By Bud Kennedy
bud@star-telegram.com
The Grinch has stolen Interlochen.
After 37 years, some residents of the lavishly decorated Arlington neighborhood first threatened that it would "go dark" this Christmas and now have bullied away a Salvation Army red kettle donation station.
"My house is going to be like the Black Hole of Calcutta," resident Jim Haskell vowed Thursday before the charity canceled a kettle drive in a nearby dental clinic parking lot.
"People come to see our lights," said Haskell, an Interlochen resident before the first lights went up in 1985.
"They don't come to get hit up for money."
This sudden outbreak of Scroogeism is out of character for Interlochen, usually generous to the more than 2,000 carloads of children who came nightly to see a holiday wonderland.
Neighborhood association President Ralph Sobel sent an e-mail calling the Christian charity "un-Christian" for setting up a kettle last year near the viewing route.
Dentist Susan Hollar welcomed the Salvation Army onto her property. She wants to hear the kettles ring.
"It gives the Christmas lights real meaning," she said.
"Without this, the lights are all for nothing. It's all just entertainment."
One of her patients, a Salvation Army volunteer, had asked her to host a kettle, she said.
Last year, church choirs and youth groups sang carols and poured hot chocolate for waiting motorists. The Salvation Army banked about $5,000.
"We thought it was a good thing," she said.
But in a classic example of Bossy Neighbor Syndrome, some Interlochen residents didn't like it.
Sobel "went ballistic," she said.
"They said we tied up traffic," she said.
"They were the ones on Channel 8 telling people to come. Not the Salvation Army."
Police had said the kettle was no problem as long as volunteers didn't stop cars.
That didn't convince some neighbors.
"I can't believe the police," Haskell said.
"I know it's her property. But this disrupts our neighborhood."
I think some folks have forgotten why we have Christmas lights.
More than 2,000 years ago, there was a reason three wise men set out following a star.
It was not to see Interlochen.
Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538Twitter: @budkennedy
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