LETTERS FROM HOME: HAIL TO THE CHIEF AND THE GOTH GUY AND 'THE ONE'

Sept. 28, 2000

Dear Leslie,

The last time I was in Eureka Springs, Ark., was for a reunion with you and Sheila. Leaving was sad because I knew it would be a long time before we met again and because the woman I had brought to meet you was, I knew, not "the one."

How did I know DC was "the one" that night seven years ago?

We celebrated our anniversary in Eureka Springs last weekend. The restaurant where you, Sheila and I ate is now a writers colony. Not that good food is scarce. DC and I dined at a wonderful cafe run by a Panamanian woman who spiced both her Margaritas and shrimp with mangoes.

We found a good bookstore run by an old hippie who told us where to eat and find live music. Her shelves were filled with the wisdom of Rumi and Gary Snyder and Yogananda and travel books about pink dolphins.

Our home was the Basin Park Hotel, seven stories with 95 years of tales and a billiard room on top. One of the bellmen who greeted us looked like the Chief from the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" movie. The desk clerk was a pale Goth fan whose long hair, fingernail polish, shirt, pants and combat boots announced that his favorite color is black.

DC and I took to walking up the four flights to our room because the tiny elevator never seemed to come when summoned. And when the elevator did arrive it sometimes stopped two feet above the floor.

Sometimes the Chief used a tool to open the elevator door. He said the elevator actually is pretty reliable as long as you know that if you want the fourth floor you have to punch the button for three.

None of this bothered us. We like old buildings, especially those people have decided to restore. An old hotel in Cape Girardeau is in danger of being razed. And these are the problems anyone foolhardy enough to try to resurrect it would run into.

But at the end of September with no festivals going on, the Basin Park Hotel was bustling and its sister up on the bluffs, the huge old Victorian Crescent Hotel, had no vacancies.

We could have stayed at the Holiday Inn. But the Crescent Hotel conducts ghost tours through its corridors. On the balcony of the Basin Park Hotel, a young man with a guitar sings to people sipping drinks and watching the street below.

Late one evening, DC came out of the sitting room saying she'd heard a soft footfall outside the door of our room. She wondered if our hotel might be haunted, too.

Bravely I opened the door to find ... two breakfast coupons and a package of chocolate mints.

Love, Sam