went on to manage that restaurant, and as the manager, I was always the highest ranking employee on the property in the evenings. In the business we call this being the – MOD (Manager On Duty). It really was a pain in the ass, because I was constantly being called away from my primary duties to deal with some nonsense going on with the hotel guests. Let me tell you, some crazy shit can happen in hotels.

One evening, I received a call from the front desk telling me that they had received several complaints coming from the top floor. Apparently, there was a “large black man” jogging up and down the hallway. It was very busy in the restaurant that night, so I stormed off reluctantly to deal with the problem.

As I rode the elevator to the top floor, I wondered once again; what in the hell was wrong with people? It was Memorial Day weekend and the weather was decent; surely there were better places to jog than a hotel hallway. I figured the guy must be hammered or on drugs. I had dealt with that before, and had seen more than one hotel guest dragged out by police looking haggard, half naked, and delusional. When addicts go on crazy benders, they like to do it in hotels for some reason. I think a part of them knows it will end badly and they would prefer that the madness only be witnessed by strangers.

The elevator doors opened just as the running man was turning around in the foyer to go back the other direction. The “large black guy” was none other than Walter Payton – The Sweetness himself. They started calling him “The Sweetness” in college, because he was a nice guy and his running was ssssswwwweeeet.

The reason we were so busy that weekend was the big CART race at the then-new Gateway Racetrack. Walter Payton was part owner of Payton – Coyne Racing and was in town for the Saturday competition. Most of the team was staying in our hotel because of its proximity to the track, but none of us were aware that Walter Payton was among them. We knew he was in St. Louis for the race, but assumed he would be staying in one of the fancier hotels downtown.

Mr. Payton stopped running when he saw me. Maybe it was because my name-tag identified me as the manager and he realized that I was probably there for him. It is also possible that he could see by the look on my face that I was a huge football fan that had played the game every chance I had, from childhood through high-school, and remembered exactly where I was the moment the Bears won their one and only Super Bowl.

Note: I am unsure if I am even allowed to publish the words “Super Bowl”. Please don’t come after me NFL lawyers; I am poor and you will get nothing. The name seems germane to the story, and to be honest, I want to punch somebody in the face every time I hear the phrase “The Big Game” on the radio this time of year. The NFL seems to have forgotten that there was once a time when they were ecstatic to hear the words “Super Bowl” in any type of media.

People tend to gush and become flummoxed when meeting more famous versions of themselves, but I always swore I would never do that. And then, when theory and practice collided, I did exactly that. Oh well; I got to meet Walter Payton. He actually wasn’t that much bigger than me, and his voice didn’t match, but he was certainly powerful and intimidating.

“The Sweetness” was known for his relentless running style. If you were going to tackle Walter Payton, you had better be prepared to pay, because he was going to lower his head, stick out his arm, and try to run right through you. His most famous quote is, “Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It’s okay to lose, to die, but don’t die without trying, without giving it your best.” His autobiography is aptly titled just that; Never Die Easy.

This story comes to mind because Walter Payton struggled with addiction, just as I do. Thirteen years of never giving up on a play left his body destroyed and he became addicted to painkillers. My body is in pretty good shape (considering), but my mind most definitely is not and I have been dependent on alcohol, for decades, as a primary tool to shut it down.

Once again, I have backed myself into a corner and there is nothing left to do, but fight my way out. There will be no crutches or hiding this time; I will have to do the work – sober. I anticipate that this will be a terribly long battle and the only thing I can do is lower my head, stick out my arm, and charge with my legs pumping as if my life depends on it, because frankly, it does.

People like to say that recovery is a daily struggle, but I am not even there yet. Right now, it is an hourly struggle. It seems to me that the ultimate goal here is to re-train my brain to properly love; first a higher power, and then myself, and maybe if I am lucky, somebody else. I am told that this can take years, so I do not dare dream that far ahead, but my mind has always done what it wants and it gives me unsolicited glimpses of what life can be like if I succeed. I have to admit, it looks pretty sweet.

The higher power stuff probably sounds strange coming from me and I cannot disagree. In David Foster Wallace’s famous speech, This Is Water, he said, “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” I have worshiped oblivion for far too long.

I did not tell Walter Payton that he needed to stop jogging. I talked to him for a couple of minutes and asked if there was anything I could have sent up to his room. He requested some hot tea and something light to eat (I don’t remember what he wanted to eat), so I told him I would have it up right away.

When I returned to the restaurant and told the staff what had just happened, the kid working room service nearly jumped out of his shoes to get Payton’s tray together. As he sprinted off to the server’s isle to make the order, I stopped him.

“Hey Justin”, I yelled, because I just couldn’t help myself, “Make sure you take extra sugar.”

Post Script: Walter Payton died of a rare bile duct cancer two years after I got the chance to meet him. After his death, a biography containing some details of his addiction was published and it angered a great many of Payton’s fans. They didn’t want his legacy as a great player and philanthropist tarnished by his addiction and I find that insulting. When you love someone, for whatever reason, you have to love every part of them – from their massive imperfections, to their smallest idiosyncrasies. Although the Payton family did not agree with all of the assertions in the biography, in a statement to the press they simply said, “Walter, like all of us, wasn’t perfect.”

Aint that the truth.