Where is the fanfare and panache?

We are a people that don’t like ruts, so we make changes. The problem with that is that we are people that don’t like change. What we need to be is a people that learn to be content where we are, but always ready to move on to play the next note life prompts us to bellow. Remembering, however that change must not destroy who we are what defines us.

As I look around small town America today, I see many things changing. One common bond we all share is going home again. I know they say you can’t and many counsel you against it, but we all go. Those places where we grew up held some challenging memories, but they also held some very good memories – and it’s those we are hoping to regain and share with our loved ones in later life. We revisit a place that we knew as a child, and some things are the same, but so many things are different.

Life changes, and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I was ready for some of them. One of the things many will miss this year is our hometown parades. Thank God for the pandemic ONLY for the fact that many gathered together, cloistered in their cars to cruise together down Main Street. Because it was cool? Trendy? No. Because it prompted so many people to say, “I remember we used to do that when…”

There are so many towns losing the battle against the economy, being mortally wounded by the apathy and no longer able to compete with the technology.

I mean, have you participated in a State or National Champion’s celebration parade lately? The glow from the ground almost makes it feel like watching fireworks in the daylight. Everyone has a smartphone, a tablet, an I-pod or if you’re like me, a dumb phone. It’s the change almost everyone has bought into.

I tried to lead a chorus of “ooohs and ahhhs” at last year’s fireworks show and found each one of my children buried in their phones, glancing up every now and then and the sharing the “awesome ‘dude’ tube video” that showed an incredible fireworks show a half a world away… when they were in actuality in the sky above their heads.

I know that all three of those things are major players in the erosion of our traditions both in America and here in small town North Carolina. The fact that many celebrations have been around for over 100 years means that the magic hasn’t yet been replaced by the internet, but rest assured, it’s coming.

For 247 years, both big and small towns have banded together, pitched in and made sure that the celebrations continued. Come hill or high water. Even during the lean years of the depression and the infamous times of war, someone made sure the show was going on.

When someone got too old or too tired to continue, the young people were trained by the community to roll up their sleeves and made it happen. I have to believe that 247 years of training cannot be tainted by a seven-inch video screen.

There has been talk all over the country of maybe “taking a break for a while” and “letting some of the parades lapse this year” and “letting a bigger city bear the burden.” But there have always been bigger cities – and that attitude wasn’t pervasive then and we must not let it permeate our small towns now.

Folks we are under attack. Financially. Apathetically. Elderly. And “better-things-to-doerly.” It’s not that we can compete with the bigger shows or the bigger towns, because we can’t. But this represents the thing our kids come home to. They breathe a sigh of relief knowing that this last great bastion of hometown pride is not about to leave them. And there is a warmth in the heart about coming home again to something you grew up with. Something that in the midst of all the change, hasn’t.

It represents the preservation of small-town America. When all the world wants to eliminate the things of the past, dare to be that small voice from a history that must not be forgotten. If you really want your kids to know what it was like when and where you grew up, roll up your sleeves and get into the parade.

And for those who have fallen victim to this change… dare to change it back.

If you have to grab an American Flag, grab another crazy friend and march down Main Street or Broad Street or First Street with kazoos playing the Star-Spangled Banner. It’s progressive to change a tradition, but it’s tragic to eliminate it.

Mark DeLap is a journalist, photographer and the editor and general manager of the Bladen Journal. To email him, send a message to: mdelap@bladenjournal.com