Roseburg is where I grew up.
I had classes in Snyder Hall at Umpqua Community College a really long time ago. When I think of UCC, I think of Shakespeare and foggy mornings and learning to swim at the outdoor pool when I was a kid.
Until yesterday, I didn’t think of massacres, and crazy shooters, and a shocked and panicked town when I remembered Roseburg or my former school. These things happened somewhere else: Virginia Tech, Columbine, Thurston, Aurora—but not Roseburg.
But then it did. And I listened to, and reported on, President Obama’s speech yesterday about how we’ve become desensitized to gun violence. As a reporter, I know I’m supposed to keep it all “just the facts, ma’am.” But, since I work for the Mercury, I thankfully don’t have to do that.
I want you guys to know that I am grieving. Not just for the victims, and their families, but for my sleepy little hometown.
Roseburg—a town that most people drive through on the way to somewhere else—suddenly became the dateline on a story about yet another mass shooting, another tragedy. Suddenly Roseburg isn’t its own place anymore. It’s a place where something horrific happened, a place that will be now be forever synonymous with questions like “why-do-we-let-this-happen” or “when-are-we-going-to-enact-gun-control-laws?”
Don’t look for me to answer those questions. I’m just going to keep reporting with all the objectivity I can muster—but I want everybody to remember that for me? Roseburg isn’t just that place. Regardless of what happened there yesterday, in my mind, and in my heart it is a place with the best rivers, and my favorite swimming hole (which is called Spark Plug, in case it matters). It has the best winery in Oregon (hey, Abacela!), and a record-holding Douglas Fir nearby.
What happened yesterday is a chapter in Roseburg’s story—not the entire book. So, when you think of the Burg, please don’t just think of what happened yesterday. Also think of this:
- Chuck Telford, BLM Roseburg District Office
- THIS is Roseburg.
Thank you for writing this Shelby. I too grew up in the ‘Burg. I have many fond memories of summer musicals at Jacoby Auditorium, swimming in the UCC pool, and floating drunk down the North Umpqua River behind campus — our swimming holes put the Sandy to shame. My hometown is a beautiful place with wonderful people. It’s so much more to me than “that town with the mass shooting.” If anything, visit Roseburg to enjoy the scenery, drink wine and bring some love to my hometown.
This fluff piece would really be more suitable for ‘I, Anonymous: The Rant Blog’. It’s just like all the Californians who move up here a few years ago, and complain about how much Portland has changed.
^ Classy. So very classy.
Maybe if you hadn’t deserted your beloved home town, none of this ever would have happened.
My City Was Gone
Chrissie Hynde
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wplUBFVsbtw
You sir are a JackAss Free to express your opinions as Americans are. That’s my opinion. If you can’t say something nice..then shut the fuck up.
My child was there..and I mean THERE.
I was fortunate she came home to me..
#hometownhealing
Weed (a.k.a Dread Uptown) is just some trashy loser that’s still hung up on beating he took on PSU’s campus a few decades ago. His inner child is still wounded and he simply can’t let go.
His jokes, at the expense of those suffering through this tragedy, simply serve to expose how little humanity is still coursing through his diseased and drug-addled body.