Living Doll

Here's one thing that I noticed about Branson - and I probably noticed more, given that Halloween is on the way - have you ever seen those horror movies where the dolls comes to life? Usually possessed by a demon and looking to reak havoc, start fires and drive somebody the kind of insane where they hang themselves from the chandelier with a note pinned to their chest that says "the eyes the eyes the eyes". If that ever happened, Branson would be seriously screwed.

I have never seen so many porcelain dolls in my entire life. Rows and rows of them in all the shops. Victorian ones with the curlicue hair. Country girls with Branson aprons. Realistic ones that look like crying babies. Indian princesses. Fairies. You name it, Branson has it. I'm not sure how something can be kind of pretty and really, really effed up at the same time. And, of course, lots of the little girls LOVED them. They'd just stand and stare at them, with nearly the same blank expression as the dolls. But a lot of mature women were just as glassy eyed over them.

Of course, I had an Aunt Freda (actually a great-great aunt), who just loved those things. She had them all over her house. She even kept her dishes in the dishwasher so that she could display them in the glass-front kitchen cabinets. And she'd make vignettes with them at little doll parties. I shouldn't complain though. The way heredity works in my family, I could have a latent doll gene, and wake up one day and just drive to Branson and buy one of everything. But even if I do, I'm locking them in the closet on Halloween.