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Making strong choices and listening to your instinct

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"Your future life will be exactl... "Your future life will be exactly what you choose to make it."
-Dr. Forrest Shaklee
When KK & Jodi first arrived in Seattle from Hawaii, I took them to have a treat at the Panama Hotel Tea & Coffee Shop on Main Street because part of our Goto heritage is featured there. The book now in half a dozen languages, HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER SWEET by Jamie Ford is about this hotel. Because of a water issues the front door was gated, but I saw Jan sitting out on the sidewalk outside her lower door having tea and enjoying the gorgeous Seattle Summer afternoon. I rolled down the car window and called out, “Jan, why are you closed?”

Jan calls back, “Hi Dee, I’m open, park over there and come on in.”

We spend the next two hours taking a tour of her hotel rooms, all decorated in beautiful vintage themes. And we hear the story of how she bought the hotel 37 years ago. Jan’s story starts on Seattle’s Beacon Hill where her father was an immigrant carpenter, taking the name Johnson on Ellis Island. Jan, as she tells the story, starting at three or four years old learning carpentry, electrical/plumbing skills from her Dad and often took the bus by herself to the library down town herself at age six or seven.

Jan had her own designer clothing business in Rome in her 20s. For some reason she came back to Seattle and rented an office in Seattle’s old Japan Town. Tak Hori who owned the Panama Hotel had been looking for 14 years to find the right buyer for his hotel. Jan tells KK, “I’m telling this story to you. This is for you young people. With no credit, no collateral, no experience Key Bank gave me the loan. You can do and get anything you really want.”

She interrupts her story and goes out to the sidewalk to send a homeless person, harassing an elderly neighbor walking her dog, on his way. Then she comes back and tells us some more stories about this historical site which she got registered on the list of historic places nationally.

Jan is in her 80s, has no elevator, uses all the old fashioned stairs, points out the beauty of the architecture - the lighting, the natural air conditioning, the 100 keys on her key chain as she still does most of the maintenance herself. She is looking for the right buyer. We joke, “It’s going to take you 14 years to find the right buyer too!”

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