Paradise in the Light

Most Coasties think of Midwesterners as friendly, conservative and thrifty. There is normally some truth in that but let me tell ya all such concerns are tossed out the window during Christmas.

In fact, this is the time of year that the Midwesterner’s tendency to rudely push through the crowd and overindulge is allowed to take its natural course, prodded by the modern Advertiser and much to the satisfaction of the Wall Street Trader, I’m sure.

It’s during this time of year that a road trip to bustling Broadway which was deemed overly expensive and absolutely careless back in the dog days of July suddenly seems like a damned good idea.

And why the hell not? Everything suggests “Go For It” this time of year. The staid and elegant Plaza annually takes this opportunity transform into a garish, multicolored Christmas Dream Land and everyone flocks to see it.

It doesn’t end in the city as there’s one guy up in Paradise, MO, who lights up his town square every year too. I think the last count was something on the order of 40,000 bulbs on this one display.

I swear you can see the glow of Paradise off the clouds from about three miles away.

Not to be outdone by their neighbors, out here in the sticks simple people trot out every form of wooden, plastic and aluminum ornament to festoon their yards. Not satisfied with ordinary snowmen or even the standard waving Santa and mechanized head-bobbing deer, fantastic patriotic displays are also now in fashion.

US Flags glimmer in the night, Support Our Troops banners flash, and then there’s the guy out on I-29 who set aside a large part of his corn field to outline the bright ghostly images of a fighter plane, a Sherman tank and even a practically life-sized submarine which urges all who speed by to “Remember Those Who Serve”.

I think this patriotic strain, again, is very natural but fed by this same self-serving holiday indulgence. And it’s important to recognize that these kinds of “holiday patriot” displays in the Midwest are mostly home-made jobs. They aren’t sold at Target, they aren’t mass produced by corporate dolts who see an angle to increase company profit. It is, after all, the sons and daughters of these simple people who are walking the line. It is in their best interest to make us remember that.

Of course, I recently noticed the one guy around the corner who has also seen fit to take this chaotic opportunity of excessive display to raise his tattered Rebel flag. Anywhere else on the coast and there would probably be some hell to pay for that, I suppose. Well, during the holidays, give us Midwesterners an inch and someone will surely take a mile.

Thankfully the ambiguity of “Happy Holidays” never really took hold among the indulgence here, by the way, or at least it never had the same corporate boardroom meaning, anyway. Remember this is the home of Hallmark Cards and around here that phrase is used to neatly encompass the time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. It is a simple, frugal way to cover all the bases. It may save some ink and surely saves a bit of bitter breath on cold day. Now we are instructed that it’s too PC or even considered “offensive” to the Christian right, the very ones who tried to sell us the holidays in the first place.

Well, no news here, boardroom decisions are generally stupid to begin with and rarely do they play well in “Peoria” as you’ve noted. “Peoria” is “Paradise” governed by an ugly reality which only dresses up once a year. While the lights may be seen shining off the low clouds at a distance, the boardroom and the proud members of the Christian right are apparently about as far from it as you can get.

But I am different than my fellow neighbor, as usual. I am a statistical oddity, I don’t buy mechanical reindeer, refuse to follow the trend and I, for one, am stunned into silence by the influence of these Christians. I see them really taking over all discussion, politic and personal, in a profound and an oppressive way.

And I’m pissed that I have no choice of representation among this tyranny other than the Christians or Wall Street. There is no other voice. There is no good voice.

And I’m really not wishing for a return to the good old days when Christmas was forced upon us, brought to us by the makers of Cabbage Patch dolls, Tonka and Norelco. I know too well what kind of madness we get from all of that.

But for crying out loud ... now I am offended by all Conservatives, West and East, when they claim to be offended by anything. Hypocritical Christians give me no place to turn and no relief from all the foolishness. They are clearly just as self-indulgent, looking for any angle to increase union membership. And I think it’s too late for them to reclaim Christmas, anyway. The holidays are just not only for conservatives anymore and I don’t think they were ever meant to be that way anyway.

It’s really sad. The last good Christmas apparently came and went and I didn’t even know it. It’s enough to make me want to run away and hide. I don’t even want to cook turkey and giblets this year, forget the figgy pudding, I just want it and so many other things to just pass along, get on with it quickly so we can return to our routine course with universal disaster and calamity. (This plays into my passive-aggressive nature, obviously.)

I tell you what, I can’t buy into the greed of Wall Street at all but I will compromise with the Christians on this if they’ll bend a little bit. I might even consider buying some season tickets (however unlikely) if they’d do just this one thing.

I will allow “LOVE” and “HOPE” to remain on Hallmark cards and the Christian team’s emblem. Those are pretty nice things and really necessary objectives everyone should be proud to salute. I think those things make sense, shouldn’t offend anyone and will still please Wall Street insiders. But they gotta erase all references to “PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TOWARD MEN” because that ain’t real and that idea ain’t playing in Peoria these days, man, no matter how they light it up to hide the ugly truth.

That’s my final offer.