Those of you that follow my flickr stream may have wondered what this photo was all about.
While that is a photo of ongoing construction on the Performing Arts Center, it is also a picture of my very first home in Flo-town. WHAT?? I lived at an empty field? Not exactly. Before they started construction they tore down a sad and abandoned hotel. Before the hotel was sad and abandoned it was actually a decent place to stay.
We moved here when I was five years old. My dad had a brand new job here. There was no such thing as Hilton Garden Inn or Springhill Suites…. but there was that hotel. It was convenient to downtown and All Saints Kindergarten, so it worked for us.
I thought it was the greatest place ever to live. I was five years old and there was a drink machine OUTSIDE MY DOOR. My mom was approximately seven months pregnant, and I am pretty sure she thought it was less than awesome. However, we had MAID SERVICE every day. Fresh sheets! Clean towels!
I was so sad to leave all my little friends in my preschool by the sea, but hotel living really helped sway my mood. That and the awesome playground at All Saints Day School.
Hmmm. Wonder if Hilton Garden Inn would let us live there for a few weeks? Maid service… a pool…
The performing arts center is coming along nicely. It will be far better than the sad and abandoned hotel.
(I called my mom as I was writing this as I couldn’t remember if my brother actually lived in the hotel with us or if she was still pregnant… I was right. She does not think it is was awesome as I did.)
Updated: Someone pointed me to this picture from the “Our Roots Are in the Pee Dee” facebook group, this is the hotel. Home sweet Home.
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Fresh sheets placed on the bed by someone else. Food available with a phone call and a pool to dip into. Sounds like a great life.
We “lived” at the Sheraton (now Youngs Plantation) for a summer while our house was being built in Grove Park. My sister and I loved the vending machines. We learned about pork skins, moon pies, and lance products. We had a swimming pool, restaurant, daily maid service. My sister and I went to the YMCA camp during the day and the restaurant would pack our lunch. My parents let us go to the restaurant and order our own lunch and I dared my sister to order a “ham-buggar” and she did and laughed the whole time. I am not sure the waitress got our joke. This was 1973, I was 9 and my sister was 7.