Observed: Journey to The Building That Must Not Be Named

Ormond Beach Observer
Opinion

The whole experience had been traumatic enough as it was — to think of losing the granola bar on top of that was too much to consider.

BRIAN MCMILLAN | EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Some friends invited my family to go to a Christmas concert with them last week. I agreed to go, and only afterward asked my wife where it was being held. As she told me, a sudden wind picked up, cold as death, chilling my bones: The concert would be held in The News-Journal Center, or, in other words, The Building That Must Not Be Named.

I should have been in the Christmas spirit. The Thanksgiving turkey leftovers were just about gone — finally! — and Michael Buble and Frank Sinatra were crooning from the speakers with glee. The kids already had hung all the ornaments on the lower half of the tree.

And yet, I couldn’t get over the fact that I was about to drive my children into enemy territory.

At dinner, my kids all complained about going. Four-year-old Ellie said, “I don’t want to hear the music!” Jackson, 9, wanted to bring his book light so he could ignore the music in peace. Grant, 7, asked how much it would cost to get a babysitter. “I’ll pay,” he said.

We piled into the car and headed south on U.S. 1. We passed the tower (or Hogwarts, as Grant observed) at the new Sunoco gas station at Granada Boulevard.

We parked at The Building That Must Not Be Named and marched up to the second floor. Ellie almost got swallowed by the escalator.

For the first half of the performance, Ellie sat on my lap and every so often, I felt crumbs bouncing off my arm from the granola bar she was eating. I wondered whether there was a rule against eating in the building, but I decided not to ask anyone. The whole experience had been traumatic enough as it was — to think of losing the granola bar on top of that was too much to consider.

But, as the music continued, the holiday cheer thawed the iciness in my veins. Students and professors from Daytona State College’s music and theater classes sang Christmas medleys and performed parts of “The Nutcracker.” The grand finale was a sing-along, in which the packed house belted out the words to songs like “Joy to the World,” accompanied by the choir members, who were holding candles, standing among the aisles with the audience, a glow on their faces.

We walked out of the building and into the warm December air with smiles on our faces, a community united by the desire to return to our half-lit Christmas trees and escape The Building That Must Not Be Named.