That Hotel Was A Goner

Thinking today about the hotel I worked at during the summer after I graduated high school, a resort place in Sister Bay, WI. My family had vacationed up there so much when I was younger, I was just about sick of it. But by the end of high school, the place seemed like freedom. A friend my age had worked there for a summer and I'd gotten to visit her. I couldn't believe the parties, the new people, the drinking and drugs, the beaches and music. My 18-year-old mind didn't notice the slummy living conditions or the low wages. ;)

My parents shocked me by helping me get set up for the summer of 1998 at a lovely place they had gone to on vacations a few times. It was made up of 6 buildings of various sizes, containing different styles of rooms. I lived in one of them along with 5 other girls, while we had jobs as housekeepers, waiters, and at the front desk. My high school crush also became my roommate there, after I told her all about the opportunity to be away from parents and home for a summer. At the end of 3+ months, we had had enough experiences, conversations, adventures, and romances to provide material for a slew of comedic movies, rom coms, indie films, and at least one soap opera. The photo albums contain many incriminating photos-- some didn't even make it into the albums.

Well, the point is that the place is now gone. A few years back, they razed "our" resort to make rooms for townhouses. Starting with the building we lived in, the one with the smallest rooms for rent. Then moving on to the 3 buildings of cabins, the waterfront building, the main building which contained the restaurant, the crumbling old boat house, the cobalt-tiled swimming pool, and much more of the woods behind.

When I drive up there now, I can hardly tell where it used to be. Just a long stretch of tall townhouses, each just like the one next to it.

Today I listened to "Falling Down," my favorite song from Scarlett Johansson's album Anywhere I Lay My Head. There's a section in the song that is the reason I'm thinking of this today:

"Go on down and see that wrecking ball
Come swinging on along
Everyone knew that hotel was a goner
They broke all the windows
They took all the door knobs
And they hauled it away in a couple of days"

Breaks my heart a bit, thinking of that place, our home for a bit, being destroyed and carted off to landfills. I know this kind of thing happens all the time, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. ;)
The most important things that came out of that time are the friends I made there who will be my friends forever, because of the things we shared that summer.