Sunday morning, I made my semi-regular journey to my mother’s house to spend some quality time with her. By quality, I mean doing my laundry, eating her food and taking the leftovers home with me so I don’t have to buy groceries for another day.
Except this Sunday, we really did spend quality time together. We went to the San Antonio Rattlesnake Round-up, a tradition in Pasco County for the past 40 years. Basically, it’s an annual excuse for crafters to set up their tents and critter wranglers to gather and entertain while live country singers croon in the background.
I hadn’t gone to a Rattlesnake Round-up since I graduated high school; all of the country festivities I made a point to attend faded to memory the longer I was away from home and my priorities shifted as I struggled through a failed marriage, moved to and from North Carolina, and started school again for the third or fourth time.
What peaked my interest this year was an article in The Tampa Tribune about the demise of another seasonal festival – Church Street Christmas. All through high school, I spent the entire run of Church Street Christmas lighting luminaries for the Pasco High School NJROTC. Gigantic plywood Christmas cards were on display in front of the churches and houses while productions of all kinds could be seen on street corners and in the churches themselves. It was a great way to touch base with pretty much everyone I knew.
This year, it was important for me to raise my fist to the proverbial
man and say “You can’t take this little piece of my past away from me.â€
If my schmaltzy It’s a Wonderful Life Christmas was going to disappear,
I might as well frantically attend as many of these antiquated
gatherings as I could.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2006.