Small Town Boy

My wife has a tendency to call me Opie, after the little boy from Mayberry. I’ve never been much interested in living in a sprawling urban area. I never had a wanderlust to travel the globe without having roots planted somewhere to call home. I guess I’m happy with the Midwestern values I was taught as a young man. So Opie it is. Could have been worse – at least she didn’t take to calling me Goober.

It is the small town values I possess that make me appreciate a place like Mount Dora. Charming, quaint, old-fashioned… these are all descriptions we hear bandied about – and they are certainly fitting. Mount Dora is all of this and more. It has an air or atmosphere about it that can remind us of an earlier age or a more innocent time.

Tonight is Light Up Mount Dora where our downtown will become electrifyingly spectacular with over 2 million Christmas lights strung up and down our streets and into our parks. Even the marina gets into the act. When the lights come on it is hard to tell what’s glowing more – the bulbs or the pride in the hearts of the people who live in this magical town.

All day long, the mom and pop stores that make up the majority of the shops in our downtown area are participating in Small Business Saturday. If you plan on taking in the lights this evening, why not make a day of it and frequent some of the merchants that help to make and keep Mount Dora “Someplace Special?”

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories. Mount Dora is where we choose to work, live, and play and we proudly show it off to all who come visit. We hope to be able to count you among that number. You can reach us at www.homevideostudio.com or by calling 352-735-8550.