banquet room lower level where civic and school groups had meetings with dinner. Usually 3 or 4 of us would work by setting up room, place settings, buffet line etc., then serve attendees, bus the tables when the dining part was over, then while they were having their meeting we would close off our service station and clean up, send the dirty dishes and implements back upstairs via the dumbwaiter. But the food; all the food had to be disposed of – it had all been paid for by the contract and Lendy’s would not re-use or re-sell any of it whether touched or not. It was ours, the waiters: the chicken, whole big strawberry and pecan pies, etc., etc., etc.. We were to take it with us or throw it away. You can imagine how popular I was showing up at O’Shaughnessy around 10 pm about twice a week with more bags than I could carry of this stuff. Also, we were paid by a gratuity, a percentage of the contract price, added to the bill, and divided by ever how many of us worked the banquet, usually 3. The average for me was between $25 and $40, which would be $250 to $400 or more today. I’ve been trying to remember the manager’s name (and I will eventually) and I think it was Len, maybe Les. A truly great guy. And I remember one of the other workers was a really pretty girl from Christiansburg, Sandra Altizer.