WHAT ARE ALL THOSE FALLING DOWN BUILDINGS IN THE CORNER OF THE FIELD NEXT TO THE HI-WAY Most of this story is before my day and was real up through about 1931. My brother Truman and his wife travels a lot. They just got back from Florida and I seen pictures on facebook of the beautiful motel they were staying in. One picture showed Truman setting on a beautiful wood deck looking out over the ocean drinking coffee watching the waves come in. The inside of these motels have the best of everything. Beautiful couch and chairs, closets and meets any need. They have made several trips this summer of 2014 and I have never seen anything except the best. They have shown many pictures of other places they have stayed and they all were outstanding in looks and settings. Todays vacation leaves lovely memories to talk about for years to come and even driving down the road just after you leave. The talk is usually, I would like to go back there. This is not the way a vacation has always been. I have seen evidence of one, but you wouldnt see many places where the motel or cabin was even there when I was a child. In looking for these places where the cabins stood or ones that lay on the ground, you would not look in town, because most towns had ordinances against having them within the city limits, because of the class of people that stayed in them. The people that stayed in them were just different than the people who lived in the towns. They were upperty and made fun of how poor some of the people were, so they just rather not be around them, All the vacationer drove cars and sometimes if they did go to the small town the sound of the car would scare the horses. The Motels or what was called cabins back then was just out side of town on a farm. The cabins were what we called just thrown together on a peace of worthless ground on the farm that would grow nutin. If the ground they were on was any good atall there would be no cabins or motels as we called them today. No that ground aint worth a dime and so to make a little money out of it some would throw together a cabin that the hens laid eggs in when aint no bidy was renting them. The smell of those chickens could not be gotten rid of either. The cabins would be put together without any building experience and rough lumber that the farmer had sawed in his sawmill himself. The stories that I have been told goes like this. You drive up to the house and the farmer asked, Do you need a cabin for tonight? When the vacationer said, yes, the farmer would say, do you want beds in it. The cabin will be $1.00 and the beds will be 50 cents, so pay me then i will take you and show you the cabins. (If you didnt pay up front there would be no tour. The rooms were 9x12 with linoleum on the floor with some wrinkles where the boards on the floor had a gaps in it. The wall had several big nails in it for you to hang your clothes and a small mirror. The room had two straight back chairs for your setting time, and some of the beds had a ridge in middle of the mattress from side to side because they would be too long for the bed.The outhouse would be in back in the middle of the four or five cabins. The owner would walk in and say,any questions folks, youns enjoy your stay and there was no backing out, because the sign said, no returns on your money. The flies and other flying insects would be flying around the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling. Spiders webbs, of course in the ceiling corners and the kids were busy stepping on insects running across the floor. The wife would sometimes find a hen egg on the mattress. Many words were used in recalling a nights lodging then but they were definitely not lovely. As they hit the road the next morning the man was usually be complaining about the cotton mattress he had slept on. In fact the whole days conversation was about the sleeping cabins and by the time the vacation was over the rest of the year was full of the conversation on what one was bad in and how much worse the other one was. Of course there were no television, but that didnt mean there was nothing to see. Out a west window you could look out and see a freshly plowed field. After dark you could turn on the 20-watt drop light and watch the spiders spinning webs among the wooden beams of the ceiling. Most of the cabins had a place between them and the next cabin to park a car. To have privacy between two beds, a curtain of faded floral print could be pulled along a wire. It wasnt all bad, a person or family had electricity, and by pulling a chain you could find objects if they were big enough. It would be comfortable on a 100 degree compared to the complaining about the cabin. Thank goodness this was before my time, but not much, and I have read and heard old timers tell these stories. How was your vacation this year?
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 02:02:09 +0000
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