OK, pull up a chair, and we’ll talk about a favorite film, since it’s getting to be Christmas and all.
Had to whip up a quick column one December afternoon in 2006, and chose a discussion of Frank Capra’s 1946 classic “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Who can resist James Stewart as the small-town hero George Bailey – the type of guy we all hope to be and down deep inside know we aren’t?
Never will forget that scene at the end, when Stewart and Donna Reed gather with their onscreen children around the Christmas tree, with all of Bedford Falls in the parlor, proclaiming George the richest person in town.
OK, it’s corny. Yeah, it’s overtly sentimental. But it’s Christmas. Isn’t this the time for such things?
Whatever idealism is left hopes that my town is still like that. The cynic in me knows better.
Once upon a Christmas, folks stopped by the old Halls Shopper office just to chat. Our late friends Jay Newcomb and Tud Etherton brought by vegetables that I would take to my grandparents. Former Karns coach Dwight Smith stopped by once for no other reason than to talk baseball for an hour. It more than made up for the people who showed up to complain or yell.
Chuck Maland, gentle sage and now retired University of Tennessee film studies and English professor, said that he often saw his students well up with tears after he showed “It’s A Wonderful Life” in class.
“The movie presents a vision of community where people really do care about each other,” Maland said. “The fact that people often end up crying tears of warmth is because they are responding to that part of American democracy that we could do well to cultivate more.”
That is all the more relevant in 2021. Oh, is it ever relevant.
Guess I’ve got my rose-colored glasses on, but isn’t it something to think that one person changed an entire town simply because he took the time to care about others?
Something to think about, at Christmastime, and anytime, even if you’re the richest person in town.
Jake Mabe worked for editor/publisher Sandra Clark from 1998 until health sidelined him in 2014. This is a reworked column from a 2006 interview.