The Greenbrier, The Bunker & and the larger-than-life billionaire who owns them both

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The Greenbrier pays such meticulous attention to detail it has an historian named Walls giving bunker tours.

I didn’t check but I have to imagine they have at least one chef named Cook.

Being a history buff, I’d been looking forward to the bunker tour since its top secret existence was revealed in 1992. Officially known as “Project Greek Island,” the bunker was conceived by President Dwight Eisenhower as the secure location where America’s government would endure in the event of a cataclysmic attack on Washington, D.C.

It’s Uncle Sam’s fallout shelter, the urgent destination of the men and women America would rely upon for governmental continuity in the event the unspeakable became reality.

So since its founding in 1778, The Greenbrier has been the place fortunate Americans want to go for the kind of nights they never want to end, and since 1962 the place to go if you think the world might.

The secret spilled in 1992 when the Washington Post published the story headlined: “Last Resort: The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway.”

Other banner headlines included: “Hotel Armageddon,” “The Secret is Out! Bunker Was Ready in Case of Nuclear Attack,” and — my favorite — “For Congress, Apocalypse Wow!”

Seeing the bunker has been a goal of mine ever since. 

So I was confounded when Linda Walls informed me that I, in fact, had been in the bunker before.

Not in a previous life.

In 2013.

I’d scored a freelance assignment to spend two nights at the prestigious White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, resort to cover the annual Certified Angus Beef convention.

I remember the beef convention was like what the inside of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory would have resembled if Willy Wonka had been a rapacious carnivore.

So I wasn’t there for Armageddon.

More like Farmagheddon.

In the exhibit hall there were maybe 50 premium beef vendors offering roasters full of the choicest cuts prepared the most savory ways. There were beef meatballs, shish kabobs, shepherds pie, beef stew, sausage, roast beef, steaks, ribs, corned beef, beef brisket, barbecue, cold cuts -- I think I even saw some beef ice cream.

I remember feeling euphoric.

Or maybe a better description is MOO-phoric!

And, in fact, the whole thing was taking place right inside the top secret bunker, a place ingeniously designed to hide in plain sight, a place so secret yet so exposed that for three decades none of the world’s top spies knew existed.

“It was one of the great secrets of the Cold War era,” Walls said. “It was built with the knowledge of everyone — you couldn’t conceal its massive construction — but no one knew its true purpose.”

The former U.S. Government Relocation Facility was announced under the guise of being the resort’s new West Virginia Wing. The still-functioning wing sits atop the concrete-and-steel reinforced bunker burrowed 720 feet into the hillside beneath the rooms.

As life-preserving places to wait out a nuclear winter go, the bunker’s not bad: Think of an underground parking garage, but with MREs, board games and bunk beds.

In the event of crisis, massive steel blast doors would slam shut and the exhibition hall would transform into congressional work space.

“DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE” signs kept curious snoopers from entering more sensitive areas like the a self-contained power plant, dormitories, a cafeteria/kitchen, laundry, a dispensary clinic and a communications briefing room from which congressional updates would be broadcast to those who hadn’t been annihilated — and could still pick up a stray TV signal.

It was all maintained at instant readiness by a small cadre of secret agents working for the fictitious Forsythe Associates, ostensibly a group of techs serving the resort’s many audio visual needs. The  ruse included a rotating stock of disabled TV sets in the main office.

The sprawling facility was sealed by three enormous steel blast doors weighing 18, 25 and 30 tons each. The doors are so perfectly balanced, dainty people can open and close them with one hand.

Touring it today makes you nostalgic for when the U.S. government could work together to get big things done.

So many of the Greenbrier’s stories are larger than life and in 2009, America’s resort got an owner to match. Justice, 64, is 6-foot-7 and weighs about 350.

He's Jim Justice. The West Virginia native is one of the richest men in America -- Forbes lists him as being #368 --  having amassed a still-growing $1.68 billion fortune through coal, corn and timber interests. 

It’s no exaggeration to say he’s likely made a million dollars in the time it’s taken for you to read this far.

If that makes you angry, you can commiserate with Marriott Hotel executives. They in 2009 where in line to purchase The Greenbrier until Justice swept in and cut through the tangled deal with a $43 million cash offer too good for CSX owners to refuse.

The news was greeted with little enthusiasm by West Virginians who cherish their heirloom resort.

“Just 11 days ago, Greenbrier workers ratified new collective bargaining agreements thinking they were hitching their wagon to a world-class hotelier,” wrote George Hohmann of the Charleston Daily Mail at the time. They didn’t dream “they’d end up working for a coal guy who hasn’t even run a bed and breakfast.”

He’s lived his entire life within 50 miles of The Greenbrier and remembers telling friends the first time he saw it he felt like Dorothy did when she first spied the Emerald City.

He recognized it as a place where dreams come true.

Since purchasing the property, he’s poured more than $300 million into upgrades and just last week announced he’s hired Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Gary Player to build a championship got course capable of hosting the U.S. Open by the 2023.

He spent $30 million on a state-of-the-art NFL training facility and succeeded in luring both the New England Patriots and the New Orleans Saints to the resort to conduct summer camps.

He’s the titled owner of 47 companies and still finds time to stoke his competitive juices by coaching both the boys and girls Greenbrier East high’s basketball teams.

And, oh, yeah, he’s running to be the Democratic nominee for the 2016 West Virginia governor election.

If elected, will he be as successful in public office and he’s been in private?

Who knows?

But know this much: he’s like to remain the same cheerful and ebullient leader as he’s been through a very exuberant life.

In short, despite one of his more unusual possessions, Justice is unlikely to ever be the kind of guy who succumbs to bunker mentality.

Mom's hip nipples & Breast Cancer Awareness

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Me and the girls were coming home from seeing Pittsburgh’s giant rubber duckie when Nana told us the story of her migrating nipples.

It was a very surreal day.

I had trouble believing something that consequential could move around so easily.

And I’m talking about her nipples, not the great big duck, which I understand can be moved with a tug boat and steel cables.

So many conversations with my dear mother -- she’ll be 81 in December -- are surreal these days. It’s a running soundtrack of our hour-long drives from her home in Pittsburgh’s South Hills to visit in our Latrobe home. 

I ought to podcast them.

I drive a 2007 Saturn Vue, but when she’s in the car it feels like we’re motoring down the Parkway East in that psychedelic boat the Gene Wilder character skippered in the first and still-superior Willie Wonka movie from 1971.

I have trouble separating hallucination from reality.

She has dementia, but it’s a sly sort. She’s at a stage where she’ll sometimes do and say things that will have you conclude, yep, she’s lost it. Then in the very next sentence she’ll make perfect sense.

The combination disorients and I find myself spending the next few days trying to reconstruct the bizarre conversations.

That’s why today, four days later, I can’t get her nipples off my mind.

Odd, because I swear I remember her telling me I was a bottle baby.

All the pink fountains are to blame. It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and many of the city fountains are splashing pink. My car mate daughters, ages 13 and 7, thought that was very cool.

“Why are the fountains pink?” Mom asked.

I explained to her the symbolism. As she lost both her breasts to cancer in 1982, I thought it might be good for her granddaughters to hear about her experience.

Now I’m not so sure.

Because the thrust of Nana’s story didn’t deal with the gravity of this killer disease, prevention or how lifestyle choices can impact women’s health. It dealt instead with migratory nipples.

“I don’t remember the operation,” she said. “All I remember is looking down and seeing my nipples on my hips.”

The recollection enlivened Josie and Lucy.

“Your nipples were on your hips?” asked Josie.

She explained when the doctors told her they were removing her breasts, they said the could save the nipples by temporarily transplanting them to her hips where they’d be nurtured until they could be put back where they belonged.

I hadn’t heard this story. Or maybe I had. I was about 20 when it happened. I was very self-centered at the time and, I’m sure, pre-occupied with the quest for finding handy access to female nipples that weren’t attached to my mother.

Now, I wanted to know all about her hip nipples.

Where they comfortable? Did she have to be careful when she put her keys in her pockets? Could Dad have taken one -- or two -- for the team and had them put on him just below his own?

I looked into the rear view mirror and saw Lucy, the youngest, had zipped down her top and was looking back and forth on her chest like she was observing a volley at a tennis match.

“I remember a lot of discussion with the doctors,” she said. “They said we didn’t have to to save them, but most women did for cosmetic reasons. So when they removed my breasts they took the nipples off and sewed them into my hips.

“A few months later, after the reconstructive surgery, they put the nipples back where they belonged. I don’t think anyone’s seen them ever since.”

We spent much of the remainder of the drive discussing where else Nana’s nipples could have gone with, inevitably, our stupid dog playing a donor role.

It seemed to me like a lost opportunity.

I had hoped my Mom would explain the danger and difficulties associated with surviving breast cancer; that maybe the girls would glean some worldly sympathy for the sisterhood, something their mother and I strongly encourage.

And I was hoping this post would have some heartfelt gravity about how men can support the women in our lives and encourage them to fight this cruel disease.

Instead, in the end it’s just a little piece about nipple mobility.

I guess it’s something I just had to get off my chest.

Related . . .

Listening to classic rock with my senile Mom

Mom’s making crazy contagious by a nose

My gay friend John

Zombies at The Pond

My first impression was we were three besieged men in a lifeboat adrift amidst a sea swollen with undesirables trying to claw their way to safety.

We were using our oars to beat them back to their doom.

Then I realized my analogy was all wrong.

We were Shaun, Ed and Liz in the Winchester Pub fighting for our lives against the hungry zombie horde.

We were a real-life depiction of the 2004 zom rom com (zombie romantic comedy) “Shaun of the Dead.”

The Pond had been closed for the entire week while Dave and staff took their summer vacation.

The social vacancy turns many of Latrobe’s most devoted inebriates into zombies.

The week just drags.

People know the bar’s closed, but they still walk up to the doors and press their beaks against the glass. They tug at the door handles.

They call me at my office above the bar and ask if he’s open.

“I swear I saw someone moving around in there. You sure he’s closed?”

Oh, I’m sure.

Of course, if he opened on the sly I wouldn’t tell a soul.

I’m too sentimental about the opportunity to have a closed bar open only to me.

Being welcomed to imbibe in a locked bar is the drinker’s equivalent of joining baseball’s 3,000 hit club.

It’s just you, the owner and several soothing walls of free hootch. It’s something only elite bar patrons ever get to experience.

I’ve lost count the number of times it’s happened to me. I guess that makes me the Pete Rose of drinkers.

I’m dependable, play hurt and every three weeks show up sporting another really bad hair cut.

That’s why I started to tingle when Dave said, pssst, stop in if you see my car out front.

It happened on Friday afternoon.

He unlocked the door and waved me in. I imagine I felt like Charlie did when Willy Wonka welcomed him into the chocolate factory.

He locked the door behind me.

The front door commotion drew the first zombies. They’d seen me enter and thought their Friday Happy Hour was back on.

But Dave just shook his head and mouthed, “W-E’-R-E C-L-O-S-E-D.” The two looked confused and staggered away.

Next at the door came Chuck. He’d texted me earlier that Dave’s car was out front (my office faces the back).

I told him I’d text him the instant I knew if Dave was letting a privileged few in. He must not have trusted me because he showed up without waiting to hear back.

Truly, I was about to text him. He’s an enthusiastic reader of my blog and I reserve all my best favors for those of that designation.

It’s something you might want to keep in mind if a zombie outbreak ever occurs.

They were coming now about one every five minutes. Dave was steadfast in his refusals.

We speculated about who we’d let in. It was a short list.

Cheap tippers were ruled out, as were people who like to argue about politics. We split up some families because we liked the husband, but not the wife and in some instances the reverse.

Regulars include about five regular Joes who are all helpfully named Joe. The Joes would each get a pass.

We agreed it would be wise to let Bill the bartender in. Zombie or not, he terrifies us too much to risk his wrath.

By 5 p.m. zombies were filling the parking lot. Chuck, not wanting to overstay his welcome, made a break for it. He hasn’t been heard from since.

His bravery, not to mention his manners, exceed my own. Plus, there was still plenty of booze.

I wasn’t about to budge.

It’s a true pleasure to spend alone buddy time with Dave. He’s usually busy treating every other customer like they mean the world to him.

Some people go through their entire lives never knowing how much they mean to the people in their little orbits.

Dave is beloved enough he could be mayor or even Santa Claus.

Instead he chooses to run a little family bar where maybe 100 or so otherwise strangers feel welcome to visit and share a little bit of their lives.

It’s one of those rare kinds of thinking man’s taverns where one of Dave’s signature jokes involves Mahatma Gandhi and a squeaky clean punchline that concludes: “He’s a super calloused, fragile mystic who’s hexed by halitosis.”

The telling of it is its own sort of field sobriety test.

Of course, it had to end and that was too bad.

I could have spent the night with him as we roared clear through to that stage of drunkenness where two guys get to weeping about their daddies.

The zombies looking in and seeing us with our arms around each other might have even softened their homicidal appetites. It would have been splendid.

See, Dave’s as cuddly as he is cerebral.

You’d have to be a zombie to not love a guy like that.