Marble Floors
Jim Young is remodeling our bathrooms. He has spent the last three weeks, or so, repairing and painting walls and ceilings, constructing new cupboard doors, and tiling floors. So far, he has done a marvelous job.
I had heard good things about Jim's workmanship and attention to detail, so I talked to him briefly after choir practice, not too long ago, to see if he could stop by to give us an estimate for the work we needed to have done. I was a little surprised to find out that he had time to start work on our bathrooms immediately.
Bill talked me into using twelve-inch, white marble tiles for our upstairs bathroom floor. It is quite a change from the disgusting, discolored, pink shag carpet that has covered that floor for more than twenty years. Bill insisted it would "dress up" that bathroom. Of course, he was right.
So, I went upstairs after work the other day to view the finished floor. Jim was up there, putting his tools away for the day. When he asked how I liked the floor, I commented that it reminded me of the marble tile floors in the hotel where I grew up. Jim responded by letting me know that his wife, Carole, had once lived in a hotel with beautiful marble floors, too. In fact, that's where she lived when they met. He talked about the intricately tiled floors that extended throughout the first floor of that hotel, commenting that it must have been quite a place in its day. Then, he uttered two words that I never, ever expected to hear: "in Fairbury."
We were talking about the same hotel! I was more than a little confused, at first. Jim isn't too much older than I am, so I knew that his wife-to-be must have lived there at the same time I did. It took us a little while to sort things out. I found out that Jim's future in-laws were Jim and Mae Fuller, who rented an apartment on the second floor when they first moved to Fairbury from some small Kansas border town, in the late 1960's. Their daughter, Carole, stayed with relatives for a year or two to finish high school in her home town, before moving to the hotel with her parents. Then, she enrolled in Fairbury Junior College. That's where she met Jim, who was there on a football scholarship.
After that little nudge to my memory, I remembered the Fuller family quite well. Both Mae and Carole worked as evening desk clerks at the hotel. Most likely, I helped train both of them, since I started assisting new desk clerks by the time I was twelve. In addition, Mae was our go-to person when Mom and Dad would leave for a few days to go hunting at the ranch near Gordon, every spring and fall. As a teenager, I kept my younger brother and sister in line pretty well by myself, and got us all off to school just fine. But Laura had a bad habit of getting sick every time Mom and Dad left, so Mae was the one who looked after her when Laura had to stay home from school or visit the doctor's office.
Evidently, Jim Young was so enamored with Carole that he spent a lot of time at the Hotel Mary-Etta. We had quite a conversation about the marble mosaic-tiled floors and the front desk and the ancient elevator that had a bad habit of stopping a few inches too high or too low. That wouldn't have been a problem, except that Mr. Fuller's wheel chair couldn't navigate through the elevator doors unless the elevator stopped precisely where it was supposed to. I remember that Dad worked on that elevator often to make the necessary adjustments.
Carole didn't live at the hotel for much more than a year or two, since she married Jim Young and moved out to Gering, his home town. Carole doesn't attend church with Jim, so I haven't met her since we have lived in Gering. I guess I'll have to re-establish our acquaintance. We have so much to talk about: marble tile floors, working the front desk, a temperamental old elevator, and a beautiful old hotel that exists now, only in our memories.
I had heard good things about Jim's workmanship and attention to detail, so I talked to him briefly after choir practice, not too long ago, to see if he could stop by to give us an estimate for the work we needed to have done. I was a little surprised to find out that he had time to start work on our bathrooms immediately.
Bill talked me into using twelve-inch, white marble tiles for our upstairs bathroom floor. It is quite a change from the disgusting, discolored, pink shag carpet that has covered that floor for more than twenty years. Bill insisted it would "dress up" that bathroom. Of course, he was right.
We were talking about the same hotel! I was more than a little confused, at first. Jim isn't too much older than I am, so I knew that his wife-to-be must have lived there at the same time I did. It took us a little while to sort things out. I found out that Jim's future in-laws were Jim and Mae Fuller, who rented an apartment on the second floor when they first moved to Fairbury from some small Kansas border town, in the late 1960's. Their daughter, Carole, stayed with relatives for a year or two to finish high school in her home town, before moving to the hotel with her parents. Then, she enrolled in Fairbury Junior College. That's where she met Jim, who was there on a football scholarship.
After that little nudge to my memory, I remembered the Fuller family quite well. Both Mae and Carole worked as evening desk clerks at the hotel. Most likely, I helped train both of them, since I started assisting new desk clerks by the time I was twelve. In addition, Mae was our go-to person when Mom and Dad would leave for a few days to go hunting at the ranch near Gordon, every spring and fall. As a teenager, I kept my younger brother and sister in line pretty well by myself, and got us all off to school just fine. But Laura had a bad habit of getting sick every time Mom and Dad left, so Mae was the one who looked after her when Laura had to stay home from school or visit the doctor's office.
Evidently, Jim Young was so enamored with Carole that he spent a lot of time at the Hotel Mary-Etta. We had quite a conversation about the marble mosaic-tiled floors and the front desk and the ancient elevator that had a bad habit of stopping a few inches too high or too low. That wouldn't have been a problem, except that Mr. Fuller's wheel chair couldn't navigate through the elevator doors unless the elevator stopped precisely where it was supposed to. I remember that Dad worked on that elevator often to make the necessary adjustments.
Carole didn't live at the hotel for much more than a year or two, since she married Jim Young and moved out to Gering, his home town. Carole doesn't attend church with Jim, so I haven't met her since we have lived in Gering. I guess I'll have to re-establish our acquaintance. We have so much to talk about: marble tile floors, working the front desk, a temperamental old elevator, and a beautiful old hotel that exists now, only in our memories.
Wow!
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