"RAMBLIN' IN THE WEST"

 “RAMBLING IN THE WEST”

Caroline and I are out in Salt Lake City (SLC), visiting our son David and spouse Erin – Susan has joined us, too, so it is a mini family reunion.  SLC is obviously in Utah, the Mormon state, and sometime in this visit, we will go the spot that the Mormons call “This Is It.” It is the place that the Latter Day Saints remember as the place where Brigham Young and others decided in 1847 that they had found the location out West that Joseph Smith had asked them to find in order to build the Kingdom of the Latter Day Saints.   It is stunning geography – mountains all around, the Great Salt Lake, and so far during our visit here, clear blue skies – along with high altitude.  We’ve also learned that the LDS leadership now prefers to drop the word “Mormon” to describe themselves.  Now they are “the Church of Jesus Christ.”  That is problematic because there are many denominations who have those words in their names.  But, that’s their problem, not mine.

Speaking of geography, we arrived here on Thursday evening, just as hurricane Helene was striking Florida and Georgia with its vastly destructive powers.  We were anxious on Thursday night and Friday morning until we heard from a friend that our home in Decatur had suffered no damage.  Since we live on a hill, we were not worried about waters flooding into the house – as David put it, if we suffered flood damage at our house, it meant that the apocalypse had arrived.  Our worries were the tall old pine and oak trees around the house, but they seem to have survived.  Our other worry was flooding in the basement, but thanks to the great work of our friend, Dave Hess, we have a pumping system that seems to have worked.  We are so grateful to have been spared the brunt of the storm, but we are saddened and astonished at Helene’s destructive power in much of Georgia (including the north side of Atlanta), in western North Carolina (including Montreat), and in east Tennessee.  In our area, we have not a destructive storm like this since Opal in 1995.  It is a reminder of the raw power of nature, as well as signs of building destructive powers, related to our way of living.  One colleague noted a connection between all the death penalty executions in the country this week and the destructive power of Helene, saying that God didn’t like this kind of ugly.  A second connection is the rapidly rising earth temperatures, caused by climate change.  Helene intensified quickly in the hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and its destructive power is a harbinger of things to come.

On that level, it was pleasant to arrive in Utah with sunny skies and warm weather.  I haven’t been out west much.  In the summer of 1967, my college suitemate, Sidney Cassell, and I traveled around the West for a couple of months, including a stay in SLC.  I remember floating in the Great Salt Lake and the gigantic Mormon Temple.  Caroline and I also traveled a lot to New Mexico, when Susan was working in Americorps in Albuquerque.  The desert air of both new Mexico and Utah seem similar. 

    Utah’s earliest known residents were indigenous people known as the Anasazi group, native Americans who came here around the time of the birth of Jesus in the Middle East.  Indeed, the state is named for the clan of tribes who were here when the Mormons came – the Ute people.  Like every other territory in the USA, the native people were driven from the area to make room for the “whites” who were coming.  One other “unfun” fact about Utah – the Mormons brought African-American enslaved people with them, thus making Utah the only western state to have slavery established in it for a time.  The conservative nature of Mormonism and the heritage of slavery make Utah a politically conservative state.  

We are staying in an Airbnb right at the bottom of part of the Wasatch Mountain Range.  On my morning walks, I have been surprised to find a lot of Harris/Walz yard signs.  I’ve included one of them in the accompanying photo. Though the state of Utah won’t go for Harris, I am encouraged that even here, there are folks looking to break us out of the “old white man” phase of American politics.  There seems to be a struggle here in Utah over the next steps for the future.  One of the senators, Mitt Romney, represents the “decent” Republican party, while the other, Mike Lee, represents the mean, right wing impulse of the “restore white men” movement.  Our election in November will tell us a lot about what direction the country will be taking.  And, speaking of elections, make it your goal this week to find at least 5 people who aren’t registered to vote, and get them registered to vote.  The deadline in Georgia (and in most states is October 6), so the time for waiting is over.