Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a thing you don’t recognize how special it is.
We’d come out of the cold spell and the weather was back to being nice, perfect for me. 50s to 70s, maybe a little colder at night, and the leaves were beautiful in their fall colors, some holding fast against the inevitable and some letting go and drifting downward and swirling in little wispy circles when the December breezes would disturb them.
Workers were pre-placing barricades around downtown and there were vendors setting up along Baker Street and I remembered that the Lighted Christmas Parade was going to be that night. It was December 1st and I wasn’t really ready for the December holiday thing. My main thought was how is this going to affect business tonight at the bar? Thursday nights can be hit or miss anyway, so I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not a holiday person, though I do like joy and peace on earth and all that.
As darkness fell, we saw out the big windows facing Baker and Center the first of the brightly lit floats go by. Business was good at the bar and people seemed to be happy and smiling and there was an electric buzz in the air. The music was our usual 40s playlist but with some holiday songs mixed in, and the effect started to be noticeable as it grew darker outside and inside was warm and nice and the people glowed. Some were in their coats and hats and that too was a reminder of the season. A pair of businessmen from out of town sat nursing their drinks. They’d commented several times about how surprised they were at Brownwood and how much they were enjoying the town. “Are you kidding? There’s a place like this in Brownwood?”
“I heard there are a hundred floats!” someone said.
“This is really cool.”
“Do they do this every year?”
“Yeah. We got stuck downtown last year because of the parade and the barricades, so we just stayed and drank and had fun.”
As for me, I was rolling cigars for a demonstration at CJs Cigar Bar last year. Man, how things can change in a year!
The businessmen were just captivated by what was happening.
They’d been over at the Taphouse and then had strolled down with the festive crowd before deciding to get a drink at our bar. The noises outside grew, and we could see that the crowds were getting thick on the corners and down Center Avenue and they packed Coursey Park and when the door opened a blast of holiday sounds would blow in with the colder air.
Sone enough, the parade was in full swing. I saw a lighted cowboy on horseback and said “Electric Horseman” to myself. We were getting more drink orders from the dining room and at one point I looked up and the bar was empty. No one had paid their tab, but everyone was gone. Their hats and coats and phones and drinks were still there, and then I realized… they’d all gone outside to see the parade. I could see the tops of their heads out on Center as the floats went by and people were waving and children ran by with lighted sticks and necklaces.
Then they were all filing back in.
“This is like Doc Hollywood,” one of the businessmen said.
I may have been the only one who got the allusion immediately. Doc Hollywood is a movie with Michael J. Fox playing an emergency room doctor who is heading out to Hollywood in his Porsche to take a job at a big plastic surgery factory where he will be rich and live the Hollywood lifestyle. He ends up getting stuck in the little southern town of Grady. These were the pre cell phones and laptop days. He had to swerve to miss hitting some women walking down the road with their cows and he takes out a fence with his Porsche Speedster. As it turns out, the fence was owned by the judge in the town who sentences the Doc to 32 hours of community service in the town hospital. Soon enough, the mayor and the town are putting on the full-court-press to get the Doc to stay and take over for their ailing Doc Hogue.
You’ve seen the fish out of water tropes, and the big city guy learns to love the small town girl story, and now there are a million of these stories on the Hallmark Channel during the holidays, but when Doc Hollywood came out, it was still fresh.
Doc falls in love and has to decide what to do for his future, but there is a specific scene to which our businessman at the bar is referring. It’s during the 58th annual Grady Squash Festival, and it is pure small-town bliss. The Doc really gets to see the small town in its glory. The music plays and people walk around downtown hand-in-hand, children running with sparklers, the festival and the floats. It’s a simple small-town snapshot. The moss in the trees, barefoot in the park, slow dancing in the square. The parade. And at night in the lights, he starts to really have a change of heart. It is that montage that our businessman at our bar is calling to mind.
“This is like Doc Hollywood.”
Maybe no one else got it but me. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a thing you don’t recognize how special it is.
***
Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.
