Day 26 - If You Could Change Lives With Someone Who Would it Be?

Day 26 - If You Could Change Lives With Someone Who Would it Be?

Well, first of all I wouldn't. In this crazy, mixed up, messy life, I find myself mainly joyful. If at anytime you sense my trying to present myself or my life as perfect, please call me out. Without just dumping everything on FB, I do try to be honest. So, I wouldn't change lives with anyone, and yet, this is sort of fun to think about. So, I would do life again with all the same characters; the setting would just be different.

All names are compliments of road signs on I75 S in Georgia.

In another life, Mr. L and I would live in a small coastal village in Florida called Locust Grove. We would be the proprietors of a mid-century vintage motel called The Sunsweet Siesta. It would be cheerfully painted in carousel pink, moon yellow, sea breeze, wild orchid, and calypso blue. People would know, as they drove in the palm- lined drive that they are most welcome.

Every afternoon we would serve afternoon tea in the courtyard; a welcome repast of homemade muffins, fresh fruit, and hibiscus tea. Only vintage glass plates, thin porcelain china cups, and white linen napkins would be used. Nary a bug would be about.

There would be regular guests. The Dooly family, Unadilla, Larry Walker, and their daughter, Vienna would visit every summer.  We would watch a romance bloom between Cecil and Lenox Rountree's son, Kinard, and Vienna. They would actually have their wedding in the Sunsweet Siesta courtyard.

The Sparks/Southwell annual family reunion would be every May. Ashburn and Arabi Sparks with their three boys, Albany, Amboy, and Turner would always be the first to arrive. They would impatiently wait for the Southwell relatives. Eldorado and Omega Southwell just could not get their girls, Moultrie and Hahira to get packed and on the road in a timely fashion. Mr. L and I would try to smooth the Sparks' ruffled feathers by serving homemade peach ice cream as soon as the Southwells got settled in.

Regulars, like the Valdosta twins, Savannah and Juliette, would stay the same two weeks every year. Most folks would not be able to tell the two gals apart, but Mr. L and I would know that Juliette was a bit more pigeon-toed than Savannah.

Montezuma Hawkinsville and his longtime sweetheart, Wenona Sylvester, would always spend Christmas with us. Having never married, they had no family so we would always include them as though they were our family. Old Mr. Clyatville Moody, a widower who lived in a nursing home down on Rumble Road would always bring a fruitcake dense enough to use as a doorstop. Roberta Smarr, who also lived on Rumble Road, would help Mr. Moody chop up the fruit. She, her husband, Butts (bless his heart), and their son, Zebulon, would also join the Christmas festivities at Sunsweet Siesta.

A whole host of folks would come into our lives, leaving memories like stamps on a passport. McDonough Macon with the Irish lilt in his voice. Lamar and Monroe Johnstonville, whom we would try to matchmake with the Valdosta twins, to no avail. Cordele Pitts who would always have the shiniest dress shoes that he would wear with black socks and his multi-colored striped Speedo. There would be many others, but I fear there are those reading this flight of fancy as they contemplate my need for serious psychiatric help.

Yes, it would be a lovely, interesting, quiet, life filled with a marvelous cast of characters, at the Sunsweet Siesta Motel in Locust Grove, FL; Fizzy and Mellie Switzer, proprietors.

Day - 26 - check.