Having fun is contagious

Editors note: this column originally ran in the Dec. 9, 1999 edition of the Daily Mail.

I recently spent parts of two days at a book signing in Branson. I have been in Branson hundreds of times because my mother-in-law and others of the Thornton family have lived in Branson for yams. When visiting relatives, however, the show biz part of Branson was not what we saw. In fact, when we were first married there was no show biz part of Branson. There were a few resorts along Lake Taneycomo for fishermen, and the English-style hotel in Hollister by the train tacks. Everything else was just like any Ozark town. Before my father-in-law died the family lived another 30 miles east of Branson near Protem.

The roads were not paved from Forsyth on to the family (win and there was nothing but tires, hills and a few houses.

This week I was signing books in a quaint little bookstore in an outdoor shopping mall. The stores all opened out onto a courtyard where there were only pedestrians. Behind us was the huge theater where the Radio City Rockettes were appearing three times daily, and up and down the congested highway were dozens of other theaters. When we left the bookstore to go to our motel or to eat, the traffic was so thick we had to barely move a few feet at a time.

I remembered one time when we were visiting my sister and brother- in-law neat New York City, Dudley told its whatever we did not to arrive at the Holland Tunnel at 5:00 p.m. We didn't. It was 4:55 p.m.

Naturally we were in a traffic jam that didn't even move for several minutes, limit it wasn't long before we were on u um way to the relatives' home. Here in rural Branson, however, the traffic never did let up and out in the ticks, as New Yorkers would say, we were in worse traffic than we had been in New York City.

My mother-in-law would not have approved at all. She lived long enough to see some of the first shows come into the area. Silver Dollar City had opened and her grandsons were in the Shepherd of the Hills portrayal. She could not quite think it was proper to spend money to be entertained. The sight of bus after bus of middle age plus folk obviously enjoying themselves in Branson would have bothered her. But I never encountered such a nice group of people.

A steady stream of people of all ages came into the bookstore all the time we were there. Even if they weren't interested in buying books, they would stop and visit, smile and say hello. Family groups came by and spent some time talking about the older people in their families and sometimes they bought one of the books for them as gifts.

The Branson I had experienced as a college graduate where they looked on me as an outsider was as different from this glittering, friendly shopping mall as anyone could imagine. I had a very good time and didn't even regret spending a few bucks to see the Rockettes do their thing. As a youth my sister and I visited an older sister in New Jersey and were taken to see the famous Radio City show. The show we saw in Branson was very similar, but I don't think the women were the same ones that we saw in the '40s! One clue that they really weren't the same women was that there were a couple of African American dancers among the current group.

Regrettably that would not have been the case in the 1940s.

On the second day we left Branson for another scheduled book signing in Springfield. The store we were in was very large and in addition to books, it handled video table with our books in front of us in this Springfield store, we couldn't even get anyone to smile at us, and if we spoke to them, they avoided us and went by hurriedly. Most of these customers were young adults in the store to rent some good shows for the weekend. Even those who headed for the book section were intent on finding a specific book and were not interested in anything else. We did have a few customers and we enjoyed the young manager who visited with us.

I realized that those in Branson who came to the town to have a good time made those around them also have a good time. The busy shoppers in Springfield were not rude. They were just -- well, busy. I hope they also can take time sometime in this season to just enjoy themselves. Like maybe settling down with a good book!