There it was, a neon totem in a sea of retail on Woodward Avenue — the sign for the Saranay Motel. It consists of a series of diamond shapes in classic 50's orange, turquoise and white with a yellow zig-zag arrow going down the length of it. I imagine that the curious name came from a melding of two people’s names, possibly a hopeful couple named Sara and Nathan.
I don't get out this way much anymore, since we moved the next town over when my mom remarried, and then I moved to a city even further west after college. So each time I see that sign, I am transported back in time.
When I was in high school, my parents would ship off my sister and me to visit my father's parents in Florida during breaks from school. They lived in a retirement community in West Palm Beach called Century Village. It was like a city unto itself, with its own transportation system, post office, beauty shop, etc.
Especially during the December holidays, the clubhouse would fill with teenagers who were visiting their grandparents, congregating on the front lawn when they could escape their families. Kids from all over the Midwest and East Coast would hang out, trying to be cool by calling the place “Cemetery Village” behind their grandparents’ backs. That's where I met Bob.
Bob was not a teenager and he was not visiting his grandparents. He was a local, a townie, probably in his mid-to-late 20s, who was drawn there to meet the kids who were looking for an escape. I remember him resembling Tom Petty, with stringy dishwater-blonde hair, a long face, and crooked front teeth. Bob was even homelier than Tom Petty, but he was gentle and kind.
I was a vivacious Jewish girl who had recently undergone a transformation. With my glasses and braces, I had been voted the friendliest girl in my 9th-grade graduation class. Then I got my braces removed. In 10th grade I was voted onto Homecoming Court, even though I wasn't really Homecoming material, “because you’re nice and not stuck-up,” one acquaintance explained to me. By the time of this trip, I had shed my glasses for contact lenses and was dating boys. But I was still the same friendly person inside.
I don’t remember much about my conversations with Bob. All I mainly recall is that whoever showed up would sit together on the lawn in front of the palatial clubhouse. It didn’t matter if a person was rich or middle class, or from Wisconsin or New Jersey, or if, had they been attending the same school, they would never give each other a second glance; if they were younger than 30, they were drawn together in kinship here like long-lost countrymen flung into a foreign land.
Bob and I talked, and he was a good listener. I was nice to him, like I was to everybody else. I delighted in meeting all these new young people and enjoyed being outside on the warm, summer-like evenings. I rejoiced in the tropical foliage that surrounded the area and marveled at the exotic pavement, which contained pieces of seashells. I felt so alive.
Before I left Florida, Bob asked for my contact information and I gave him my address. These were the days before the Internet, email, and cell phones. When I got back to Michigan, he wrote me a letter. He said he’d enjoyed meeting me and hoped I’d write back to him. He planned to be traveling in my area and wanted to stop and see me.
I wrote Bob back, because I was polite and enjoyed having pen-pals and writing long letters. I probably said sure, he should stop by if he was in the area, but I don’t remember much more than that.
Bob may have told me an approximate timeframe that he was thinking of coming to Michigan, but I don’t think I knew an exact date. Perhaps I just didn’t pay attention, but I seem to recall that he was trying to be casual about it. I promptly forgot about it — until the day he showed up at our front door with a friend of his, Ken.
I was caught by surprise and slightly embarrassed. My mother, who was a very shy and private person, was aghast that these strangers had come up from Florida to ring our doorbell. I don’t think I considered letting them in the house. Since even having my friends visit was uncomfortable for my mother, I talked to them in our front yard.
Bob seemed to be in a slightly altered state, as if he couldn't believe he was really looking at me. Or maybe it was just the after-effects of being in a car for 25 hours. His friend, Ken, appeared even older than Bob — more weathered, non-plussed, just observing it all.
They asked about a place to stay, and I was uncertain. The only out-of-town visitors I had ever dealt with were family — like my grandparents, who had always stayed at our house. I got the phone book and looked up “motels” in the yellow pages. We lived in a bedroom community and there weren’t many motels around. I think my mother told them to head to Woodward Avenue. They chose the Saranay Motel.
It seems like they only stayed a few days. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I took them where our family would normally take visiting guests — to the Detroit Zoo, which is in nearby Pleasant Ridge. (By the way, it should really be called the “Pleasant Ridge Zoo” and they’d probably get more tourists visiting it; people who assume that the zoo is in the city of Detroit are probably too scared to go there.)
In my faded photo album, there is a witness to this outing: bland, kind of sad photos of Bob at the tiger exhibit, Bob and Ken at the seal habitat, Bob and I awkwardly standing in front of the fountain with the mighty bear statues, which I’d so loved as a child.
But in some ways, I was still a child. I was only 16 and I didn’t yet understand the effect that a well-meaning, friendly girl could have on a guy. Especially a guy who mistook being nice for being interested, a homely guy who maybe wasn’t used to girls being so nice to him.
After Bob and Ken went back to Florida, I got another letter — this time, from Ken. Ken explained that he spent the whole trip driving back to Florida listening to Bob agonizing over his visit with me. Ken said that Bob really had a crush on me and, for his buddy’s sake, he wanted to know whether I was interested in Bob or not. He didn’t want Bob to suffer any longer or labor under false pretenses. This was really nice of Ken, I thought, to be so concerned for his friend that he wrote to me in an effort to spare his feelings.
By the time Bob and Ken left Michigan, it had become obvious to me that Bob wasn’t just passing by and stopping on his way to somewhere else, as he had made it sound when he first wrote — he was lovesick and came all the way up here just to see me. So I wrote back and told Ken the truth: I thought Bob was a nice person, but I was not interested in him romantically. We had nothing in common and lived at two different ends of the country. In fact, I was rather shocked that he had taken the trouble to come visit me. I didn’t mean to lead him on. I was just being nice and I was sorry.
That was the last I heard of Bob. I know that Ken, the dutiful friend, had somehow conveyed to Bob what I had admitted. Maybe he even let Bob read the letter for himself. I don’t pretend to know how bad Bob felt, or for how long.
All I know is, every time I see the sign for the Saranay Motel, it seems kind of lonely and sad. It's a survivor; it's still there, through all the changes it has experienced. Although it probably has far more sordid stories to tell than mine, that once-jaunty sign will always remind me of a more innocent time, of innocence lost, and my unexpected visit with Bob and Ken.
