Dispatches from Tacoma - Life in Titsville (travel)

About six months ago I stopped to speak with a man walking his dog who, after a bit of banter about funny pet tricks, told his dog to “play Tacoma”. Immediately the dog rolled over, put his feet up in the air, and stuck out his tongue in clear imitation of a dead canine.

This was depressing for two reasons. First, no dog I have ever owned does what I ask — when I tell my dog to sit she’ll usually give me an irritated look and then go pee on the rug. The fact that someone had their dog doing parlor tricks was, while certainly impressive, a bit frustrating. The second (and far more depressing) reason was that my wife and I just moved to Tacoma ourselves.

As native Washingtonians and Seattleites at that, we picked on Tacoma just like everyone else. For those that don’t know of the rivalry between the two towns, understand that this was as crippling as a Yankees fan being relocated to Boston. And now, our careers took us there.

As the third largest city in the state, Tacoma is home to a few highly-prized claims to fame. It’s most popular attraction is the pulp mill, or at least it’s scent, referred to as the “Tacoma Aroma”. Driving through the city is like sharing a garbage bag with a terrified skunk.

Then there is the Tacoma Dome, a massive wooden dome—actually the largest wooden dome in the world (there are so many!)—that is the city’s true pride. It’s visible from nearly anywhere in Tacoma, not so much because of its size, but because the entire structure is painted a lovely kaleidoscope pattern of baby blue — the sort of pattern that looked great in the 1970s when most everyone was high.

But it’s not smells or domes that make a city. It’s the people and the culture. They are Tacoma’s true charm, and, walking the streets it’s no surprise that the fastest selling show in the Dome’s history, the show that sold out all 23,000 seats in under thirty minutes was none other than WWF Smackdown.

But the bad blood began long before Hulk Hogan paid his respects, back when the trans-continental railroad bypassed Seattle and came to stop in Tacoma instead. This was not the fault of Tacoma of course, it was the fault of the railroad owners who didn’t want to lay tracks where all the soon-to-be-valuable property was already purchased. And so, the railroad company chose the terminus of the Northern Pacific railroad to be a small city with a population just short of a baker’s dozen called Tacoma. The rivalry has been bitter ever since.

When we first moved there I progressed through the seven stages of grief (stopping for a good while on depression because it allowed for drinking), finally made it to acceptance and decided to chin-up. In fact, when our friends helped load up our sofa and made a few slanted remarks about my future home I got downright defensive (this was part of the eighth stage of grief: convincing your wife that moving is worth it) and stuck up for the city. I barely believed it myself.

The next day I did a bit of research on the city--after all, maybe I had a point, maybe life in Tacoma wasn’t be so bad--and hit the books at the library. This was not a good idea. Despite my initial optimism, my hope quickly waned when I drudged up other, not-so appealing facts about Tacoma, the self-named “city of Destiny”. Take, for instance, the fact that the fastest-selling concert (as opposed to show) ever to be held at the Tacoma Dome was a Backstreet Boys gig that sold out at a rate of over ten tickets a second. Just as I was about to relapse into depression and head for the nearest bar, I found one last book on the city.
It had pictures, so I gave it a look. It was rather uneventful history book about the founding of the city and I was getting tired and thinking about that beer when I saw it. It was a grand picture of Mt. Rainier and the uncut landscape that would become Tacoma. The caption read as follows:

The Indian name for Mt. Rainier is Tacoma (meaning ‘Nourishing Breast’), whence
comes the name of the nearby city.

Nourishing Breast. This was a fact I could get behind. Seattle is just some guy’s name. Tacoma is downright naughty. I immediately ran home and told the missus the good news.

It took a bit of explaining but eventually she was satisfied by this discovery, too (how’s that for a great wife).

Since then, life in Tacoma (Titsville, as I like to call it) hasn’t been altogether unpleasant. I am constantly on the lookout for other well-named buildings or structures throughout the city (the Boobies Building, Jubblies Park), the wife and I are getting along fine, and I can now even get our new dog to sit without piddling on the carpet, though having her “play Tacoma” is a long way off.


(Part One of Dispatches from Tacoma)