The other night Julia and I walked down 37th street. Every town has one random street where all the houses have a lot of holiday lights. In Austin it’s 37th Street, although it looks like that block is approaching its Christmas display nadir. A lot of the houses weren’t participating, and the ones that were, were only marginally interesting.
But there were a few highlights and a few Austin touches. And by "Austin Touch", I mean that people put some lights on some total junk and called it a holiday display. Like this lawnmower for instance:
Or this:
I also liked the twenty-foot aluminum foil shark thing.
Behind a house at the end of the block was the stuffed animal petting zoo, an event organized by the Stuffed Animal Rescue Foundation. It was hard to maintain my cold, bitter countenance as these animals looked up at me with their limpid eyes.
Each stuffed animal had a tag telling its backstory. Never have I wept openly in public. Until now. My heart, which had been like a stone, has split asunder under the weight of their sorrow.
