Tammie Miller

The Motel Sign

It was the late 1970’s – early 1980’s from the back seat of my mother’s brown Toyota Corona that similar motel signs were seen. I learned to love seeing those signs in the late starry, moonlit nights as my road-weary, sleepy eyes opened because I felt the car coming to a stop. The brightly illuminated, oh-so retro signs indicated I’d be sleeping in a bed versus a sleeping bag… on hard ground… in a tent. And I got to watch TV! Albeit in a shifty, quintessential, stale-cigarette-smoke-smelling motel room. Cable and remote controls weren’t an option back then and the three channels on the black and white dial television broadcasting Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Chips and The Dukes of Hazard kept me entertained.