2. Cotton Boll Motel: Canute, Oklahoma


August, 1990

Ba-dum... ba-dum... ba-dum... The rhythm of the road seams gently slowed and I gradually awoke from my sleep in the back of the station wagon.  As I opened my eyes, I could see stars above me and lights reflecting off the windows; I knew we neared our destination.  Before even sitting up, I groggily uttered the extended, lilting whine of the child-travel-mantra, “Are we there yet?”

“Yep, we’re just about there!” Mom said, and I sat straight up, rubbed my eyes and searched out the window to see how close we were to Granny and Papa Louie’s house.  Receding behind us, I beheld the dancing lights of a motel sign. A green and glowing puckered stem sat atop a crooked white circle with a red, neon outline and sparkly, flashing lights.  At four years old and unable to read, I mistook the motel sign as representing a tomato, and thus my first dreamy vision of the Cotton Boll Motel fastened to my memory as the Big Tomato Motel.
 
As a child, visiting Granny and Papa Louie particularly excited me.  They lived in the country, and their cotton farm sat right alongside Route 66 on the western edge of the tiny town of Canute.  Visiting Granny and Papa Louie meant playing in the old barn with my cousins and swinging from its rafters on a long, prickly rope.  It meant eating lots of goodies and making saltwater taffy with Granny.  It also meant riding Uncle Frank’s ancient and decrepit horse, Barney.
 
When Barney became too old and weak to ride, my sister and I settled for rides on the two mechanical horses in front of the Cotton Boll Motel.  “Granny!  Granny!” we squealed with delight.  “Take us to ride the horsies!  Take us to ride the horsies!”  Of course, a ride on Barney would have thrilled us most, but the “horses” in front of the Cotton Boll served to satisfy our giddiness, nonetheless.
 
The Cotton Boll Motel now stands derelict, and hairy grass and weeds have strangled the flowers that once grew beneath the angular, red sign.  The mechanical horses trotted to the dump years ago, and the red neon lights have fallen into a tangled bramble of glass tubes, while the sparkly, flashing rate sign has been boarded up and covered with hokey campaign ads.
 
Whenever I pass the Cotton Boll on my visits to Canute, I look for two playful little girls gleefully riding mechanical horses in front of the motel.  Finding none, I gaze at the cotton boll sign and the white, malleable clouds that pass behind it as they vanish with the strong, southerly wind.