Pass the Beer, Brother Brigham
Today is Pioneer Day here in Utah. It’s a state holiday. When I explained this to my friend Jen, she said, “Well, what does it signify?”
I explained it’s the day that, according to local lore, a very-ill Brigham Young sat up in his wagon, looked down Emigration Canyon, and said, “This is the place.” Personally, considering what the Salt Lake Valley must have looked liked back then–full of sagebrush and tumbleweeds, brown dirt and little green vegetation–I imagine he was thinking, “You have GOT to be freaking kidding me. I nearly died for this?”
Whether he actually SAID the words, “This is the place,” is a matter that will never be cleared up. After all, everyone who was there is NOW DEAD. Given the Mormon penchant for rewriting history so it sounds PRETTY, it’s entirely possible Brother Brigham swore a blue streak. Maybe he really said, “This is the *&*&&^$ place I’ve ever *&(*&%$ seen. Whose &**^%$# idea was this?” and “This is the place” were the only presentable words they could use. I also think that if he had gotten a little closer to the Great Salt Lake, on a day when the wind whipped up the sulfur smell and sent it through the valley and along the Wasatch front, a phenomenon locals call Lake Stink, he probably would have kept going. “It stinks here. Let’s try California.”
Back to Jen. She was absolutely floored that our state has a holiday that is, basically, religious. “They can’t do that,” she said. Jen, Jen, Jen. Welcome to Utah. Here, the Mormon Church buys up streets and malls. Here, the Mormon Church controls the state liquor laws, and anything they don’t give the nod to does not pass. In short, Mormon leaders have gotten used to GETTING THEIR way in all manners secular or religious. That’s why they’ve been so pissy about all the media coverage of late. Used to be everybody just IGNORED them. Now everybody is staring at them and thinking, “Are you freaking kidding me?”
Anyway, secular or religious, we celebrate Pioneer Day, and heathen or religious, just about everyone is glad to have a day off.
There are many different ways of celebrating Pioneer Day.
For example, every year, hundreds of people camp out on downtown Salt Lake City streets on the night of the 23rd, because for some, finding the right spot to view the Pioneer Day Parade is tantamount to having the most wives and gaining entrance into the Celestial Kingdom. It’s like Mormon Monopoly.
“My husband is stake president.”
“Yeah, well we had a spot on Main Street and 250 South for the parade! Nanananana.”
Needless to say, the Collins clan was not there.
Another way people celebrate the 24th is to get up at the buttcrack of dawn and go to chuckwagon breakfasts across the state.
Needless to say, the Collins clan was not there. We had breakfast at the buttcrack of eleven.
Family get-togethers are the norm. Everybody gets together and gorges on funeral potatoes, jello dishes with a strange assortment of ingredients, and hearty, stick-to-your ribs meats and sidedishes. I’ve seen green jello with carrots; any kind of jello with acini de pepe pasta, whipped cream, and something else in it (called Frog-eye salad, I suspect the third ingredient is frog eyes, although my mother denies it); jello with fruit; jello with vodka… Er, the last was NOT at any family gathering of mine, although I really think if the Mormons added some vodka to their jello it would really spice up some of those boring events.
The Collins clan, however, decided to celebrate by swimming in a friend’s pool and drinking beer. I doubt Brother Brigham would approve, but there you have it.
On another note, some friends and I have decided that the way we can gauge the difficulty of a trial to be endured is the amount of vodka one must consume to make it tolerable.
“There’s not enough vodka” has become code for “this really, really sucks.” This can refer to dance recitals, elementary school plays, visits from the Mormon missionaries–or the Jehovah Witnesses, actually–or any other chore like sitting through Mormon Church meetings when one is not Mormon or trying not to be Mormon.
Sitting through ANY parade, especially one celebrating Mormonism? There is NOT enough vodka in the entire Intermountain West.
Sitting through a family get-together where NO alcohol is allowed, INCLUDING Jello shots? Definitely not enough vodka.
Chuckwagon breakfasts at dawn? Surely it’s noon SOMEWHERE in the world…… There’s just not enough vodka. Hey, they’ve got orange juice over there!
When you live Trapped by the Mormons behind the Zion Curtain, there’s NEVER enough vodka…..
Happy PIONEER DAY!
July 24th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Natalie, I think Brother Brigham would have approved of the beer. As I understand, he sent the brewing equipment with the first wagons so that he would be able to wet his whistle on arriving in the promised land. It is even possible that Mr. Young celebrated his first Pioneer Day with a locally brewed pint.
As for the comment about Salt Lake being a horrible place … the Salt Lake Valley is occupying one of the most beautiful and abundant places on this earth. Look at everything this valley has: There is ample clean water from the mountains. There is a vast mineral wealth. Utah is among the best wine grape growing region in the US (we would have vineyards rivaling France, if Utahns were allowed to ferment wines.)
Salt Lake has a temperate climate that does not get too terribly cold or hot. The heat is a dry heat. Compare this to the malarial holes out East. Utah was and still is a paradise.
What is puzzling about the history of Salt Lake is you find that the gentiles moving in were absolutely astounded with the wealth of the region. The gentile writers talk about the beauty of the mountains, they catalogued the plants, they founded mines and ranches, etc.. Mormon writers tend to whine about how Salt Lake is a miserable and desolate place.
The first cause of this, I suspect, is that the Mormons had invested a great deal of effort into creating a persecution myth. Persecution myths work better if it ends with a whine about being forced to live in a horrible place. Therefore, literature must emphasize hardships. The second cause seems to be that the hierarchy of the Church has a history of robbing its aderents blind. A good example here is that Brother Brigham, his brewery and other items were transported by wagons. His adherents had to push wheelbarrows. Another good example is the Mormon Batalion. Brother Brigham took these soldiers pay and didn’t even treat their wives fairly on the migration.
The social structure set forth by Joseph Smith and followed by brother Brigham made a small number of multiwived men extremely rich and powerful, while the rest were reduced to subsistence. This same pattern seems to recur among the LDS fundamentalists.
When I visited Heritage Park, I was astounded at the beauty of the valley. This must have been a paradise when the first settlers arrrived. I was closing my eyes imagining the valley when it was empty. It dawned on me that this was one of the richest areas in the west.
My contemplation of the abundance that this area has to offer was broken by a Mormon tour guide spouting the propaganda line about the hardships of the Mormon pioneers.
Damn, I wish this place had been found by a different group of people who saw the area for what is it.
Yes, the Mormon pioneers had miserable lives. That is not because of the area, it is because Mormon pioneers were ground under the heals of one of the worst scoundrels in history.
July 24th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
If Mr. Smith went on to California he would have stopped at the Salton Sea. Think about the world wide effect this would have. Whole industries would be changed. Whole societies toppled. Movies, Music, and the Napa/Sonoma Valleys would be a far cry from what we know. And in deferrence to the Irish religious clashes, it would have been Old Mexico Catholics bucking the New Mormon upstarts. Life is much better that they stopped at one salt lake, instead of another.
July 25th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Have you ever wanted to slip a vodka-based jello salad into the smorgasboard that makes up those get togethers? Its an evil thought, I know, but the temptation is there.
July 25th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Had a laugh… yep… and jello shooters are real good… they slide down the gullet.
About what KD said, yep, Brigham Young was very good at keeping his friends and family well fed, etc. My great… whatever great grandfather gave him 10,000 dollars to buy wagons for him and his cohorts. Brigham sent this grandfather to colonize Idaho (around Idaho falls).
Brigham aslo told my great great grandmother –a different line that she had to burn her journals because they held to much information about the leaders of the church. Her husband refused to give the church his money (he was rich). But in the process lost his wife… No problemo. He went back to Denmark and married again.
Oh the shenanigans… LOL
Another of my great great grandmothers was married to a polygamist for a year… she divorced him. No one knows why. She met my great great grandfather while teaching at a school… She was adament that no one else in her family would deal with polygamy… ever.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Shenanigans work. The faithful run around believing that Utah pioneers lived in dire poverty because gentiles (not the hierarchy) stole all their money. They believe that Northern Utah was a horrible desolate place … despite the wealth of water, mineral deposits and good farm land in the valleys. The propaganda machine is extremely effective.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Back to Jen. She was absolutely floored that our state has a holiday that is, basically, religious. “They can’t do that,” she said
Pass the green Bear. It’s Saint Patrick’s day.
July 30th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Green bear? I don’t believe I’ve SEEN one of those….