The Holidays

Halloween rolled on through last week. The wicked pace of the summer has not quite let up so Halloween's sudden appearance served as a reminder that these mellow fall days are fleeting and the darkness is just around the bend. It actually looks like it's already on us. Daylight savings fell back yesterday and it is a dreary dusk here by Forest Park at 4:30pm. It was one of the wettest Septembers and driest Octobers on record but, of course, those dry piles of leaves had to get soggy on Halloween. It didn't make the kids any less cute though. A bunch of little costumed nuggets darting around lamplit streets is one of the more warming fall sights. A fellow from work hit up one of the wealthier local neighborhoods and said the parents would offer full-size candy bars to the kids and beers to the adults (noted). The holidays are supposed to be that time machine that transports us all to a gentler, more innocent time. Back before you had to worry about razors in candy apples or gunmen in shopping malls. On Halloween Jackie and I went to see Carrie at the Clackamas Town Center. We were in the food court and I realized we were going the long way. Rather than walking through the wide open center we were hugging the sides like rats in a barn. Just last December a young man opened fire in that same food court, killing two strangers. Newtown followed three days later. It was four years ago that an Arkansas parolee shot pointblank four Lakewood police officers enjoying each others' company and a cup of coffee. That Halloween a Seattle police officer had been shot and killed in his parked police car. Two years ago, a house in Washougal burned and erupted in sprays of gunfire during a police shootout. Almost every corner of the country can claim in their history one of these mass shootings or a similar violent outburst.

Yesterday, an 88 year old man in Oregon City ran around his property with a gun as his house burned. He shot a local police officer who was transported to the hospital. It has just been released that he died of his wounds. The shooter was shot by the police.

Our times are still those times of old where the holidays are a time for family, warmth, hunkering down and slowing down. But, it's also a time of madness and violence. The headlines rage, fear and sorrow swallow communities, and then it is old news. We talk about the national debt, about our level of commitment to fights overseas, wether or not affordable health care should be mandated. But, we ignore these violent holidays. We skirt around the topic like so many rats in a barn.