Another Wyoming video. This is drone footage of South Pass City, one my favorite places. It’s a ghost town on the old Oregon Trail. I lived here in a past life. When I was a teenage boy in Grand Junction I had some very vivid dreams about dying here as a teenage boy in the late 1800s. I had no idea where it was, just that it was an Old West town. Then, as an adult I visited here for the...
In the novel American Gods, Neil Gaiman quotes Richard Dorson: “One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greeek-Americans the vrykólakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the Old County: When I once asked why such demons are not seen...
I have fond memories of the Cosmic Aeroplane in Salt Lake City. Many times, I lived only a block or two away, and years at a time I was there almost every Saturday. "Salt Lake’s Cosmic Aeroplane (1967-1991) was a major nexus of cultural changes that were rippling through the youth culture in America in the mid- to late ’60s. The Civil Rights Movement—an insane war that still had the support of...
From time to time Mom mentions a memorable blizzard sometime during her childhood. Her parents took in the Dack family. Ray and Marjorie Dack, with sons Bud and Douglas, were a local family who lived north of the Swanstroms. They were stranded on the highway and couldn’t get home. For a week, the two families ate and slept in shifts. Grandpa had to tie a rope to himself when he went out to...
Yesterday I wrote about living in Mantua, Utah. I mentioned joining Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Brigham City. That memory sent me off to do some research. I was curious about the church’s history, and also about dates. I found a little potted history (see below). Founded in 1959. We were there early in its history, then, but not among the first. Originally part of the Augustana Synod, the...