Some background

It’s Pioneer Day.  It is the anniversary of the day that the first LDS Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.  Brigham Young, riding in a wagon due to Yellow Fever was helped to his feet, feverish and sweating,  looked over the Salt Lake valley, and said that ‘this is the right place’.  

The statue shows him standing with his counselors, upright, and grandly gesturing, only a cane to indicate any infirmity.  This is what happens when you get your great grandson to carve your statue, apparently. 

 

It was my right place for 13 years of my life.  From 1990 to 2002 I lived in the “crossroads of the West”.  I had financial, medical and spiritual failures and successes.  I had 2 careers I adored and a decent car in the first time in forever.  I had happiness and heartbreak. And, in the end, I came home to the East.   

I had planned on leaving, following a job offer to help in a school in Egypt.  My second cousin had set it up, and it seemed like a wonderful opportunity.  And yet, when the contract came, I could not bring myself to sign it.  It was as if my heart prevented my hand from putting my name on the paper.  It was July of 2001.  I did not know then what stopped me.  It was embarrassing at the time to make that phone call.  I was turning down a chance of a lifetime.  I felt so stupid, and yet, when I made the phone call, my heart had a strange peace. 

The Utah State Fair is in late August/Early September, and runs parallel to the annual Greek Festival.  Utah has the largest Greek population west of Chicago.  These are people whom, when their own country was embroiled in war, came to Utah.  They worked in the numerous mines throughout the State, and opened some of the best restaurants in the West.  I attended the festival every year, dragging my various friends with me to introduce them to Greek food and culture.  Anytime you can get a taste of any culture other than white America out West, I would jump at the chance.  I constantly missed the diversity of the Mid-Atlantic.  It started my love of all things Greek, which has continued to this day. 

I found myself in the Chapel of the Church, on a tour.  I sat down, and on cue, the choir began to sing. Their choir is in the top at the rear of the Church, so we did not see their faces, but they took full advantage of the domed design of the roof of the Church.  The acoustical bounce filled this small Chapel with sound.

I feel bad for choirs in Utah.  The bar is so impossibly high, with the Tabernacle’s choir just down the street.  And yet, this small choir was amazing.  They did a Greek chant that was so moving; I got a lump in my throat.  The choir director then said that they would perform America, The Beautiful, because they were so grateful to have a country to flee to, that would allow them to keep their culture, and be free at the same time. 

From the moment the choir began, I remember there being this weird electricity in the air.  If I had a lump in my throat before, this time I was crying, and I had no idea as to why.  The feeling stayed with me all that weekend, and when I passed a kiosk at the fair that was selling American flags, I got one – it was a total impulse buy.  It was also Saturday, September 8^th.

That Tuesday, as I experienced what our world experienced (a blog post to follow explains what my experiences were that following year) these weird epiphanies kept coming to me. 

My Cousin had to flee Egypt, speak French at the airport, passing herself off as an expat European. She then flew to Brussels before eventually making her way home.  My own apple pie face and American English could not have fared as well. 

Utah was 4 Months away from hosting the 2002 Olympics.  There was talk of cancellation.  Suddenly, as the decision was made to continue to host the games, Utah suddenly had all of the money it needed to improve roads, and build Security infrastructure to make the games safe.  The community had a sense of pulling together.  I decided to stay for a while. 

The games were amazing, and I will always be grateful I stayed for them.  After adjusting for Security, which was mostly paid through Federal funding, the games broke even.  This quieted the local critics that hosting the games would be a debt-ridden white elephant, causing generations of deficit.  The venues are still used to this day by locals, tourists, and future Olympians who train in the thin mountain air, and unspeakably beautiful terrain. 

 

But that Christmas, my Grandmother asked me to move back East.  I think she knew she would not live much longer, and my Sister was burdened with caring for both of our parents as well as her.  My Uncle had died, and our small family felt even smaller. 

When I went back to Utah after that visit, Utah’s enormous families made me think of my small one, and that they needed me.  So at the end of 2002, I moved back.  I’ll post about that transition as well. 

Pioneer Day is a State and religious holiday in Utah.  There are parades, and when the desert gets enough moisture not to burst into flames, there are fireworks.  It’s a fun day, and I miss it out here in the East.  Oh, back East we have little things, sometimes a bike parade and a Dutch oven dinner, but it’s not the same. 

The Pioneers left Missouri for what was then, and for 3 years after they arrived, Mexico.  They had been forced out, less Pioneers and more like refugees.  Native American friends in Utah told me of stories of their own ancestors feeling sorry for the ragged, starving groups that staggered into the valley to begin a new life.  Irrigation and heavy fertilizer coax crops from the ground and continue the agrarian culture prevalent in so many Mid-American places. 

As I approach the half-century mark of my time on this Earth, I do feel the desire to look at my journeys in life.  Things were easier and harder in Utah.  The cost of living was half what it is here.  And I never felt unsafe there, even in the dodgiest of neighborhoods.  My western friends would tease me for locking my car, and front door.  But I was alone in many ways out there.  I would spend holidays, and even had major surgery without any family around.  My friends were always supportive, but there is a family photo from that time that speaks volumes.  The photo is of my family all together at Christmas.  My Sister has the phone up to her ear.  I am on the other end of the phone.   

And this is why I hitched my own wagon east, where things begin.