By DAN LANGFORD

This really happened in my hometown of Brooks, GA, on Sunday evening, December 7th, 2008.  You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

The Women’s Club had been planning the tree-lighting for months, taking their idea from the pair of majestic thirty-foot cedars growing by the post office.  They spent Saturday after Saturday in the buckets of front-end-loaders, putting decorations and lights on one of the big trees.  Saturday Dec. 6th was the trial run.  The lights on the big tree blew breakers in the post office, the only possible source of power.  Not to be dissuaded, the ladies went and bought a six-foot tree to put across the street, by the old post office.

Sunday evening rolls around.  Your commentator had been asked to play two roles in the event — to lead the assembly in the singing of God Bless America, and to give a brief homily about the meaning of the season.  I arrived a bit early, and was given a very nice-looking printed program on card stock, copies of which would be distributed to the crowd.

I headed with several of the ladies from the warmth of Town Hall down to the tree-lighting site.  All the assembly is across the street, by the big tree, which still bears its decorations.  We have to holler for them to cross over the street, and the inevitable “whys” are met with general laughter about the fuse box problem.  Two new problems quickly become apparent:  items one and two on the printed program — namely, the presentation of colors by a high school ROTC corps, and a welcome by Brooks’s mayor.  Both the ROTC group and the mayor are AWOL.  The ladies are also quietly murmuring that the Santa they have hired has not shown up yet.

One of them punches me to go up and give an impromptu welcome to get things going.  I go to the mike (which doesn’t work), and proceed to welcome folks to Brooks’s first annual tree-lighting, with appropriate comments for the many wonderful things the Women’s Club has done in our town since 1921.  As I make these brief remarks, an aged pickup truck comes over the RR tracks, dragging several feet of tailpipe quite noisily.  The truck pulls up by our assembly, and a man with remarkable resemblance to Santa waves to the crowd.  Unfortunately, he is not dressed in a traditional Santa suit, but in  John Deere hat and overalls. I think to myself, “Boy, I hope this isn’t the Santa they’re expecting, but if it is, I guess the dragging tailpipe is a redneck version of sleighbells.”

I finish my brief remarks as the mayor arrives, on what we call “Brooks time.”  I turn the mike over to him, and there being very few original ways to welcome a crowd, he proceeds to welcome the assembly, with almost identical comments to the welcome I had just given.  Farmer Claus has joined the crowd by this time, and as the mayor wraps up his brief remarks, Farmer Claus asks him if he’ll lead singing on his favorite Christmas song.

Playing along and trying not to make the scene any worse, the mayor says he supposes he can do that.  “What is your favorite Christmas song?” he asks.

“There’s a Tear in My Beer ‘Cause I’m Cryin’ for You, Dear,” Farmer Claus responds in apparent seriousness.  The mayor is dumbfounded, along with everyone else, and responds that he doesn’t think he knows the words.  A quick-thinking lady of the club steps up at that point and says that if it’s singing he wants, the next-scheduled girls chorus from Brooks Elementary School will fill that bill nicely.

The precious girls gather round, guided by their director.  She asks the man operating the CD player to start selection 12.  Apparently he starts 14 instead, for it’s the wrong song.  On the second try, selection 12 begins playing — Ding Dong Merrily on High.  The girls begin singing, but the CD cuts off in mid-song.  The director keeps them going a capella.  Then the music turns back on, but not in the right place.  They have to start over.  I’m wanting to go hide at this point.

The incomparable sound of little girls’ voices is interrupted by the heavy tramping of boots — it’s the ROTC corps, to present colors. The girls finish their song at about the same time as arms are presented, and the ROTC corps stands there in pregnant silence.  Another quick-thinking lady of the club steps up and starts the pledge to the flag, after which the corps does an about-face and marches off.

I come up next to lead singing on God Bless America, breifly explaining that we’ll sing a capella because we have no recording.  “Yes we do! I brought one!” said the chorus director.  Giving up hope that anything about the cermony would go by plan, I amended my instruction and urged everyone to sing to the music.  They did.

Then came my homily, during which nothing went wrong; followed by a touching and flawless solo by a high school senior of O Holy Night.  The last two items on the program were another selection by the girls’ chorus, followed by the dramatic appearance of Santa Claus (not Farmer Claus), which is being directed by cell-phone so the timing will be perfect.  The girls begin their last selection, but it, too, is interrupted — by the blaring of the horn of Santa’s car as he is driven down the hill from Town Hall.  Apparently the careful timing did not work, either.

I kept looking for Gomer, Goober, Barney, and them to show up; as well as for Ellie Mae, Jethro, and Granny Clampett.  They would have been right at home.  As for me, I’ve been laughing ever since.  So have the ladies of the club, who take everything in good stride.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Brooks, Ga.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.