The Other 98%....

My last few blog entries have been a bit on the negative side, detailing the some-times ugly attributes of people who enter into our life because of the ‘OPEN’ sign we have on our front door. For this I apologize, as the original intent of this blog wasn’t to make it into a wordier version of Facebook – (“I’m really bored right now. Think I’ll take a quiz to see what 1960’s cartoon character I’d most likely smell like after a run in the woods...”) The intent of the blog was to chronicle the unique aspects of our lives as they played out doing an unusual job in a small town while living in a historic building on a magnificent river. Instead, I’ve fallen prey to bitching about the 2% of life’s bastards who have turned this dream into a sometimes nightmare. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

As recompense for my recent caustic digressions, I’d like to take this opportunity to laud the other 98% of the human race, who are our reason for giving up safety and security so that we may experience, share and enjoy the glory of their being. We did this because we love people and we derive great satisfaction in interacting with them and making them happy. In fact, Julie has given her life to making children with special needs productive, whole and happy, and some gutless, anonymous son of a bitch referred to her as “two-faced” in another vicious on-line review. Whoops! Sorry, said I wasn’t going to go there anymore; last time.

It was June 29th, 2008, and we had lived full-time at The Riverside for only two days. It was late in the afternoon, and the hotel was almost booked full. We were making last minute preparations for the evening dinner crowd, when I noticed two young men trying to get a very large, full-body wheelchair into our west hotel/restaurant entrance. As the hotel was built a few years before the ADA, it unfortunately isn’t up to code regarding accessibility. I went to see what could be done about helping them get the wheelchair into the building; it was at this point that I took the time to notice the inhabitant of the chair. He was an elderly gentleman, I’d say he was in his early 80’s, and he looked very much like my father looked shortly before my father died. He was unable to communicate verbally, barely nodding ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to queries from his grandsons. He also appeared to be paralyzed from the neck down – no sign of movement from his torso or limbs. I immediately gained respect for these young men, who upon first glance I’d judged as hoodlums from their tattoos, piercings and the goofy, oversized clown-like baseball caps sitting askance on their skulls; (bear with me; I’m an old fart.) They were in fact the epitome of love, tenderness and human kindness in the way that they cared for their grandfather – and care it took, as getting the chair from one cranny through the next would have tried to patience of most. In followed the boy's grandmother, who told me that she and her husband spent their wedding night at The Riverside in 1952, and that her husband “didn’t have too much time left, and they wanted to see the place one more time”. She took me upstairs – the husband stayed downstairs as ascending the narrow stairways were impossible, even with the help of the resolute grandsons – and showed me the room, ‘Elizabeth’, where they spent their first night as newlyweds. She paused and bowed at the door for a minute, reverentially, and without speaking, went back down the stairs to be with her husband. She gently took his hand and told him that she'd found the room, and it was much as she'd remembered; there was the faintest attempt at a smile from the old lion. I was dumbfounded, speechless, and choked up to the point of not even being able to communicate with this family. In fact, I can’t retell this story to people without tears welling in my eyes and my throat constricting, as I have burned in my memory the eager, helpless, dying face of the man who was trying in that instant, through strained eyes, to suck in and relive one of his life’s greatest memories.

I thought we bought a hotel and restaurant. It was at this point that I finally realized that we bought much more than a business; we are the stewards of this magnificent building and the memories of thousands of unknown people and their stories. How many weddings, receptions and honeymoon nights, how many births and deaths, how many Christmas mornings and Thanksgiving turkeys, how much heartache and how much joy? What an awesome responsibility it is to be caretaker to such a magnificent old girl as The Riverside. My thanks to this beautiful couple, whose names I didn’t even have the where-with-all to learn. I followed them out the door, watching as the grandsons delivered their charge into the van with the delicate skill and loving care of surgeons; goofy hats still askance on their skulls.

It didn’t take but two days of living at The Riverside for me to understand why we did this; not for the bastards, but for the other 98% of the human race.

To be continued………