Tacoma in the Twilight Zone: A Christmas Parable

The place is here. The time is now. And the journey into the shadows that we’re about to witness is our journey into… The Twilight Zone.

Cue the music.

It appeared to be a normal Thursday in December. Normal … save that I was the sole passenger aboard Alaska Flight 89 as we made our final approach into Seattle. Out of nowhere, a freak charge of static electricity came out of the thick fog and surrounded the plane with its blue aura. The jolt shocked me, and suddenly I was out cold.

I awoke disoriented and confused. A flight attendant was already checking on me. “You’ve been out a few minutes, sir, but everything’s going to be all right,” she said. “We’ll be arriving soon and a doctor from Tac-Sea Airport will be available if you’d like.”

“Wait … what? Which airport?”

“Our destination is Tacoma-Seattle International Airport. Did you forget?”

“No, but isn’t it the Sea-Tac Airport?”

“You must have hit your head, sir. It’s Tac-Sea …  You know, like a cab.” I must have looked dubious because she said, “Check your ticket, if you don’t believe me.”

Sure enough, my ticket was not for SEA, but for TAX. What was going on?

After touchdown, I made my way to baggage claim, troubled. I bought a News Tribune and read the date: December 7, 2006. Nothing different there. I went to toss the paper in the recycling when I did a double take. On top of the bin was today’s copy of The Tacoma Daily Sentinel. We had two papers? Tacoma?

On edge and feeling the panic rising, I rushed to the street and jumped into a waiting taxi.

“Where too, buddy?” the cabbie asked, pulling away from the curb.

“Downtown Tacoma,” I answered. “Something weird is going on and I want to get to the bottom of it.”

I rode in silence, staring out the window and hoping to see the familiar skyline as I rounded the bend in Fife. The fog was thick, though, and as I approached the city I could only see about two feet past the glass window of the cab.

“Where in downtown?” The cabbie grunted.

“How about Union Station,” I said, naming the first place that came to mind.

“Where?”

Silence.

“How about I drop you off at Freitas Plaza,” the cabbie suggested. “You can do a little Christmas shopping. Maybe buy yourself a map.”

“Which Plaza?” I asked.

“Freitas Plaza,” he answered. “The Tollefsons kicked up a big stink about its name, but the City won out anyway. At least it’s a ‘Plaza’ and not a ‘Square.’”

Freitas Plaza was located in the heart of what I knew as UWT. But the historic, beautifully restored warehouses were gone, bulldozed to make way for the skyscrapers that stood in their place – structures of glass, steel, and concrete that conveyed no warmth or history.

Gone too was Union Station. No rotunda. No public art. Gone was the History Museum and TAM on its flanks. Gone was the debate about the donor wall, gone was the Bridge of Glass and gone was the Cone on the other side of it. All I could see was Macy’s, it’s famous Christmas star illuminating the entire plaza, but in Tacoma instead of Seattle.

I looked around the square at the people hustling and bustling about. No one knew each other. There were no Christmas greetings. There were people but they were alone. They had not come together to Save Our Station, to fight for a new museum, or to restore—of all things—a row of warehouses along a railroad spur.

Where was the railroad, I suddenly wondered.

I needn’t have wondered long because at that moment it was as if I could see all of Tacoma’s past. An alternate past, where rails met sails in Tacoma for years after they were meant to, and our community grew to a metropolis. We had our boom, but no bust. The years saw to the destruction of our history as the warehouses, Union Station, and the community spirit that saved them were slowly taken down brick by brick.

With that realization, Freitas Plaza faded away into the fog and I found myself in front of Union Station. I was home.

I knew this was not going to be my last visit to this alternate version of Tacoma. I would return again and take notes on the differences I saw between what is and “what might have been.” This visit made one thing clear, though: things might sometimes be difficult here, but I wouldn’t trade what we have for the world.

And so we return, weary travelers, from our journey. We have glimpsed how it might have been, we have brushed what could have been, but we return to what is, having narrowly escaped a permanent residence in … The Twilight Zone.

Disclaimer: We may occasionally stretch the truth or make things up on Fridays… but only when there’s a disclaimer. Everything else is absolutely true. Trust us.