Mike’s column in the News & Reecord newspaper:
“You want to start a what?” I asked Pickett in amazement.
“A bed and breakfast. It would be perfect for the house in Cluster Springs.”
So began a 34-year adventure that I have enjoyed but never bargained for when I was a teenager growing up in the California suburbs.
I tend to stay in motels myself when I travel, but now I had the opportunity to meet all kinds of interesting people and not even have to leave home at Oak Grove Bed & Breakfast.
Pickett, who grew up in the 200-year-old house, loves to show it off to visitors. I am no repairman or bellhop, but I can help out with breakfast. After all, I was a PROFESSIONAL busboy in college.
Most guests have been wonderful. Friends come. Families with kids. Foreign travelers. A bike rider crossing the whole state. Even business and government people who gave me good tips to write about.
But there were a few who were a real challenge.
One traveler lost his car keys in the Staunton River while boating. We loaned him a car to drive to Richmond, where his son delivered spare keys from Washington.
There was the couple who was told to stay out of the attic, where there was a school over 100 years ago. Its children had written with lampblack on the walls, and when the guests entered the attic anyway and saw it, they thought it was haunted. They left in the middle of the night without telling us. They even demanded a refund, and we even gave them some of their money back.
Then there was the man just a few weeks ago who called Pickett with news that someone was banging on the front door at midnight. No one was at the door, and Pickett went back to bed. It turned out that the knocker wanted to use our Tesla charger. When she reappeared at the charging port, the man called the police, and vehicles swarmed to our B&B only to see the woman charging her car.
Certainly the most difficult for me was the time I was asked to make breakfast when Pickett was traveling. A woman who provided a two-page list of her dietary restrictions did agree to a parmesan cheese omelet but only if the cheese was from Italy or France. At breakfast, I spilled a glass of water on her. She didn’t complain, but her sister didn’t want her dish and asked for an alternative. I came up with French toast, which I hadn’t made in years. In her devastating online review, she wrote that it was really just fried bread. Well, she wasn’t completely wrong.
I was never asked to make breakfast again.
But these were exceptions. Almost everyone is friendly, helpful and kind.