If you are not a fan of “Twin Peaks” you may not find this story quite so interesting, but give it a chance. David Lynch, who died earlier this year, has a complicated resume as a director, but his two seasons on TV in the 1990s and a Showtime followup 25 years later are what he’s best known for.
A murder mystery of sorts, “Twin Peaks” takes place in a Pacific Northwest community that looks very ordinary on the surface, but . . . has a whole lot of stuff going on. Let’s just leave it at that. The story, like many of Lynch’s creations, can get both creepy and cosmic, sometimes all at the same time.
My wife and I watched the show when it first ran in 1990 and 1991, and rushed to talk to friends the next day about “what just happened?” It was a thing. Enough of a thing that we had to visit where much of the original show — and the 2017 revival — was filmed.
The diner which was the heart of the tale in many ways we saw, but it was packed. To get a booth would take an hour, or more. We walked on down the main street, and saw an old sign for Scott’s Dairy Freeze, with a notice that they had bison chili, and we decided to settle for eating there.
After a number of filming location finds, the last stop was a ways out of town; an old pulp mill which was used in the opening credits, and the nearby mill office had served as the Twin Peaks police station. It’s now a driving school called Dirtfish. The receptionist could not have been more friendly, let me sit where the police dispatcher sat in the show and took me back to the infamous conference room where Agent Cooper and Sheriff Truman often met over coffee and donuts.
As I was leaving, she asked if we’d seen other sights. I described a few, and told her we visited the downtown diner, but it was a wait, so we ate at Scott’s Dairy Freeze. Her eyes widened. What, I asked?
She told me “when David Lynch came back here to film in 2017, that was his favorite place to eat in North Bend. He had lunch there almost every day.”
Let me tell you: that was a bright spot in our trip.
Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!