SALENA ZITO: Stop griping and give Breezewood a second look.

Breezewood’s story is more than a town filled with cement, neon, cars and trucks and all the necessities they require; in truth, it is the story of how a small town survived when most other small towns along the turnpikes and interstates withered away when those superhighways passed them by.

There are hundreds of towns that once flourished — along the Lincoln Highway in this state alone — that have now faded into obscurity, thanks to either the turnpike or bypasses. Each new generation finds it harder and harder to keep their town alive when potential visitors find traveling fast more important than stopping and sitting a spell.

If anything, Breezewood is a story of American exceptionalism, of finding the tenacity to be both small and still matter in a society that often looks past small-town America.

Judy Felton-Carlin has lived here all of her life. She and her husband, John Carlin, run the Quality Inn Breeze Manor motel. Her grandparents started the motel when the turnpike divided their farm into three pieces, making actual farming a real challenge.

“The farm was crimped by the turnpike,” Ms. Felton-Carlin said. “To make ends meet they sold homemade ice cream and chocolate milk on the roadside. As they noticed more cars started to come into town, my father and uncles bought the land off of my grandfather and built 12 rooms on the farmland for people to stay — and called it the Breeze Manor Motel,” she said pointing to the original, impeccably kept motel rooms 101 through 112, still in service.

Two years later, they added eight more rooms and bought a Quality Inn franchise; 68 years later, Judy and her husband John are running this completely intact, perfectly maintained, mid-century marvel.

In between, John and Yoko Lennon and Muhammad Ali all tried to stay here, explained Ms. Felton-Carlin, “Unfortunately we were booked both times.”

The view of Breezewood from the vantage point of the motel rooms would rival any you would find in the Shenandoah Valley or the foothills of the Rockies — quite different from the meme of this town that keeps getting passed around on social media.

Social media can be misleading.