"THERE WAS NO HOPE"

Back in the mid-1970's when I first started working at the front desk of the Soundings Motel in Dennis Port on Cape Cod, Mass. I often worked with Debbie Manning who is the wife of one of the owners of the Soundings at that time. Back then we had music piped into the lobby and indoor pool areas from a large tape player as well as a microphone to page people in these areas of the motel.

Some times during slow moments of the day we used to page famous people with our desk microphone over the speakers for fun. We wanted to try to get people staying at the motel to believe that we had "stars" staying with us at the Soundings. Debbie Manning would say "Urgent message for Mr. Robert Redford, please report to the front desk." I remember that she would also say over the microphone " Bob Hope, Mr. Bob Hope, you have a phone call". Back then we didn't have voice mail capability with the room phones and had to take messages for the guests and leave a message light flashing on their phone.

Alas, Bob Hope wasn't at the property or at least he didn't answer his page. Maybe he was in the sauna and didn't hear us calling his name. Maybe he was in the indoor pool building but was swimming underwater in the pool and didn't hear us trying to contact him. Since Bob Hope didn't respond to our attempts to reach him we were Hope-less at the Soundings. There was no Hope.