It is hot again. I really must stop bitching about that, but I don't want to. As I sit here writing this the locust are just a singing their little heads off outside. They used to make me crazy but that just kind of passed. Now when I hear them I think of years past staying at a local Chautauqua. I knew nothing of Chautauqua's until a dear friend invited me to the one she had attended all of her life.
I had not ever heard of this thing called a Chautauqua. I can't remember the first time I went to this one, but it set it's hooks into me like an eagle's talons to a fish. I loved the atmosphere, the food, the people and just everything about it. For the next few years I went every summer for at least a few days if not a week. It was around 1990. There was no air conditioning at the hotel so after developing my heart and breathing problems, I could no longer go and stay. The Chautauqua is only held for two weeks a year during the end of July, and first week of August. Now it is held in July. Hot humid July, not good for me.
The hotel I spoke of is nothing like what you might imagine. It is a two story wood frame, L shape building. It is the epitome of quaint. Card tables set up in the lobby with half done jigsaw puzzles or domino's or any type of game just waiting for someone to sit down and add some time to the project. A couple of sofa's and a few old comfy chairs sat around the room as well as a small desk. A piano in the corner was open and ready for anyone to sit down and play for as long or little as they liked and many did. The paneling on the walls and ceiling was beaded aged car siding. There was carpet on the floor and the smell of a building that had been closed up for fifty weeks of every year. The lobby was the corner of the L and the dinning room, kitchen and screened in porch were right behind the lobby, or the bottom of the L.
When I first started attending the kitchen was run by a lovely lady who was the local school lunch lady. Recipes had been kept from year to year and the best of the best was served up year after year. Now this was down home like your grandma used to make cooking. Nothing fancy and nothing commercial other than a cake mix came out of that kitchen. If you were a guest at the hotel then your meals were included. If you were staying in a cottage at the Chautauqua and did not feel like cooking you could always make a reservation and eat in the dinning room of the hotel. They would ring a dinner bell and you knew you had about 5 minutes to get there to eat. A prayer would be lifted up and then the food was served.
Long tables covered with plastic cloths were in rows. Each table would seat about eight. The screened in porch right off of the dinning room had long tables, two of them end to end on either side of the doorway. When the stifling heat beat down you wanted to be seated on the porch for the breeze if there was one. Each table also had a little plastic needlepoint house in the center for tips. The tips were for the teens that served the meals family style and made sure your coffee and iced tea stayed filled as well as the dishes holding large quantities of food. They were usually local kids that had grown up knowing about Chautauqua and could not wait their turn to work at the hotel for the two weeks in the summer. It was hard work but beat detasseling corn. The tips were collected daily by the hotel manager and kept until the end of the two weeks, then divided equally between the helpers and was a tidy sum I would think. They got room and board at the hotel as well as the tips. They stayed above the dinning room/kitchen area away from the quest rooms.
As for the guest rooms, they were to the left when you came in the lobby up the tall end of the L. Down a long dark hall, with the same car siding walls and ceiling as the lobby was one bathroom and about seven bedrooms. Some had two twin beds, some had one double some just a single bed. The windows of these rooms on one side opened right onto the front porch of the building. So if you occupied one of those rooms and was trying to take a nap, you hoped that no one was sitting in a rocker right outside your window chatting with an old friend.
The one bathroom on the main floor had a shower and two commodes. This was the ladies room used by all female guests and other ladies in and out of the hotel during the day. The men's room was on the second floor with the same lay out. The teen's had their own bath at the other end of the L. Since I was there last they have added a men's room on the main floor. The upstairs layout was basically a mirror image of the lower level except over the kitchen and dinning area were the rooms for "the help" were located. And one large room with a lot of beds for a family above the lobby area.
Back to the locust. The park where the Chautauqua is held has been there for over one hundred years and is abundant with old oak and maple trees. As you lay in bed on those warm nights with only the humming of your fan, if you brought one with you, the locust would sing you to sleep every night.
There is so much more to tell about the wonderful two weeks of the Chautauqua but perhaps at another time. As I said I have not been back in quite a while. I keep saying it's because of the heat but a lot has to do with the memories of my friend who is no longer with us. If not for her I would probably never have discovered this wonderful place. I would not have made so many new acquaintances or formed such great memories. This year it has come and gone and I did not make it again because of the heat. But I will always have those wonderful memories of that charming, calming place.
Thanks Mary, I miss you so much.
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