I asked a few friends what they were doing for Utah’s annual holiday, July 24.
“It’s a great time to leave town, plan a vacation,” said a medical librarian.
“We go camping. Escape,” said one historian of the American West.
I’d like to suggest that if you are triggering your neighbors’ fight or flight response, you just might be doing something wrong.
“I think of it – as most outsiders do – as Pie and Beer Day. That’s it,” said another.
Outsiders?
This woman has lived in Utah for decades, she pays taxes, owns her own home and her own business. Her love of going out with friends and skiing recycles her profits back into our economy. She knows her neighbors and looks out for them, belongs to a book club and volunteers for local causes she believes in. She votes in our elections.
And, in her own way, she loves Utah – and not just for the Greatest Snow on Earth.
How is she an outsider?
Sadly, we all know the answer to that.
July 24 is widely regarded as a celebration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But it is supposed to be a celebration of the state of Utah. And while a Venn diagram of those entities would show some overlap, they are not identical sets.
The Mormons have taken to telling us they are a worldwide organization.
And there is a great deal more to Utah – and always has been – than just the Mormon Church.
The problem with July 24 is that the reality spelled out above is ignored, with the result that some Utahns feel like outsiders on their holiday and the celebration has lost the excitement, energy and soul it had when my grandfather, Frank M. Openshaw, was the treasurer for the Days of ’47 committee back in the ‘50s.
Utah’s parade, once a high-spirited celebration of the pioneer west complete with cowgirls, horses, wagons and clowns, has devolved into an overly manicured, overly long informercial. And snoozefest.
I don’t want to see one more float purportedly about the Mormon pioneers, but really a rolling ad for a bank. Or an insurance company. Or any company.
Not ever.
I want to see floats featuring the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the early bars in Park City and the Greek miners in Bingham Canyon – because Utah’s history is about more than just the Mormon pioneers.
Others, too, suffered and sacrificed to come – and then labored and sweated to build the life they wanted here. These, too, were pioneers.
Where’s a float celebrating William Grandstaff, Black frontiersman and early Moab settler, and his beautiful canyon?
Where’s a float celebrating Union Pacific’s contribution to the development of our National Parks? The railroad built the lodgings and services at Zion, Bryce and the North Rim of Grand Canyon – and brought people in from all over the world to see our marvelous landscapes.
Where’s a float for Ruth of Ruth’s Diner, a float to “make a gangster blush,” as it was said Ruth could?
I want to celebrate the Swiss in Midway, the railroad in Ogden, the wonderful Chinese-Italian-Austrian mix that is Helper and the Japanese farmers who brought sugar beets to Sanpete County.
July 24 is a state holiday – and it is past time for it to celebrate the state – the whole state – to be a celebration of the people of Utah, by the people of Utah, for the people of Utah.
All the people of Utah.
