You'd Think Stalin Was Coming to Town

"I Feel Like Going Home" by The Walkabouts. Press play and read today's post.

You'd think Stalin was coming to town.

Because in Eugene, Oregon, it sure isn't Santa Claus.

I live in a dour, gray, humorless, gutless city. I feel like going home. I feel like going to Kellogg.

Driving through the rain and dark on late December afternoons in Eugene, I roll down the window to listen for dirges playing at every corner. Why doesn't the City of Eugene just put The Walkabouts singing "I Feel Like Going Home" over loudspeakers so we can all join together and sing a dour tune to mark the dour December death march the rest of the country calls the holiday season?

Is this happening everywhere? No public decorations? No lights? No Ho Ho Ho?

If Christmas was established as the next in a long history of solstice season festivals to celebrate the light of life coming into a dark, December, shortest days of the year world, then Eugene, Oregon prefers a festival of darkness.

Eugene, Oregon's only public place of festivity is the mall.

Local buses fill with people going on tours to see people's Christmas lights. Streets with houses with lights are annually in gridlock.

Eugene citizens hunger for light. The City is too gutless to provide light.

So what do we get in our public streets? Nothing. It may as well be late January on the common streets of Eugene.

Why not hang black mourning bunting? Why not pull horse drawn caskets through town?
In Eugene, is this the season of new hope, of light, of the year turning away from darkness toward light?

No. It's the season of don't offend. It's the season of senstitivity. It's the season of resignation. It's the season of joylessness.


In Eugene, I feel safer telling strangers to go to hell than wishing them Merry Christmas.

I'm going home. To Kellogg. I'll tell everyone I see Merry Christmas. I won't risk being glared at or being the subject of a letter to the editor because I said Merry Christmas.

Shhh. Come here. I'll whisper in your ear. Don't tell anyone in Eugene. Here's my secret: I'm dreaming of a White Christmas.

Just like the ones I used to know.

That's why I'm getting out of Eugene.

I'm tired of acting like Stalin's coming to town.