Old Route in a New Era

Dear Aunt Hazel,

Thank you for checking in! It really has been too long since we’ve talked. I do love how I can always expect a letter from you on my birthday. Snail Mail is such a forgotten form of communication. The older I get the more special it is to open up and see a beautiful, handwritten envelope, rather than a bill!

Its good to know youre doing so well! Sounds like the animals are doing well and business had been steady! I miss the west so much, I look forward to coming to visit.

I always love getting your recipes too! The one for mom’s twice baked potatoes had me making a grocery list immediately. I miss her so much too. Thank you for sending the photos.

Thirty has been a whirlwind! That is for sure. It’s hard to believe that so much is happening! As you know, I finally got my degree after 4 years of online courses and working three jobs at once. As soon as I’m about to graduate, this pandemic happens!

It is incredible how things happen sometimes though… At the beginning of summer I was pretty upset. I had spent the last year creating a curriculum for a school that could not even exist anymore. So many teachers hardly have the same job they signed up for and school looks completely different than it ever has! Of course, just as I’m getting ready to enter the work force. So it goes, I suppose. Sometimes, things just are not meant to happen how you think they are.

After wallowing in my own misery for a while, and drinking way too much. I had to change some behavior and thought patterns or all my hard work was going to become a waste. Luckily I had some money saved up, and I was planning on moving in the fall. If I was working in the city I wanted to have a little bit of land outside the city to go home to. So I did something so ridiculous and I bought an old motel!!

It was a warm southern summer evening and the moon and sun were out together. I was driving the old roads just to do something outside the house and I drove by this motel that has had a FOR SALE sign on it for over a year! I pulled in the parking lot and decided to call, just for the hell of it. I was not expecting the owner to walk out from around the back of the building! He came over and introduced himself, Dick O’Shea. (I still don’t know why people go by Dick). But, he was really cool, down to earth guy. Has actually travels a lot. Hes got property all over the world, and his primary residence is in Argentina. He’s been stuck in the US since COVID happened. He has been traveling around and checking on his various investments. Lucky me, he just happened to be checking on the motel that day.

We got to talking about the property. He had done alot of research before buying it for pennies thirty years ago. The motel had been a booming spot in the 20’s. At one point there were some moonshiners that used to hide in the barn out back. There had been a couple presidents to stay in it back in its hayday. He was happy to share his knowledge. He also mentioned how he had been trying to sell this motel for over a year but it had been difficult for him to part with it, and the timing never seemed to work out.

I told him how I had been fantasizing about buying an old motel and renovating it so I could turn it into a haven of sorts, to build a community and also have a cool place to live.

He was intrigued and asked me to tell him more.

He definitely was not expecting me to whip out my sleek black mole skin notebook and have a plan that included drawings! I felt like a nerd about how much I had been really thinking about this, and it showed. I was so excited to walk around and see it in a real space. I started to look around.

I imagined knocking down walls, opening up the floor plan, installing shelves, and a small kitchen with decent counter tops and a place to dry herbs for the teas. I envisioned couches and dinning sets inside and out, windows that could roll up for open airflow and a little office and market area for people to buy worth goods. The dream was becoming alive in my head! I could live in the small separate building that they use to check in guests. I am going to turn it into a hip little studio. I don’t need too much living space.

Once I came around the building to more land and a huge barn with a foundation and a plumbing system already installed, I knew I had to own this place. It was like it was made for me. I needed this land. It spoke to me.

I could feel the fertile soil and imagine the market, the lounge, and even turning the beautiful barn into an old style schoolhouse. I would incorporate crops and animals, budgeting and finances, skilled trades, emotional balance and how to solve real life problems using creative thinking and communication! Revolutionary ideas began to fill my head, like they had been there all along and I just was not paying attention! I could reintroduce some of the skills that I believe are being bred out of us!

Auntie, this pandemic made me so afraid! Scared that we were going to run out of food because stores shut down or something. Scared for the kids! They need to know how to survive! How to thrive. Not just on a computer but in real life! I want to teach and make a difference. I know that you have to be different to really make a difference.

So, I walked over to Dick and I offered him all of the money I had saved up over the last twelve years of overworking myself with hopes of finding my calling one day. I offered $83,502. He admitted to that being twice what he paid for it and suggested I keep a little bit of it. He told me “you’ll be needing all the capitol you can get if you are going to turn this place into all of that. I see you have a passion and drive unlike most people in this world. I’ve been studying your little book here and you really have thought about this a lot.”

“Were you thinking of this property the whole time?” he asked.

Maybe I was, maybe it was just my guardian angel knowing which way I needed to turn the wheel that day.

Dick said we could finalize the papers in the morning. He wanted to give me a night to sleep on this wild offer I just made, make sure I was serious about the whole ordeal.

I left feeling excited. Like I was experience my Hero’s calling, Joseph Campbell style. My moment of transformation, the moment that will change my whole life. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The next day, I went and signed the papers with the bank to get a loan that would allow me to do some renovations. I put down my deposit for this new place I call home. It was HUGE!

Then, Dick did something unimaginable, he handed me a check for $20,000.

He told me that he believed in my vision and wanted to see it succeed. That he could not wait to come drink tea in the garden and hear how the school is helping people, near and far.

Needless to say, I was stunned. All I could say was “thank you”. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done or said to me.

Auntie, I’m sure you can only imagine what I’ve gotten myself in to!

I have been working non-stop. Tearing down walls, building other walls, fixing pipes, landscaping, you name it, I am getting a crash course. All the while adapting my business plan and education plan to an everchanging world. I am taking my time to make this dream come true. I am so happy and grateful to be here.

I really hope you can come visit soon. I’d be happy to make some baked potatoes and show you the progress.

I am so sleepy, everynight, but I had to write to you. Thank you again for the card, and for always believing in me, even when I maybe do not believe in myself. Talk to you soon.

I love you,

Your Favorite Niece