I shall use this space to explain why that is, and what exactly happened to the 'A Christmas Story' event that was supposed to take place the weekend of December 2 and 3rd, 2006.

It started back in 2004, I worked very hard to honor 'A Christmas Story' author Jean Shepherd in his hometown of Hammond, Indiana. It was an uphill battle, as many people know that movie, but very few know the name Jean Shepherd. Luckily, through a lot of hard word, perseverance, and support from Jean Shepherd fans nationwide, the event turned out to be a huge success, and so began my quest to create the Jean Shepherd Preservation Society.

We moved to Ely in May of 2005, we never wanted to live in a small town. We were city people and wanted to stay that way, but in the Spring of 2005, my Father who loves the area, and retired to the "The Northwoods" over 15 years ago, fell ill. Someone needed to be there for him or he would end up in a nursing home (It is an ugly world we live in the way the elderly are treated in this country, but that's another story). So my husband and I dropped everything and came kicking and screaming to this little town "At The End Of The Road" because it was the right thing to do (My husband calls it "the first unselfish act of his life").

We quickly fell in love with the beauty of the area, and shortly after arriving, Shane birthed his idea for our survival in this small economy - A Blueberry Soda. We also began this website to celebrate our new life in Ely, MN.

Ely looked to us to be right out of a Jean Shepherd story -- I mean the marching band marched right past our house during practice, no one locked their doors, and people were nice to each other (even if it was "Minnesota Nice"). So on a number of occasions I mentioned the Hammond event to the General Manager of WELY (Ely's radio station). Finally, one day his ears perked up, and it was decided the event was going to be reborn in Ely! Over the next month or so, we had a number of meetings, planning the event which was to include real actors from the Movie 'A Christmas Story', leg lamps, and a fun Christmas Bazaar held at the school, everything was going great. We were going to raise money for the school district and school activities, bring Ely more attention - in the Winter when it needed tourist dollars, and hopefully put a few dollars in our own and WELY's pockets too.

I was hard at work on the event, when an early morning knock came upon our door. The radio station's General Manager, Bill sadly came in to tell us that gossip had started circulating about "our other websites" and he had fielded numerous calls from the Mayor, the school Superintendent and others, saying they didn't want my husband and I having anything to do with this event. The School Superintendent said he would not "allow" us in the school, and the Mayor, we were told, called us "totally unacceptable".

What was so awful? Well, my husband Shane has been politically active since he was a teenager fighting for First Amendment rights for several persecuted artists and authors, I wrote creepy little fiction stories, and worst of all, we were openly non-religious. Over the years, as independent journalists, we had interviewed people as diverse as Church Of Satan founder, the late Anton LaVey, and the Branch Davidian survivors of the WACO siege in Texas. We had made no secret of who we are and what we did, but we didn't force it on people either. This, according to our pal at WELY, was not going to stand with the leaders of Ely, and we would not be welcome at the event -- OUR OWN EVENT!

Shane and I decided the show must go on. I still hoped I would be able to attend my event, and maybe sell cookies at the Bazaar, but we relinquished the organization of this festival over to WELY. Our only job was to make sure the actors from the movie were present. It was devastating, and we had already spent a good amount of our own money on the event, and I had already put in at least a hundred hours of work into preparing for and planning the festival. Now, it was all up in smoke, with no chance of compensation for our efforts.

We thought letting the event go would be the end of our problems, but instead it was the beginning. Such began our "shunning". That's right, shunning! At first I thought I was imagining the angry glares at the grocery store, and the weekly knock of Jehovah Witnesses at the door. But, then came the letters - Anonymous Letters that were sent to all of the Churches and businesses in town saying that we were funneling our Blueberry Soda money (What Money?) into "Devil Worship", and a list of SOME of our "other websites" were included. Yep, we'd been "Scarlet Lettered"!

Then, folks around town who had once been friendly stopped saying hello, stores that carried our pop stopped returning our calls. I had actually gotten hired for a job in town (so we could survive the winter) and the day before I was to start, I was called and UN-hired. And then, the late night calls began - even a death threat from a man who wanted his photo off of our website because it was "ruining his reputation". This also meant Shane would no longer be able to film for the local Public Access Channel (ECAT) - even though he'd produced some of the best pieces for the channel, including coverage of the Boundary Waters fire, A quilt show, and the local band GRO in their final performances. A potential advertiser for Ely Pride yelled at me and threw me out of his store saying, "He read all about us on the internet". Now, nearly every source we had for income was gone.

People who still spoke to us told us stories of how a number of other people had also been "Run out of town", and that's what was happening to us. We were shocked, how could a town treat people this way? It seemed barbaric. We told our "friends" at WELY that their willingness to make us walk away from the event had made it seem we had done something wrong, and things were getting ugly because of it, but they didn't seem to care.

Anyway, as time went on the 'A Christmas Story' event seemed to go nowhere. I heard nothing from WELY, no ads, no posters were hung around town, yet we had booked the actors from the film, paid their deposit, and they were still coming to the event. I started making calls a day or two before the event - The school didn't know anything, and the Steak House (a special fundraising dinner was supposed to be held there for the school) said it was cancelled. I called WELY and they too said it was cancelled - One Day before the event. I called the kids from the movie and broke the bad news, they were fuming!

So here we are in Ely, hoping things might blow over, but with our business shattered, and more glares and snubs from the people of Ely than I ever imagined possible, it doesn't look good. A few warm and wonderful people have come to our defense, and I thank them with my whole heart for their friendship and support, but even that doesn't pay the phone bill or the rent.

We still don't know who sent the letters, but we have our suspicions. We know of a few people who have gone out of there way to badmouth us, the group has an internet radio station in town, leading us to believe we were merely pawns in a competitive vendetta between two warring radio stations. Others say we stepped on too many toes with our clever soda-pop, our 'A Christmas Story' event, and the Ely Pride website and newspaper. One person said, just the names of our websites are too scary, and that even if we don't believe in a devil, others do.

If you have read this far, then you may be wondering what the websites are that were so awful a town turned against us? Here are a few of them: www.evilnow.com, www.whoreofhorror.com, www.radiofreesatan.com, www.tvisgod.com. Sure they aren't necessarily wholesome, but they aren't illegal or obscene either, and foolishly we thought our Nation's Bill of Rights actually meant something. Big corporations like Disney put out movies that are G Rated and movies that are R Rated, even Jean Shepherd who wrote tales of Ralphie also wrote for Playboy. We didn't really see a difference when it came to us making soda-pop AND writing horror stories or studying true crime.

I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to all of the people that wanted to attend the "'A Christmas Story' Comes To Ely" Festival. Believe me, we wanted nothing more than to host this event for you in the lovely setting Of Ely, MN, and the actors from the movie were looking forward to seeing Ely too, based on our praise of the area. Perhaps it is wrong for me to be so honest and candid about what happened to the event, but I am a terrible liar, and I felt compelled to tell the truth even if it means further problems for me. I will do another festival to celebrate Jean Shepherd, it won't be in Ely, but it will happen. I hope I won't have to triple dog dare you to come!