Growing up in a motel part deux

Growing up in a motel was a unique experience and I wrote a previous post just remembering some of the things that might be different from what people are used to.

We met a lot of people (obviously) through the motel. I should ask my parents for more stories (and at least my mom reads this, so remind me of some). But I met a friend who is still friends to this day (and we're friends on Facebook now) - she also played violin and it turned out we both went to the annual Spring String Festival at Houghton College. After we made that connection, we hung out there. She's a year older and I felt really cool to be hanging out with someone "older".

One time all the rooms in our motel were full, and I can't remember the details but this couple's car broke down or something so they asked if they could just sleep in their car in the parking lot. They might have even offered to pay for a parking spot (I'm sure my parents said no to that one). My parents felt really bad for them so they were invited in for breakfast the next morning. They were from NYC and I just remember being mesmerized by the accent and how "different" they were. I think the woman had kind of a punk style that might be embellished in my memory, and I remember her more than her husband/boyfriend. I wonder if my parents ever kept in touch with them (or if my mom even remembers who I'm talking about.) That in itself was rare though; we tended to try to keep our home life private and we did not invite guests into the area where we lived. And honestly when kids were outside on the swingset, I usually would shy away from them. I think my parents pushed me to talk to the friend I talked about above, and that was because they were regulars and really nice.

For at least a year (more in my mind but again my memories might be embellished a bit) my dad decided to make a little extra money by cooking breakfast for the guests if they wanted it. Well, it was either for extra money or just because people kept asking if breakfast was available. Maybe I should stop guessing at why things were done... Anyway, when timing worked out, guess who "got" to deliver the breakfasts? My sister and myself. Yippee. We were soooo excited about that. Can you sense the sarcasm here? The only nice thing was that sometimes people would tip us for carrying it down and we got to keep it! My mom said that she and my dad rarely got tips if they delivered the breakfast so maybe people felt sorry for the little bleary eyed kid standing at the door with some hot food. Oh and hunting season was TERRIBLE for that. My parents got a TON of orders which kept us hopping and we were forced to drag ourselves out of bed at some ungodly early hour (since hunters get up so darn early) so that we could run back and forth from our place to the rooms with the breakfasts.

Speaking of hunting season-

• I rounded the corner for a few years in a row before figuring out not to do this and saw dead deer hanging in our shed or in trees around our shed. Blech. Blech. Blech. In various states of... deadness? Skinned, not skinned, BEING SKINNED? Did I already say Blech? And even though there was plastic tarp down on the concrete floor, blood would get through and that always grossed me out even after it was dried up and just a stain. Blech.
• The hunters all got up super early and in the same time frame. That was typically before we would get up to go to school. So we knew hunting season had started when all the hot water for our showers was gone and we were standing in the freezing cold water trying to wash up as quickly as possible.

When I was about 10, Hurricane Hugo came through. It was pretty scary for me at that age. There was a HUGE tree outside my bedroom window and we got a lot of wind. That tree- I got scared it was going to come falling down on me. That one was fine, but a different tree uprooted and came down on our shed. So we rebuilt the side of the shed. Maybe this isn't necessarily particular to living in a motel, but still. We did a lot of work around the place, more than I think would be typical for a normal kid. My dad pretty much did any and all construction and or maintenance on the place and we were his helpers.  So I have helped: expanded rooms, rebuild a roof, change electric wiring, completely redo a room when a pipe burst and water ruined everything in the room, drywalled, laid carpet... Then there are the outside things: building a lawn pond, sealing an entire deck (and building it), sealing a huge driveway and painting lines and numbers on it, raking a ton of leaves, trimming bushes... Now I will admit I was just a helper. So when I say we sealed a huge driveway- we helped use a 2x4 to mix the sealant up (took turns with that one and honestly my sister did more work because I was such a weakling) and then used brushes to get the sides of the driveway as my dad actually did most of the sealing work. This means I recognize a lot now about how a job should be done but if I had to do it myself I'd be pretty lost. I'm much happier being a helper (and no I was not happy about it growing up).

BTW when I talk about a shed I'm talking about a decent sized building, not one of those tiny sheds (which we do have) that you would put next to your house. This was a separate building in the backyard that had the riding lawn mower, tools, lumber up in the rafters, etc. And a lot of boxes for storage.