There are times in life when there is an event that triggers many additional events in succession. A simple action creates a reaction that sometimes ushers in a range of emotions that are appreciated, upsetting or simply incomprehensible.

As we travel about each day this is an everyday occurrence, something we are most likely not aware of or concerned with because this is how life progresses. Good luck, bad luck or unexplainable we might chalk something up to karma or to our very own set of beliefs.

Travel back with me to the year 1960 to experience just such an event, an event that was not unique but it did occur down on Main Street in Concord at our beloved Eagle Hotel.

It was the summer of 1960, just about this time of year. People were vacationing, likely complaining about the summer heat and enjoying the time before the children returned to school for another productive academic year. There was still plenty of time to bring the family together and take a refreshing trip north to New Hampshire to enjoy everything the Granite State offered in a grand manner.

The picnic baskets were loaded, the children singing gleefully as the parents traveled the back roads north to Concord in search of a hotel room for the weekend. The many roadside hotels filled quickly, especially on nice summer weekends.

Concord was along the main route to the White Mountains and offered wonderful hotel accommodations, fine restaurants for a very enjoyable dinner and perhaps a chance to visit the Capitol or Concord Theaters on South Main Street for a movie and popcorn.

The Eagle Hotel was a grand location to spend the evening and many patrons did just that. There were plenty of rooms with some overlooking the Main Street below and a premium view of the New Hampshire State House. The Eagle Hotel has hosted numerous guests for many decades with many of those guests being quite famous too.

As we continue our journey together back to the summer of 1960, we enter the lobby and approach the front desk in search of a room. There is a bit of disarray this warm summer day with carpenters working to restore the hotel registration booth. Some noise and a little dust but so very welcoming still.

This famed Concord hostelry is in the midst of a renovation to keep up with the growing competition the industry is quite accustomed to. A new registration area is being constructed; a transistor radio provides the latest score for the Red Sox game being played to the south in Boston. Paper coffee cups occupy the top of the old registration booth and the workmen focus on removing the old to make room for the new.

Prybars, hammers and a saw or two finally free the century-old booth from its dusty perch in the lobby. More workmen arrive and lift the old registration booth and carry it yards away into a corner of the lobby. It is covered with a canvas tarp and forgotten until Monday morning when the many guests depart the Eagle Hotel en route to home and work themselves.

Over the warm weekend, the hotel manager admires the progress his work crew has made with the renovations. A temporary desk has been set up for the clerks to check the guests in and out. During a particularly quiet moment, he enjoys a hot cup of coffee and reads the Concord newspapers checking both the obituaries and sports sections first.

He reclines in his comfortable leather desk chair behind the temporary desk and absorbs the quietness. He gazes across the lobby at the old registration booth and decides to explore for a moment or two. Removing the canvas tarp he sees the worn countertop, smooth from a century of transactions. There is an old mail slot on the front of the old registration booth where hotel patrons would deposit letters and postcards while staying at the hotel, black and white postcards and colorful postcards, letters written in old cursive too.

A brass-lined slot allowed the guests to drop their stamped mail into the front of the booth into a wooden box. The hotel manager explores a little deeper and removes the century-old wooden mailbox. Beneath the box, he discovers some dusty old papers, postcards and letters. Mail that was sent by hotel guests dating back decades, long forgotten the mail had accidentally fallen short of the box and rested beneath unseen and quite hidden.

The manager gathers all of the old mail and carefully places it in a box on his desk to await further instructions from the Eagle Hotel owners.

Monday arrives and peacefulness descends upon the manager, he calls the hotel owners and explains what he has found. The owners are not concerned, perhaps the old mail should be discarded with the concerns resolved rapidly. The manager contemplates and decides to take the box of old letters and postcards to the Concord Post Office. He meets with Concord Post Master Richard W. Eddy and explains in great detail his situation. A box of old mail hidden for decades, but paid for and expected to be sent by the United States Postal Service.

The Postmaster and the Hotel Manager discuss this to a greater degree and decide the higher road must indeed be taken. The mail is placed in the outgoing box at the Concord Post Office, it will be sent as it was intended so many years ago.

The Hotel Manager returns to the Eagle Hotel and his life continues. Concord Post Master Eddy returns to his tasks too. Both men do not ponder the impact of their actions as the mail continues through the postal system destined for homes around America.

The mail did arrive on sunny summer days. Letters from Uncle Joe, postcards from Gramma and Grampa. Long ago notes bestowing greetings to loved family members far away. There were many messages telling the recipients “I love you” and “Wish you were here” written so long ago.

Heartwarming and thought-provoking indeed but the mail must go through. You see, the letters and postcards were sent by long-dead relatives. Gramma and Grampa have sent me a message from beyond telling me they wish I was there…. but where?

So, it was this summer of 1960 that a simple action created many reactions. Thought-provoking reactions but loving, terrifying or entertaining to say the least. A little carpentry project in a hotel in Concord spread a multitude of emotions with the letters and postcards, but life does indeed progress sometimes providing unimaginable comfort within.