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 first time. Say, about 1992 or 1993. We were driving around, taking in the sights on impulse. I don’t remember exactly but I’d guess we had been to Farson and were headed to Lander. We lived in Farson when I was little and sometimes went shopping in Lander. It would have been a nostalgia leg of the trip.
As soon as we pulled into town, I knew it, knew it without being told, the buildings, the roads. I walked around in a daze, feeling caught between two worlds. I saw the hill that had the shack where I was staying in that other life, and the hill where I tumbled to my death because I was too feverish to be careful. A stupid accident.
Then, as my 20th century visit wore on, the other world began to fade. We spent the afternoon there. I think I had the experience only because I came upon it unexpectedly. My mind wasn’t ready for it at first, but when it had the chance to experience the physical reality, it adjusted.
I’d like to go back again, even though it wouldn’t be the same.
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 in America, my informants giggled confusedly and said ‘They’re too scared to pass the ocean, it’s too far,’ pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America.” (“A Theory for American Folklore,” American Folklore and the Historian (University of Chicago Press, 1971)
This, of course, is the premise of the novel, that the old gods did in fact come to America, for interesting reasons and with interesting consequences.
Leaving aside, for now, the problem that Mormons believe Christ did come to America, so that doesn’t work well for everyone, I also trip over the idea the fairies and nisser are “demons”. Otherworldly, yes, but surely not demons.
The piece that really stands out for me is the idea our non-human friends didn’t come with us to America. The nisser are the Norwegian equivalent of our Swedish tomten (“house elves”). I don’t know about other families but our tomte came to America in my great grandparents steamer trunk. My mother told me so. Why would he not come? That’s just silly talk.
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 the country at large—the birth of the modern day environmental movement—the call of psychedelics and the mind-opening possibilities they presented—a growing interest in Eastern philosophies—and an abiding interest in the new music of the day: These concerns coalesced in a little store that expanded the minds of many people who walked through its doors."
When we bought The Metaphysical Bookstore in Denver in 2008, we faced a problem of brand identity. Just about every other New Age store in Denver and the world had named themselves [Something] Metaphysical Bookstore. I would have loved to rename ours Cosmic Aeroplane. I knew we wouldn’t, probably wouldn’t, but I tried to find the old owners anyway to see what it would take to license the name. Legally, we wouldn’t have needed to get their permission but it would have made a better story, as well as being more honest and ethical.
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 feed the cattle, so he could find his way back to the house.
I’ve been curious to find when it was, and tonight I came across it by accident, while listening to a YouTube piece from Wyoming PBS about the Lincoln Highway. It was January 2-5, 1949. Mom would have been 12.
Then, as if that wasn’t a jackpot sufficient for one day, I came across another video about wildlife migrations around Pinedale, Wyoming, where the Swanstroms lived and near where the Luces lived in Big Piney.
I’m pretty sure the word Wyoming is etched on my forehead right now. I attribute it to getting a Wyoming cowboy sticker from Mom last week and putting on my laptop yesterday.
Now I want to find something about the Blizzard of ’63, the big one I remember from my childhood; and the Blizzard of ’82, when Missey and I were stranded in Denver and coulnd’t get home to Salt Lake City; and maybe the Blizzard of 1887 that changed Wyoming forever.
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 Swedes. Yes, I knew that. Merged into the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) in 1962. I’ve known that as long as I can remember, because that whole thing about LCA vs American Lutheran Church (ALC) was part and parcel of my childhood religious identity. First pastor was Donald Ranstrom. It was his first parish. I remember him, I think, or at least his name. Founded by people who worked at Thiokol Chemical Corp. My parents worked for Thiokol, so that matches my mother’s story that one of the reasons they chose Holy Cross was that they had friends there, particularly Ray and Eleanor Wall. I remember them.
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Brigham City, Utah
Holy Cross was a beautiful mid-century building, at the mouth of Box Elder Canyon, on the eastern edge of Brigham City. I remember doing a search several years ago. Back then Holy Cross was Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the 1988 successor to the LCA, ALC, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). This time I was disappointed to see they are now Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a conservative synod. Not as reactionary as Missouri Synod, but still quite conservative.
I remember they did an outdoor breakfast and worship in the canyon. We did those. And sunrise services in the canyon on Easter. I can picture the turn off, but I don’t know if I could find it again. It was in a forested area right at the western edge of Mantua. If you took that turnoff from U.S. 89 it would lead back in to Mantua. Looking at a modern map, I think it had to have been S. Park Drive, down by Box Elder Creek and the Box Elder Campground. Maybe.
Looking just a bit more, I see that Pastor Ranstrom went on to serve at UC-Davis, a famous bastion of liberalism in the turbulent 1960s. I found an article where he is tolerant of same-sex marriage (2003). I like that, but his career must have had a much more liberal trajectory than Holy Cross. I’m pleased about that but also a little sad that he lived well into my adulthood, so if I had thought to do it I would have been able to meet him and talk to him.
(I had the same chance to meet again with another childhood minister, Steve Ranheim from Grand Junction. We exchanged a few emails, in 2001, I think. He lived here in Denver and was working for a social services agency. We were going to get together for coffee, but we never did and then he died.)
I was baptized at Holy Cross on June 28, 1964, along with my mother and two sisters. (St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon — although as good Protestants we pretend we don’t know about saints days.) I have my baptism certificate. I will have to pull it out and look at it. If you had asked me, I would have been sure I was baptized by “Pastor Nilsson”. Looking at the list of former clergy, there was no Nilsson. It must have been Pastor Nielsen, who served from May 1, 1964 to April 30, 1967.
It’s a good thing my mother kept the baptismal certificates. When I converted officially to Episcopalian in, say 1982, Holy Cross had no record of my baptism. The records from those years are lost, they say, or maybe never kept. As a Good Samaritan, I got copies from my mother, and sent them to the offices at Holy Cross. Sometimes I wonder if they really kept them.
Nowadays, I live almost directly across the street from another Lutheran Church, Prince of Peace in Denver. Some days I think I ought to wander over for services. I think I was probably about 12 or 13 when I noticed most people in most Lutheran churches have German or Scandinavian surnames. No surprise there. I’d fit right in.
