After starting their career at Mount Airy Lodge
in the late Fifties, they were now the opening act at Pocono Manor
Inn, a sophisticated resort hotel and golf course near Mt. Pocono.
Dee and Dale opened for stars like Perry Como, Bob Hope,
and Mel Brooks.
Soon, I was hired as a bar waiter, and I jumped at the
chance. For a 20-year-old who never touched alcohol, it was a unique
job. As a cocktail waiter, I worked from 6 pm to 2 am, six nights a week,
serving drinks in the dining room, the lounge, and the main showroom.
I went on an arranged date with the sales director’s secretary Gloria, a blond three years older than me. Gloria was sophisticated, and fun to date. We mostly went to nightclubs and cocktail parties and often doubled with Dee and Dale.
The response to the well-known
couple from other employees was both obsequious and heartfelt.
Everyone seemed to know and like Dee and Dale Crews, and I basked
in their reflected glory.
Because of my grandmother’s incessant stories, I knew I was sinning
by going to nightclubs, and drinking, and dating blondes, but frankly I was
having the time of my life.
Sometimes, when I was selling drinks in the showroom and Mom
and Dale were performing, after dancing the tango, Dale would
grab the mike and say, “They call the tango the dance of love,
and we've danced it so long we have a dozen kids."
He would pause for the laugh, then say, “No, we've just got one
great kid and there he is, Larry.”
The spotlight would turn on me. I’d wave to
the audience.
Then Dale would say, “Tip him well so he can get an
apartment of his own.”
The audience would laugh again.
So far, I felt that I had avoided being dragged down
the road to degradation.
But one problem with the weight I had lost in the previous year was that the draft board became interested in me. It was during the Vietnam War so the chances of being sent there were high.
