Field Notes

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Field Notes

Thu, 11/12/2020 - 04:44
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Canceling a treasured tradition

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FOR OVER 11 DECADES, savvy Hemphill Countians have set their holiday clocks for 11:30 am on the first Friday in December—the date of the Annual WCTU Bazaar.

Some of us schedule playoff football games around the event. Some power nap in advance of the eagerly-anticipated eating binge and some lose consciousness immediately after.

Some binge-diet in advance of the event, knowing full well that in addition to the sacrificial turkeys, the town’s best cooks will produce vats full of dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pies, glorious pies—all prepared strictly according to the WCTU Bazaar bible/cookbook that has been reverently passed from hand to hand for about 113 years now, with nary a nod to low-fat, low-carb, vegan, gluten-free, or any other such nonsense.

Some, no doubt, pray that if their name is called up yonder, it won’t be called that week. Some of us, who have grown up celebrating the advent of Christmas in the basement of the historic WCTU building by overeating and socializing with folks we’ve not seen for months or years, have entire memory banks filled with a very particular sensory knowledge of the Bazaar.

A sacred event in its own right, the annual WCTU Bazaar has never, to our knowledge, fallen prey to the holiday versus Christmas debate that always rears its ugly head during this blessed season. Call it Christmas. Call it holiday. Call it an epicurean feast of the gods. Just don’t call it over.

That may be why Catherine Lusby’s voice wobbled a bit when she called this week with the news we all dread, but have become accustomed to hearing in the Age of Coronavirus: “We have decided to cancel the WCTU Bazaar,” she said, words that were followed by a long silence neither of us quite knew how to get past.

Catherine didn’t have to explain. Nearly every non-mandatory public event has been canceled (or postponed and then canceled) for the last eight or nine months, as long as it doesn’t involve a football or a ballot. We are officially home for the holidays, our Santa’s elf facemasks at the ready, our dishpan hands raw from hand sanitizer, our holiday pounds already onboard after months of stay-at-home dining and boredom binging, and now fondly referred to as the COVID 19.

Catherine didn’t just wake up Tuesday morning and decide this, either. She talked to local physicians, the county judge, the head librarian, and her fellow Library Foundation board members, before reaching the inevitable conclusion. Socially distancing at the WCTU Bazaar is against the laws of nature, as is dining sumptuously with facemasks on. And if you’ve ever watched the kitchen crew at work preparing that vast repast, you know they’re not exactly able to follow the latest CDC guidelines, either.

Still, just saying the words “WCTU Bazaar” and “canceled” felt historic and momentous. The last time anyone even hinted at the possibility was back in 2009. That was the year the county commissioners embarked on an ambitious plan to restore, repair, and expand the Hemphill County Library—better known as “the house that turkey built” in a sober nod to the WCTU Bazaar originators—and the library basement was covered in sheetrock dust.

That was also the year a stern Diana McGarr, channeling the ghost of Sallie Lee Brainard, rebuked those considering a pass and arranged for the Bazaar to be held at the nearby Methodist Church. Most believed the compromise was driven more by fear of being haunted by Women’s Christian Temperance Union ghosts than anything else. It didn’t matter. The Bazaar went on.

To the uninitiated, who do not understand the weight of that history, the first Bazaar was held in 1906, on a vacant lot outside where the WCTU Building stands today. Its purpose was to build a library and fill it with books— something to serve as a civilizing counterbalance to the community’s abundance of saloons. To our knowledge, the only other event that sidelined the annual Bazaar was the influenza epidemic of 1918. Frankly, the COVID pandemic of 2020 is fearsome enough that we imagine even those pioneer women might have called this one off for a year.

Not one to simply call it quits, Catherine suggested this year’s Bazaar could be a virtual one, and that those who typically make monetary or food contributions, or the patrons who dine there each year, might just calculate their expenditures and mail a donation to the Hemphill County Library Foundation, instead.

Our dear friend, Judy Renick—one of the Hemphill County Library’s greatest benefactors and an avid reader, who continued to read even when her vision began to fail—died on Sunday following a brief illness. Judy asked that those who wished to honor her life consider a gift to, among other charities, the Hemphill County Library. We think the virtual WCTU Bazaar to benefit the Hemphill County Library Foundation might be just the kind of thing she had in mind.

So this year, forgo the feast and write a check to the Hemphill County Library Foundation in honor of Judy Renick and mail it to Catherine Lusby, Box 941, Canadian, TX 79014, or just drop it off at the Hemphill County Library.

We can all eat turkey and pecan pie next year.