Strange Lake City

“Where are you from”?
I smile, grit my teeth, and clench my butt cheeks together…”Salt Lake City.”
“Oh! Are you Mormon”?
There is this twisted stigma that comes with telling someone you’re from Salt Lake City, Utah.
“No, I am not a Mormon”.
I have heard it all. Oh god, I have heard it all!
Everyone in Utah has four wives!
Didn’t you know?
Everyone in Utah has a tail!
Didn’t you know?
Everyone in Utah is Mormon!
Didn’t you know?
Everyone in Utah dresses like the Amish!
Didn’t you know?
Since I live in Texas I have the luxury of countering such comments and questions by saying “ That’s funny, I thought everyone in Texas was a shit kicking hillbilly”. If everyone in Utah had four wives do you think I ever would have left? …Um…lets come back to that question. The truth is Texas is not full of Hank Williams impersonators; it’s a big city with big city people. Utah is not full of Mormons…wait…shit…yes it is…but there are a variety of other people as well!! I enjoy my visits to SLC, every time I come home I feel like the city has grown a little bit more into a semi inhabitable place. Granted it has never been completely alien to me, it still holds that simple charm that I crave at times. Life doesn’t travel at 120 mph is SLC, the traffic jams are laughable, and the people don’t seem as quick to cut your throat. It’s a strange little city with strange little people, and strangely enough its home.
Here in Texas for one month out of the year the humidity lifts (and I get nose bleeds), the temperature drops (and I get nose bleeds), and I become home sick. I sit on my porch and talk to friends while I shiver and shake in the cool breeze, my Texas acclimatized body fighting with my Salt Lake recollecting mind at 65 degrees (Yeah asshole that’s cold now!). Next week I will be coming home for a short period of time, I am going to be able to see my old friends and spend some time with my family. Has it been that long? For me the true indicator of the time that has passed always seems to be the children. I don’t care if its newborn babies or the fact that my godchildren have grown another foot…it makes me feel old, and tells me it has in fact been to long. Often Uncle Colton seems to border on a mythical figure whose memory is constantly in jeopardy of slipping away. SO Like that seasonal Christmas movie hell bent on whoring you all out of your hard earned money for commercial and economic gain in hopes that for a brief moment you actually believe that every man is your brother and the world a beautiful place to live in full of smiling faces and free shit, I shall RETURN.
PREPARE FOR MY COMING!