This column will be about business and Brownwood and Christmas and how we want to live, but it’ll take some fun routes to get there.
Some of you may be able to recall these opening lines of a famous book:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” ~ A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
It is plain from the opening lines of this classic novel, that Dickens (who also wrote A Christmas Carol – a sweet foreshadowing) wanted the reader to take these apparent paradoxes as a way to contrast not only two cities but two periods of time. He wanted the reader to know that the things that happened leading up to and including the French Revolution, were happening in his own time. And so it goes.
I want to tell you a tale of two cities, but both cities are here and now and are the results of the decisions you make. Choose wisely!
When people watch Holiday entertainment or think about Christmas memories or movies, they think of the small town during the holidays. They imagine Downtown streets lined with snow and shop fronts lit up gaily for the season. But what they actually experience is something completely different. They order most of their gifts online or shop for cheaply made foreign goods at big box stores up on the main drag. They pay their own executioner with their holiday dollars. Here is how that happened.
People certainly did, once upon a time, make a big thing about buying gifts during the holiday season. They’d pack up the children and extended family and go downtown. Window shopping and gift buying were festive parts of the season, and it was all made grander by the spectacle of what downtown meant to them. Friends, family, and home-owned businesses decorating and going all out for the season. For the rest of the year, though, there were pressures building.
A tale of one city… People were moving out of the small towns into the suburbs. As people spent more time in their cars, the big corporate chains moved in. McDonald’s captured the fast-food market along with the usual suspects. Building and construction moved to the “main drag,” where the big box stores, home improvement centers, and food chains conglomerated. At first these stores offered good products at cheaper prices. Walmart advertised that everything they sold in their stores was “made in America.” But as they captured more and more of the market, the products could be mass-purchased and mass-produced, mostly overseas, and became cheaper and cheaper. Cheaply made, too. The food got worse, and then when all the small, home-owned shops went out of business, the prices went up. Look at what you’re paying now for fast food! Inflation is killing the people who followed the suburban promise. And guess what? No one saved any money. Insurance prices went up as people spent more time in cars and on highways. Taxes went up to maintain the highways and emergency centers and bigger and bigger law enforcement necessities. People’s health declined, even as their life expectancy extended. Home health care, hospice, taxes, insurance, medical care, death. That’s where we are. All because we followed the siren’s song out to the “main drag.” The main drag slowly became the highways and super-highways, and mass-reproduced big box neighborhoods at every intersection. The “city” came to mean “anything outside the car windows” as you drive on the highway.
Let me tell you a tale of another city. The small downtowns that used to be the location of so many fond memories (real ones, or ones from the movies and specials) began to die. The city government was embarrassed about the downtowns as they became rundown and crime-ridden, or just locations of degradation and despair. But then, in the fullness of time, something happened… our social and cultural desire for Mayberry – an ingrained societal memory of better times – began to take hold. Downtowns began to revitalize as small, family-owned businesses moved into the old buildings and started their own capitalist and entrepreneurial dreams. Small restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues followed. Then the shops came back too, all locally and family-owned. Our neighbors. Our friends. Sure, they had to compete with Walmart and Target and Taco Bell, but they rolled up their sleeves, put their noses to the grindstone and got to work. As a result, there is a renaissance going on as small-town downtown areas are revived.
That first city – the city that requires you to get in the car between every stop, to increase the wear and tear on your car and your body. The city is the Walmartization of everything. That city takes every dollar you spend, and sends it out of town, out of state. More than that, they donate BILLIONS to the very politicians who operate contrary to your values. You listen to media and politicians tell you “You must get out and vote! This is the most important election in a generation! Our survival requires it!” But you have given money for the whole four years to the people who hate you and vote for the things that you are now panicked into voting against. It’s a vicious cycle. Every dollar you spend on the “main drag” or online – a portion of that dollar is going to elect the people you say are destroying your world.
If there was an app that made a CHING-CHING cash register sound every time you spend a dollar with the big corporate superstores or chain restaurants, representing the change going to the pockets of the billionaires who spend money on the things you hate. Then after the CHING-CHING, you’d be forced to watch a video of some billionaire in Davos asking for you to eat bugs and give up your guns. That might make a difference. But… there is a second city…
That second city – the small-town downtown, revitalized and beginning to thrive – is there too. Waiting for you. Every dollar you spend with them stays in your community. It goes into expansion, hiring local friends, buying products manufactured and sold locally. That small town is there, ready to get decked out for the holidays you remember from the movies.
And I told you I’d bring it back to Brownwood and I told you that the Dickens quote was foreshadowing – A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. The holidays are coming. It’s August now, but you know it and I know it. And guess what, you can start the revolution today, or this week. Start making decisions to come downtown and spend your money locally. Come to eat at Lucille and Mabel, or Pioneer Taphouse, or The Turtle, or Steve’s Market and Deli. Ask if they have gift cards or gift certificates and go ahead and start your holiday shopping now. There are even more great restaurants too. Try Wild Duck downtown or the new Providencia! I’ll forget to mention everyone but come downtown and see.
While you’re here, go shopping. Go by the Intermission Bookshop, or Hamilton’s. Go to Shaw’s Marketplace and do a whole day’s shopping in one location. Get ice cream at Over the Rainbow. Go to Matt’s Mantiques and walk over to 10 Mile Productions for a bottle of wine as a gift for your loved ones. Park and walk! Make a day of it. There are dozens and dozens of shops and retail establishments that would love your business. And for every dollar you spend, well, that’s a dollar that doesn’t go to your political enemies.
The world is crazy right now. Crazy and stupid. And Dangerous. And evil. You pay for the insults and the offensive spectacles. You pay for the political criminals and the disgusting displays. And for the next four to five months, you’ll send billions of dollars to the people who are financing your enemies because the holidays are when they make 80% off their money for the year. Then they write a check to the politicians you say you hate. Stop thinking that voting once every four years will fix it and vote with your dollars every day.
Come downtown! It’s revolutionary.
***
Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.