Mark and I decided to give everyone a break from political discourse (we are as exhausted by the 2016 campaigns as everyone else in America) for another week and focus on our favorite holiday traditions in this area.
My personal favorite is the Starlight Parade that took place last Friday.
This annual event organized by The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce is small town America at its finest. Not only do crowds that gather along city streets get to see lighted floats put together with a lot of effort by area businesses and civic organizations, there is a tree lighting ceremony on the chamber grounds with hot cocoa, cookies, bags of popcorn and a visit by Santa.
Always the observer, I watch families laughing and enjoying moments of togetherness that seem like scenes out of a classic movie.
I tell you true that this year it was difficult to actually insert myself into the festivities. My reality has become very serious through years of taking care of troops during the war, trying to help veterans find their footing after combat and, now, working with those behind bars.
Making the choice to help veterans in crisis has left me sometimes feeling separated from a society that is largely unaware of the life and death dramas playing out every day within this population group.
I have spent the past week working on chapters of a fairytale that I will send to a prisoner every day until Christmas to brighten his holidays.
In my fairytale, a resident of Behind the Wall is brought into the Free World to help find the Gift of Christmas. During December, I will mail a chapter a day that is packed with merry adventures involving mystical folk of all shapes and sizes, both good and evil.
The adventure led by a Giant and a Princess involves the hunt for an elusive gift that always seems beyond reach.
My last mailing for Dec. 25 reveals that the gift they seek is Hope, something that I want every veteran I work with to embrace because without it there is no meaning to life.
How do you find a sense of purpose, or even the will to go on living, when you have stopped believing in the possibilities?
I think hope is really what the Christmas season is all about. It is a time of great generosity in America, both in spirit and reality. People who are down on their luck are shown in numerous ways that they matter.
December is also a showcase for the many talented folks here in Wasco County and beyond.
Musicians from the Gorge Winds Concert Band and so many others offer entertainment that lifts the audience from the realm of everyday toil into a world of beauty that touches the soul.
I've always appreciated Christmas in The Dalles: The community is quick to go beyond commercial pomp and ceremony to focus on the heart of the holiday season. Giving to those in need is a warm tradition.
When I came to work at The Dalles Chronicle in 1998, I had been living “footloose and fancy free” in Oregon for almost a year; “footloose” being code for living in a van long before Oregon's safety net disintegrated with the financial crisis of 2008 and homelessness became de rigeur throughout the state.
It was the only way I had of leaving Seattle and returning to my native state.
By 2000 I was fairly well established in the county, and wrote a column that began, “A good winter coat is worth its weight in gold...”
I went on to describe the physical process of being cold, drawn from a lifetime of learning to survive an Oregon winter with inadequate clothing. An excerpt: “If the temperature drops or the wind comes up your center of warmth becomes very small.
“The cold in your feet sends shivers up to your knees, the cold in your hands sends shivers up to your elbows and the cold at your head and shoulders sets your teeth to chattering.
“Eventually the shivers get into your bones and your stomach clenches. It becomes hard to relax into what warmth is still inside you, and if you aren’t home yet you had better be close or you could die.”
I ended the column with a simple request: “So if you have a new coat, or an extra coat, bring your old one by The Dalles Daily Chronicle. We will see that it gets to someone who needs it.”The next week, I wrote a follow-up that began, “pick a coat, any coat.”
What happened was this. The day after the column ran coats began arriving on my desk. At first it was a trickle, then it turned into a flood.
I will never forget coming to work and finding my desk literally buried in coats. As I wrote at the time, “I giggled all day, which is a little strange but I couldn’t help it.”
I felt like an exceptionally wealthy elf, and began giving them away. Three went to a family on their way to Eastern Washington. Another, a puffy rainbow of color, went to a little boy. He looked like a colorful piece of candy, or a little kite blowing over the new snow.
I left a stack in the back room for the newspaper carriers. I still had bags of coats, and took them to a coat giveaway at the state office building. I had to borrow a pickup to get them there.
I’ve always believed that the vast majority of people are good people, given the opportunity. And The Dalles is no exception. Indeed, I found them to be more generous than most communities.
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