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R.C. Sproul Jr. I'm pretty tight-fisted, but I know an opportunity when I see one. My wife was expecting our third child under four in a matter of weeks. My fifth anniversary was only ten days away, so I bagged a two-fer and took my dear wife for a weekend at a bed and breakfast. We dropped of the children with friends and headed to Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, and The Hawley House, the oldest building in town, also a Bed and Breakfast. Our hostess told us all about the tiny town of 3000. The current buzz was about the near completion of the renovation on an old inn which will become the National Storytelling Center. It had to be just right, because of the federal grant. I soon discovered that the town which had been the town that time forgot was reborn when it became the town that Uncle Sam remembered. It seemed that every other building was either built by the government, or housed some governmental agency. As I sat one morning contemplating this sad state of affairs a group of three young boys came my way. They seemed to be about eight. Each had a small napsack and a walking stick. It looked like they were going on an adventure. "Where you boys headed, " I asked. "To the creek, " they replied, "to kill some snakes. We already killed one, a copperhead." The non-politician in the crowd rejoined, "Was not." Off they went to slay serpents, and left me wondering two things. Have I committed a sin, in engaging young boys I don't know in conversation? Will Child Protective Services get after the parents for not sufficiently warning the boys about strangers? And whatever became of nostalgia? I used to go to the creek in search of game. I used to trudge three miles uphill on my bike to get some candy and a Cherokee Red Pop at what we called the "Little Store". I'd chug the soda at the store, saving the nickel deposit. (Did I mention that I'm tight fisted?) It struck me that the small town charm, the way of life which thrives on the telling of stories is very nearly extinct. It struck me that soon there will be no more stories to tell. How will warm memories be evoked when our children remember going to MacDonalds, or the local 7-11? Will anyone say, "Ah, yes, I remember when I was a boy, the hours I spent exploring the internet?" Nostalgia in our day has become nationalized, (why a "national" storytelling center?) corporatized and bureaucratized. Consider the oxymoronic (and just plain moronic) nature of Main Street USA at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Some MBA somewhere took what was once natural and made it into a commodity. Thirty thousand strangers, from everywhere but Orlando, mill around this mythical small town which exists to create an experience which sells for thirty dollars a day, and to sell t-shirts. Nostalgia shouldn't be for sale. In fact it can't be. Only a thinly disguised fake. I wondered when Jonesborough's National Story Telling Festival would go the way of the bowl games, and become the "USF&G Storytelling Festival", or better yet, "Hallmark Presents the National Story Telling Festival." Who better than a company which prepackages emotion for two bucks a shot to sponsor such an event? Such deceit, of course, calls for some consumer protection. First there are those whose picture of nostalgia may not be politically correct. You remember what happened when Disney had the audacity to create a historical theme park in Virginia. We can't have anyone having a gay old time at Ye Olde Plantation. And watch out for those imports. Those Germans have been dumping their fairy tales, nearly driving Daniel Boone and Johnny Appleseed out of business.
The problem is not law. The problem is not business. The problem is gigantism.
When all our lives take place in a corporate context there is of necessity
nothing of the personal, the merely human left. It makes me long for the
good old days. |
