Submitted by:
Gary A. Edwards

One time when I was 19 years old, I played string bass at the Davenport Hotel with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. The event was a gala champagne ball. The lights twinkled off the glittering chandeliers. Ladies dressed in the finest furs and ball-gowns. The orchestra played Strauss Waltzes and other beautiful music. It soon became apparent that the crowd was more interested in talking with each other than listening to our hard-played music, however.

    As the evening wore on this sophisticated, elegant crowd became noisier. Harold Whelan, the conductor, became visibly annoyed and furrowed his brow at the loud talking. Tongues clucked in the orchestra as the sound of champagne goblets occasionally tinkled on the floor, dropped by progressively more inebriated and rude guests.

    As an impressionable teenager, I learned that night at the Davenport Hotel there is not that much difference between people after all. That affluent drunks can be just as loud, rude, obnoxious and crude as the cowboys who scraped their boots at other clubs I worked playing music, such as Hard Luck Charley's. As for Harold Whelan, I believe I heard him vowing never to perform at another Champagne Ball.