Don't Mess With Utah

 Last night we out to dinner at the burger joint that has become Ginger's favorite during his business visits to Salt Lake City. It is located on the south side of Gallivan Plaza. We walked past the live studios of the local CBS television affiliate. 

"Do you want to be on television?" Ginger asked jokingly, as we passed the studios. I laughed. Of course not.

We walked into the restaurant without our masks and were seated by the older Latino waiter. Ginger commented that she was determined to have a margarita this time. The last visit to the restaurant, she said, she had forgotten her id and they had carded her, refusing to serve her alcohol.

"If they card me, I'm, going to tell them I didn't bring my id, then I'm going to confess I'm only twenty years old, but please please it's my 21st birthday next week."

The waiter, wearing his mask as he must, did not card either us when we ordered our drinks. It turns out that he did so last time only because the owner was in earshot. 

As he took our orders, he suddenly said, "Too early for Christmas," while looking through the window across the street towards the small row of shops on the other side. 

It was a strange random comment. We looked up and saw a man dressed as Santa Claus walking down the street carrying a sign saying "Protect LDS Children." On the other side it read "Read the stories."

"It's a good way to get people's attention,'" I said. "to dress up as Santa Claus in April. People are intrigued, and they don't see you as a kook immediately, but something good and friendly, at least for a second or two."

As we waited for our food, I described how I had walked around downtown Salt Lake City that day, and how pleasant it was. There is no place in the whole Phoenix metro area where I like to go walking on the streets. Not a single. Here I felt so good doing so, and looking at the old buildings, and some of the new ones.

I described the new construction I saw that was going up in downtown near the old Union Station. The buildings were the mid-rise apartment buildings that young people love so much, and which have taken over the older sections of places like Portland and Denver. They were starting to do the same in parts of Salt Lake City.

"It hit me that young people love living in old industrial sections because it makes them feel like they are doing something important with their lives."

I said that I had zero sympathy for people who move to a place like Utah with the intent of changing the culture, and complain about it once they get here. The same goes for Texas, 

"Just stay away,"  I said.

The liberals feel they have to change every last place in America, because they hate things different from them and have to destroy them. If you need something different, go to Portland."

"Arizona is different," I said. "That's a place you can go and write your own story. But not here, or Texas."