It’s quiet out there this morning. Blue skies and pleasant and I can see a few little cotton candy clouds hovering lazily and downtown is abandoned this Sunday morning. It’s quiet. Last night we stood outside looking south down Brown Street and you could see the holiday lights of Howard Payne, and just across the street the decorations in Coursey Park. It had sprinkled now and then, but the radar said that storms were heading in. Good rains overnight.

Downtown Brownwood has been busy, bright, and festive this season, and, as always, I’m quite ready for it to be over. I know that retailers make most of their revenue for the year during the holiday season, so I get it. People have family in town, too, so there’s that. But it’s also fun when all of that is over and things get back to “normal.”

2024 is likely to be another election-year crapshow, like they all are, and I’d like to get that over too, please. Still, things are looking great for downtown and Brownwood in general. Sometime next year, if the Lord wills, the new event venue will be opening. Wild Duck Bar and Grill opened up not long ago in what was the Teddy’s Brewhouse building, and across the street, it looks like the new Providencia restaurant and bar is getting close to opening. More options and more great places to eat, meet, and hang out is a good thing.

It’s probably not cool to state the obvious, but when the world is a dumpster fire and people are worried about inflation and civil war or whatever, places like Brownwood and other small towns in reasonably sane places become more popular. I was telling a local business owner the other day that I think 2024 is going to start a repeat of the cyclical influx of economic refugees and folks wanting to escape the expensive, third-worldish corrupt tax hellholes in California, Oregon, and other places. People with much money and a little sense are also getting out of Austin and heading this way. They bring with them the good and the bad, but they also bring with them a micro-regional economic boom to the places that are already prepared to provide them with the cool stuff they liked back in the places they left.

So, as long as you don’t watch the news too much, or believe the lies of our corrupt, divisive, bifurcated uniparty system, and as long as you get out and enjoy the fine weather, clear air, relatively affordable goods and services, friendly people, world class food and drinks, and our wide array of locally available things to see and do… well, things can be pretty great in 2024. We’ll see.

Frankly, I’m ready for things to get back to normal, even if normal in the rest of the world and America is like a reality show where a dysfunctional family is pulling down their own house to punish themselves for having a nice house.

Y’all have a great week.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.