The franchise hotel is one of the things that makes America so grand. I'm currently in a Holiday Inn Express in Milwaukee, WI, in a nicely furnished lobby using a computer with high-speed Internet access free of charge. On the desk beside me is a fake Poinsettia and to the right someone draped some Christmas stockings next to the fireplace (burning real wood?), possibly with the intention of hanging them later. There's a very clean but empty dining area off to the left where I suppose the continental breakfast will be held in the morning, but there really aren't any signs that there are many people around besides myself to help pay for all of this. Besides the very pleasant check-in lady, I've only seen three other people here, but for all I know, the rooms could be full of well-behaved, reliably-paying Midwesterners minding their own business, watching TV, and enjoying the broad spectrum of amenities that such an establishment is bound to offer. And somewhere is a proud manager in his late 60s who makes rounds every day, offering friendly Hellos to his guests and asking them if they had a good time. Before he leaves, he takes the time to straighten a chair in the dining room.
I'm currently on the interview trail again, and am entering the holiday season feeling that I been prematurely extracted out of the New York scene just as I was settling back in after being gone for a while. But, to every thing there is a season, and this is my season to spend a lot of time sitting in airports reading books and wondering what my life will be like in a year or two.
I have told it to others before, but I'm a big fan of the Midwest. It's a place of honest living where work is a means to an end, old people are nice, and their grandkids are likely to live there, too. On the way from the airport, I was the sole customer of a small gentleman in his 60s who supplements his retirement driving people from the airport to their hotels. His accent seemed more Minnesotan, but he hails originally from upper Michigan. We just chatted for almost a half hour about his grandkids, the upcoming holidays, and how all the beer manufacturers are leaving Milwaukee. Fortunately, Harley Davidson is still around as well as some company that manufactures lawn mower engines. And of course Miller doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime so soon. He also was very perplexed about the traffic patterns this evening which were somehow out of the norm.
Well, I'm hungry now. The Denny's next door sure looks good. Either that or the vending machine.
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