My Visit to the North Pole & The End of the World

I didn't get any writing accomplished on Thursday. I had a really good plan to make me a mean, lean, wordsmithin' machine -- namely, hide at my mom's house where no one could disturb me. Ironically, it was my mother who convinced me to abandon the productivity plan by inviting me to America's First Christmas Store in Smethport, PA. The thought of a scenic ride through the Kinzua area convinced me that the literary world could get along without me for one day and I was in that SUV faster than a group of Baptists on a tureen dinner.

Why is it that every Christmas-themed store always lays claim to being "the first"? Do they think it's a race or something? It really doesn't mean a hill of beans to me if a Christmas store is the first, second, or two-hundred and twenty-fourth anymore than it would at any other business. Just show me the Santa and get on with it I say.

And did they ever show me the Santa... Not just the traditional "American" Santa, but Santas from around the world, and Santas for every taste and inclination... Santa in a rocketship, Santa and baby Jesus (!), a Spiderman Santa with a web sack of toys, and even a Santa in camouflage battle fatigues holding an M-16 -- presumably for when he visits the DMZ this Christmas. One of the characteristics of postmodernism is an atomizing of society and culture. I would point philosophers towards America's First Christmas Store for Exhibit A. Santas for everyone!

Kitchyness aside, I did enjoy my visit to the store. The carols and holiday songs piped through the PA system soothed me. I stood mesmerized by the model town displays, where magnetized skaters continuously careened their way around the village pond, carolers sang in the town square, and every cafe and tavern held a picture perfect celebration.

I'm told that these Christmas villages come in modular pieces. A glance at the price tags showed me that it would cost a small fortune to assemble the whole village. But I guess people are willing to pay any price to recapture what has been lost in our real villages and towns -- a sense of community, fun activities, tradition, and joy.

It's a consumer's ultimate solution to alienation. Most likely, a group of carolers won't come to your door this Christmas, but you can buy a set of plastic ones to put in a display case. How will Christmas 2005 be remembered? Will future generations buy a plastic Wal-Mart with magnetized black Friday shoppers scurrying around the aisles for iPods and DVD players? Are we satisfied with that legacy?

Afterwards we drove to Mt. Jewett to see the remains of the Kinzua Bridge. This used to be one of my favorite places on earth. The bridge rose about 300 feet from the valley at its center, and was around 2100 feet long. A person could walk out onto the middle of the trestle and be rewarded by a magnificent view of the forest for miles around. This view was particularly breathtaking in the autumn. Heck, it was almost a religious experience. But it's all different now. Back in 2003, a tornado devastated some of the surrounding forest and blew down half of the bridge. I hadn't been there since the disaster.

There were a few hikers and sightseers in the park. But everyone seemed strangely hushed and reverent when confronted with the evidence of nature's power... Whole hills which should have been brilliant with the colors of leaves, left brown and bald... Downed trees... and big, black girders of metal laying in the valley below.

I miss this place. Or more precisely, the place that once was. I want my children to know it. I want to bring the youth group there on a field trip. I want to build memories there. But it's all gone and there's no going back.

I pondered as I trekked back up to the SUV if the belonging and community we so desperately reach out for at Christmas time is still within our grasp, or if its twisted remains already lie in the valley below.