Rivertown

Arlington, Oregon, in the Columbia Gorge, is typical of rural Columbia River towns. Except that, in addition to its agricultural pursuits such as wheat, barley and beef cattle, it’s also renowned for being the final resting place of most of Seattle’s trash in a nearby landfill.

But more important than that, Arlington is where Carl ‘Doc’ Severinsen grew up. Doc was the dapper trumpet player and leader of the band on The Tonight Show from 1967 until Johnny Carson retired in 1995.

Windsurfing has made the mid-Columbia region a cool place to be. But when I grew up in the mid-Columbia area in the 60s, there was nothing cool about it. Except for Doc, who was the exemplar of 60s cool.

I was driving to Yellowstone and stopped off at Arlington to take a break at the City Park. In the middle of the park is a bronze statue of Doc. The statue has those 80’s collar lapels that were about a foot long and pointed. If you ever stop by to see the thing, be careful, you could put an eye out.

But while I was standing there looking at Doc, and reading about how he’d grown up in Arlington, I remembered that the Arlington Doc grew up in, like so many river towns in the Gorge, no longer existed. After they built the dams they had to tear down the old sections of town and move up the hill because of the rising water.

Rivertown is a song about the loss of things I never had. I grew up in a river town, but as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was get out; my childhood was a long wait until I was old enough to get as far as I could from it. I succeeded. But still, there’s that atavistic longing for an earlier, idyllic time, even if it never existed.