Monique Polak

We writers are always on the look-out for real live "characters" -- people we can use in our stories. Well, this week on our bike trip around (well, okay, half-way around Lake Champlain ... I got a little worn out from all that hill work!), Mike and I met one of those characters I'm talking about. We spent one night in an old motel on Lake Champlain. It's owned and run by a woman named Rita. I didn't ask Rita her age, but I assume she's in her 80s. She has snow white hair and a crooked back, but she's full of energy and spirit. Because our room wasn't air-conditioned, Rita insisted on dragging a large fan out of a storage closet and delivering it to our room -- even when Mike offered to do it for her. Rita has a love story, too. She met her husband in 1947 -- at the time he had just bought the motel and the bar that is part of it. Though he died many years ago, Rita is still running the place single-handed and doing, from the looks of it, a fine job. Rita was on to me... when I was chatting her up, she gave me a funny look and said, "No one ever asks me those kinds of questions. You aren't a writer, are you?" So here's to Rita -- may we all be as lively and spirited as she is.