11/12/2019
Oh, the songs that swirl around in the beady little parts of my mind! I can’t nail down one SIMH this morning. Most days like this are good days. I think it is an advantage to have so many songs that I can’t distinguish the first or a most prevalent one. Since I made this a focus of the blog, am I inventing the consciousness of music each day? I don’t think so, but the frequency of my notes about it might prove me guilty. Let’s not dwell on this today, though, OK? Please don’t let this bother you (as if!)
When my growing up years seemed to have come to and end, and I left the good ol’ hometown of Trafalgar, IN, I went to a favorite town of mine, Columbus. Look or Life Magazine (can’t remember which) published a beautiful pectoral article about that time (1962) calling Columbus “Athens on the Prairie.” I remember laughing out loud when I saw the title, wondering where around Columbus was a “prairie.” Then, I noticed most “Columbians” thought of that as a compliment, so I kept the humor of it to myself, feeling foolish. By the way: somehow, the infamous NYT (New York Times) now has the article archived and they make no reference that I could find to the now defunct magazine which originally carried the article. However that came about, the NYT has the whole article preserved, if you care to read about it.
The article, however, was brilliant and beautiful. Columbus was and is to this day a unique city. Many public land & commercial buildings in Columbus have the distinct privilege of being designed by some world renowned architects. There was a rich heir to the Cummins Diesel and banking industry there who paid the architectural fees for these building. It was generous, but of course influential to the overall look of the town and I never heard anyone complain about it for the 2+ years I live there. It was about 25,000 people when we lived there, now up around 50,000. A tender, yet consistent growth, over the last 50 years, about what one could expect from those running the city—consistency.
A downtown, rather large “boutique” hotel—85 beautifully appointed rooms—full service with restaurant and all amenities, it also houses the Architectural Museum of Columbus. Must be a sight to behold.
Side note about Columbus High School in the 1950s: it was a huge school taking in most of the county. Maybe one or two other small high schools, but CHS was big. And it was called a Senior High School consisting of only the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. They were very good in basketball and they played a school who tried the “hold the ball and stall the game” trick. Columbus turned the table on them, held the ball against them, as well. One quarter was one Columbus star who dribbled the entire quarter! CHS won the “barn-burner” with a score of something like 13-7, or somewhere close. From a school averaging about 80 per game, they proved they could play it either way and win. Good team, good coach.
I mentioned a “boutique” hotel. the style refers to a sort of specialty hotel the way some stores are “specialty” stores. Our water stores are “boutique.” That is, we sell a special item which is our #1 product. A boutique hotel has the clearly uniqueness about their rooms or the room service or the amenities or food or any combination of more than one of those items as their specialty. Usually smaller than the chain hotels/motels, anywhere from 8 to 80 rooms. In small towns, about a hundred years ago, it was common that a town large enough to have a hotel usually was 12 to 16 rooms.
It is my belief that someone with the expertise and the financial backing could build one here in Fort Payne, perhaps another in Valley Head or Mentone, and do well with both. All that is needed is a destination event other than the hotel itself and the market is pretty strong, pretty strong.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
the Elder's Blog 