I am sorry, but I cannot resist another trip to Waco with a blue zip code travel writer.
Once again, I confess that my interest is, in part, rooted in my amazement that Waco has become a major player in Texas tourism. That’s still stunning news for me, as someone who called Waco home for my history/journalism undergraduate and church-state master’s work at Baylor University.
GetReligion readers — especially those in Texas or anyone with shiplap inside their homes — may recall that religion played a major role in the edgy coverage that I dissected here: “BuzzFeed moves in to fix up all those happy tales about Magnolia folks and their 'new' Waco.”
Now, the powers that be at The Washington Post have dispatched travel writer Andrew Sachs to the Heart of Texas to see what all of the fuss is about. The headline: “Waco, Tex., needed fixing. Luckily, Chip and Joanna Gaines had the tools.”
So, what could be worse that somewhat snarky sociological analysis that assumed fans of Donald Trump were hiding behind every oak tree in Waco and, certainly, at Antioch Community Church, the evangelical base for many of the people active in the Magnolia success story?
Apparently, someone at the Post decided that religion had absolutely nothing to do with the events unfolding in Waco and nothing to do with why millions of people are flocking there as tourists. The Gaines family has all the “tools,” but faith is not part of this big picture.
Let’s walk through this first-person travel piece looking for faith-based content. First, there is this:
After five seasons of “Fixer Upper,” Waco and the Gaineses seem as inextricably linked as New York City and “Queer Eye” (the original quintet, not the Atlanta remake). For months, I waited for a lull between projects, but it never came. The Gaineses throw out new ventures like a baseball pitching machine. So I settled on mid-November, a few weeks after Magnolia Press opened and months to years before the unveiling of the furniture showroom (scheduled for early 2020), the boutique hotel (2021), and the $10.4 million expansion of the Silos grounds, which will include a retail village, a Wiffle ball field and a historic church, among other diversions.
OK, I will ask. What’s up with the church?
I would assume that including a church or a chapel might (I am thinking of the functional Dollywood chapel) say something about the people who built this tourist attraction and lots of the folks who flock there. But that’s just me.
But here is the “What’s this all about?” summary for this piece. This was where I expected to see something about Antioch Community Church and the faith element in the Gaines family story.
This is long, but essential. Check out the acidic kicker at the very end:
A quick recap for people who have been living in a panic room without cable. Chip and Joanna Gaines starred in “Fixer Upper,” which ran from 2013 to last year. (Their Magnolia Network will take over Discovery’s DIY Network next year.) In the HGTV series, the Waco-based couple show their clients three houses in the area, including one that looks as if a tumbleweed could knock it down. The customers inevitably choose the most decrepit structure, which the Gaineses transform from rags to riches. (Seriously riches: Many of the renovated homes are listed on Airbnb for several hundred dollars a night.) Because of them, shiplap is the popcorn ceiling of the 2010s and the toolbelt is the Hermès of the amateur DIYer class.
The Gaineses blend the enterprising spirit of Martha Stewart with the starry-eyed ambition of “Field of Dreams.” In 2014, they snapped up a semi-abandoned two-acre property dominated by a pair of silos. The 120-foot-high structures were used for cottonseed production and feed storage, but they eventually lost their purpose in life. Today, the former eyesores are pillars of farm chic. Visitors pose against the rusted backdrop, beneath a metal sign that reads #MilesToMagnolia. The majority are holding brown paper shopping bags from the Magnolia store. Babies are also popular props.
It’s all in the word “props.” The kinds of people who flock here are the kinds of people who have kids, you see — maybe even lots of them, for some reason or another. Like the Gaines family.
The piece also includes a passing reference to Baylor — “Chip and Joanna are alums; Willie Nelson is a dropout.” And the half-day tour of the city is summed up thusly:
We popped into Harp Design Co.; the Little Shop on Bosque, which sells discounted Magnolia goods; and Sironia, a collection of independent boutiques with a cafe in the middle. We shopped, we ate, we Gainesed.
Well bless your heart.
I really think that there is a rather big piece of this story that is missing. It’s a kind of God-shaped hole.