Utah Culture

Ok, I don't know if culture is the word to describe our sometimes outrageous Utah-isms, but it's the best (er, first) one I could think of. Anyways, so the good ol' band family took a happy journey down to sunny California last week (giving us a 9-day spring break... talk about starting Summer Fever a month early, goodness!). We call it 'Tour,' which has so many other implications I'll spare you and not go into all of them. Well, having never been to California before (those of you that didn't know that, don't drop your jaw, those of you that did, well guess what... I have now!) it was quite the experience. (What a lot of parentheses...) Ok, enough with the off-topic stuff. I'm not much of the traveler type, and so band tours are really the only time I ever leave the state. It was really interesting to encounter the different paradigms of people we happened to run into and see exactly how much different they were from ours, and how interesting it was to meet people from a similar background. I'll go through a few of them.

First, our bus driver. He was from Idaho (but not Utah... just squeaked under there), and knew a lot about the church. Because we left on Sunday, Cucumber and I watched Legacy on the way down and we tried to keep our minds as spiritually oriented as possible considering the circumstances. (Band kids + bus + California...) He told us about all these different tours he'd been on, and one special experience he'd had on a church history tour where the bus was leaking and the passengers prayed and they made it to safety in the midst of a great storm. After that, he asked if we'd sing a hymn for him because we'd already started to sing a few. After about two hours of hymns, he asked if we wanted to see the Las Vegas temple. After two hours of extra driving past his federal limit and our bed time, we arrived at nearly midnight. It was such a beautiful sight to see, and yes, it was in a way, on a hill. We got to our hotel at 12:30 am (including the extra hour we tacked on) and pretty much crashed (except our room... long story). I started analyzing our driver the rest of the tour and came across some interesting things. He said he really appreciated our standards (and the Dirty Lovin' rules), loved our band performances, and was happy to drive us. However, he wasn't quite the person we're all used to being around in Utah. He smoked, and caught himself before saying a few choice words (which I was grateful for), but he was very considerate.

Second, our first day, first ride in Disneyland. Well, California Adventure. We were about ready to go down the hill on the Grizzly Rapids (or whatever it's called) when they stopped the ride for some reason. So, being the crazy band kids we are, we started singing Popcorn Popping. Now, I don't know what all the people that had never heard that song before were thinking (I'd be interested in finding out), but we sang out loud and clear anyways. Soon after, a boat pulled up behind us and a lady turned to me and asked, "So where are you from?" "Utah." "No, which city?" I guess we'd labeled ourselves as Utahns with a few words about an apricot tree in springtime. "Orem." "Wow, really? We're from Payson. We're visiting with relatives who live in Spanish Fork. What high school do you go to?" "Mountain View." "That's neat." "Yeah, we're here for band tour." I would have asked her more about her family and such, to be polite, but also because our ride wasn't going anywhere, when all of a sudden it started to move, cutting the conversation short. As soon as the lady found common ground, she started springing the geography of Utah County on me. I guess she was glad to meet a fellow Utahn...? Either way, it was quite interesting.

Third was Wednesday as we were waiting outside a theater to see Wicked (which, by the way, was simply amazing!) I promised my sister I'd buy her a t-shirt to quell her jealousy that I was seeing it and not her. I went up to the cashier after deciding which overpriced shirt I wanted ($32? oh well), only he was one of those guys that just gives you the creeps. At least me, which is where this Utah culture thing comes in. He had piercings all over, really dark hair, and spoke in this really high pitched voice that was enunciated beyond someone just doing their job. And he kept staring at me. "Ok, just buy the shirt and get out of there..." Which is what I did. Maybe he wasn't any different (except his appearance) but it just made me uncomfortable. Back in Utah you can easily pick the people you want to hang out with and avoid those that are less of a good influence most of the time. Over there, I literally bumped into people with appearances, smells, and habits that I don't commonly see every day. Here it's weird, there it's normal. I'm not trying to be stereotypical. They were raised in a completely different environment than I was, and society says that their decisions are ok. No biggie.

Last of all was Thursday as we walked through the Circus Circus casino to get to more favorable places within the building. Although gambling is illegal in Utah it's still interesting to go through those places, even though I've been there before on previous tours. Because I've been taught otherwise, it was instinctively dogmatic to look down upon people tossing tokens into slots that didn't usually spit anything back out. Stepping back, it's just part of their lifestyle. I won't deny that to me, being in those places gave me a dark feeling that made me very uncomfortable and not willing to stand there a minute longer than I had to. To those people, gambling is like the movies or the water park to us. It's just what they do.

Utah is just so much different that when you experience an otherwise 'normal' culture you end up noticing a whole bunch of those differences. And to think that stuff like that goes on every day. It was odd thinking, "Wow, tomorrow those same people will probably be here, and the next day, and the next... but why?" Vegas is Vegas. California is California. They don't change too much. Those people have every day lifestyles just like us. And Utah is still always and undoubtedly Utah.