Starlite Motel – Palmolive – Hotel Bar Soap

“Cornhusker Hwy”

The motel soap wrapper is dark green, and darker green, with white letters: PALMOLIVE—the soap brand getting more play than the motel. As I said before, only recently did it occur to me: palm oil, olive oil. Forever, I always thought it was “Pal Mo Live” (like Pal Joey, but it’s Mo, live on stage). No, I didn’t. The internet tells me the Starlite Motel may or may not still be there—it’s hard to say, for sure, because there’s no address on the soap wrapper. It does say: “Starlite Motel, Lincoln, Nebraska” and: “Room Phones, Air Conditioned, AAA, Television.” A very up-to-date place. There is/was a Starlite Motel on Cornhusker Hwy, in Lincoln, and there is/was still a motel there—hard to say if it’s the same one—but if I was driving through, that’s where I’d stay. The important detail is that it’s on National Route 6—which is a road that I’m obsessed with—I won’t go into it, except to say I’ve lived more or less on that road several times. My aunt and uncle’s motel, in Sandusky, Ohio was on Rt. 6—and I spent much of my childhood there. I can’t remember if they had Palmolive soap, similar to this one—gray-green, with a fragrance that doesn’t smell like anything these days. What does it bring back, for me? Relatives, neighbors, motels? I wish there was magic olfactory time machine—I mean, fragrance is that, to some degree—maybe I can hone that skill—then watch out.

Soap Review No. 194