The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Given that there’s a dearth of tourism down at the South End, it was a gobsmack and a half when Bert and Betty Amundsen opened up their retro auto court two miles north of the Head, not very far from the Diner, but not far enough to escape the patrons’ sneering gossip. The Siesta Motel de La Sur opened for business the year of the gas shortages when Jimmy Carter advised wearing sweaters and turning down thermostats. Tyee Store only sold gas to its regular petrol customers and even us locals were told to take a hike. Good luck to the auto court crowd…..

Course, the auto court never got a crowd. The Flathead Vintage Car Boyz howled among themselves over black coffee and chicken fried steaks and eggs. “Shoulda opened a B&B,” Cadillac Fred would say and Studebaker Ralph would fire back “Sunset Motel de Muerto”.

The Diner could’ve used the extra business. Big Larry, the grillman, had been here long enough to remember the days of Cama Beach Resort, Camp Diane, Indian Beach and a lot of others further north, folks pouring in to fish big Chinooks and escape the fumes of city living. “Might be a shot,” he said. “Nothing else, we can put up the shirt-tail relatives who visit…”

Bert and Betty lacked what you call marketing skills in the dark days pre-internet. They put a listing in the Stanwoodopolis Yellowed Pages and tacked signs on trees all the way down the island. SIESTA MOTEL DE LA SUR 15 MILES. TEN. FIVE. ONE MILE TO SIESTA DE LA SUR! If you know where to look you can still see a weathered plywood board being digested by fir bark, maybe a ‘ESTA MO’, or a ‘SI TEL’, or just a mysterioso ‘5’. The four done bedroom cottages fell into disrepair and Bert and Betty fell into heavy drinking and serious debt. They lost the place to the bank and moved away without so much as an adios. Last I heard the old motel was being converted to rent to artists as studios. Most of us already got studios in various stages of disrepair. Still, hope springs eternal down here. Everywhere maybe but the Diner where comedy trumps optimism.

Starving Artist

When I was really poor and competing for public art projects, I would have to go to various states for finalist presentations, usually competing with 3-5 other poor saps hoping for the same lousy commission.  Once, on a project in Portland, Oregon, my arts commissioner recommended a ‘reasonable’ downtown hotel for me to stay at, probably 3 times what I’d ever spent on accommodations.  I told her, gee thanks, but I’ll find something more in my price range and she replied, “I don’t want you sleeping in your truck.”  I assured her I wouldn’t.

What I found, 20 or 30 miles outside Portland, was a $23 a night hellhole in Vancouver, Washington, a motel where, if you wanted a TV was $5 more.  If you wanted a shower, $5 more.  If you wanted a key, yeah, you guessed it.  I chose the basic plan, slid 23 bucks under the bullet proof glass in the stainless steel bowl below and took occupancy of my suite.  My neighbors, judging by the water bowls and dog dishes outside their doors, were long termers, Lifers, I’d have to say, one step away from homeless or sleeping in their cars, running or not.  The residents I met weren’t looking for hellos or companionship or even a drinking buddy.  They were folks who wanted to be left the hell alone.  Misery, by the way, does NOT love company.

I have stayed in plenty of fleabag flophouses in my day, none as cheap as this dive, but unlike the others, my life wasn’t threatened by surly neighbors on the great escalator down at this one the way it has been at some of the others.  When folks reach rock bottom, I guess aggression is one of those virtues they abandon along with hope.

In case you’re interested, I did not win the commission for the Portland Health Clinic even though I offered them a serious amount of glass for the project.  I lost to a person even my art liaison at the Washington Art Commission disdainfully characterized as ‘no artist.’  So I was out 23 smackers plus tax.  Gas, food and a helluva lot of pride.  I swore next finalist presentation, no matter what state, what country, whatever, I would just sleep in my truck at the nearest rest area.  You want to be an artist, forget about the Ritz.  Or even Motel 6 ….