Leaving the Job and All Its Baggage

Bellman of 60 Years Lugged the Stuff of Political Leaders and Pop Stars

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.