About Pioneer Day, Rocky the mayor ... and love

July, a couple years ago!


For me, it was like a perfect double play: First of all, it was the week of Pioneer Day, my favorite holiday. I love everything about Pioneer Day. I don’t mind wrapping myself in the state flag, and so those feelings of affection were flowing through my veins to begin with.
Secondly, I was driving along the Fruit Freeway, that lovely stretch of “old highway” between North Ogden and Brigham City.

Heck, it might have even been a triple play, because it was dusk, and I was enjoying one of those orange and purple Northern Utah sunsets, one that brings moisture to the eyes. You know the type. Just the day before, I had mentioned to my teenage daughter -- in one of my rare “sensitive” moments -- that the vast majority of the world will never see a backdrop as impressive and heartwarming as what she sees every evening by stepping out onto our front porch. I love the mountain valleys and rolling thunderstorms and painted sunsets of a Utah summer evening.

So here I was, awash in this triple whammy of pleasant emotions, when this guy comes on the radio and says how much he hates Utah. Oh, he didn’t say it exactly like that; he said he would like to change Utah. It still felt like s slap in the face.

I love Utah. I especially love Utah in the summer. I love parades, with hay wagons decorated with cellophane and napkins, road apples, and some guy trying to ride a unicycle. A good Utah community will have a parade at the drop of a Stetson, regardless of the heat.

I love hometown drive-ins. They are getting fewer in number, it’s true, but I love “home fries” and thick shakes at all the Pit Stops and Polar Freezes and Joe’s Places across the state.

I love the drive from Hurricane to Springdale or better yet, continuing on to Mt. Carmel Junction. Heck, while we are in our cars, how about the drive from Wanship to Echo Reservoir, at about dusk. Or the drive from Logan to Cove, at night, with the windows rolled down, just an hour or two after the first alfalfa cutting. Maybe with a hint of rain in the air. Oooh, nirvana.

I like towns with Indian names and those named after famous founders. I love Monte Cristo.
And I love the Fruit Freeway. Spouse and I argue about it whenever I turn off to take that stretch, rather than the interstate. It has nothing about the minute or two you might lose. I has to do with the flavor you gain. I even enjoy moving on up the road to Honeyville and Deweyville. You can’t know Utah from the interstate. Oh, sure, there are several vacant lots full of weeds and some sheds and fences that either need a coat of paint or a match, but take the Fruitway and you see real people instead of someone’s license plate in front of you. You see kids lifting pipe and swayback horses with little girls atop. You see overgrown lilacs and dusty young farmers taking a break and playing basketball in the driveway, in their cowboy boots, no less. You see new modular homes going up right next to grandma’s old rock home. You see lots of people making their situation in life work for them.

But this guy on the radio made it sound like he hated all this.

I like Hyrum’s town slogan and knowing that Levan is “navel” spelled backwards. I liked it when the Utah Travel Council had all those great promotional names, like Panoramaland and Color Country and Bridgerland. What happened to those? I like cattle guards and the Beach Boys singing “Salt Lake City.”

And I really don’t mind being, well, unique. Or even odd.

But it bugs Rocky, apparently. He says we are out of touch, antiquated, a laughing stock and it’s time to join the real world. Now, you might say he didn’t said say that exactly. And he didn’t. But that is what I heard, and that is what lots of folks I know heard, too.

Do we need stronger gun laws, like Rocky claims? I’m not a big gun person myself so I’m a little out of my element, but there haven’t been a lot of shooting sprees lately. That guns-in-church thing is kind of loony, but all in all we probably aren’t way out of step. Utah needs to change booze laws, he says. As soon as he can point to a single positive thing that alcohol does for society -- besides just “being like everyone else” -- I’ll buy into that one. He said we need to dance late into the night, teach about condoms, let gays adopt and a bunch of other stuff. Some of his list of “freedoms” we have heard before and are not all that exceptional.

But it was his tone. It was the underlying current. It was what wasn’t said that irked me while listening to the radio during my utopian triple-whammy. It was this feeling that he projected that says the average Utahn is a hick and a sheep, who needs someone to step out and point the way in order to keep up with California.

No, he didn’t say that. But he didn’t say he loved Utah, either. To call a news conference the day before Pioneer Day and not at least say that, well, that speaks volumes to me.