Oh, Pioneer Day!
Today is Pioneer Day, the day on which we celebrate the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. Children throughout the state lay in their beds last night, eyes wide open, trying to stay awake in hopes of seeing Brigham Young flying through the sky in his covered wagon, bearing pioneer gifts for all the good boys and girls of Utah. But eventually their drowsy, uncaffeinated eyes began to droop and they finally drifted off with visions of horehound candy dancing in their heads.
Young Kayden probably awoke to find a pair of suspenders hanging from his bedpost, while little McKelsey found the bonnet of her dreams tucked under her pillow. Then they rushed downstairs to discover the pioneer boots they left on the mantle filled with hardtack biscuits and salt pork.
Later this morning, after a hearty breakfast of cracked-wheat cereal and dried milk, the children will change into their pioneer costumes, grab their bikes, trikes, and red wagons, and head to the church where they will recreate the great migration west by parading around on the sidewalk of the church for two and a half hours until they are almost delirious from heat stroke. Then they will gaze across the blazing hot asphalt of the church parking in much the same way that Brigham Young gazed across the arid, inhospitable Great Basin and they will declare, “It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on.”
The children will then break into four groups. One group will divide the parking lot into a precise grid with “streets” wide enough for four bikes and a wagon to turn around. Another group will build an elaborate irrigation infrastructure capable of moving 100 cubic feet of water to any block of the parking lot within seconds. And, in the middle of the parking lot, the third group will start construction on a huge granite structure that won’t be finished in their lifetimes.
By 2:00pm the parking lot will have blossomed as a rose…at which point the fourth group, attracted by low real estate prices and a high quality of life, will move in, take over the parking lot, and, with all the cultural sensitivity of a door-to-door zipper salesman in Amish country, will open 36 coffee shops throughout the parking lot where they will hang out and complain about the liquor laws.
In the evening, extended families will gather together for the traditional Jello buffet, showcasing all of nature’s bounty in suspended animation. (Aunt Delsa will most likely receive the “Best in Show” award at this year’s Jello “Mold-Off” for her multi-tiered replica of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, constructed with alternating layers of lime Jello and baloney.) Funeral potatoes will flow like a chunky, cheesy river, and there will be a hundred “salads,” none of which will feature lettuce (or any other leafy green, for that matter) in any form.
Kids will bob for tater tots in vats of pink fry sauce while the men stand around the back yard, arms crossed, discussing this year’s vintage (rootage?) of root beers. Some will argue that A&W’s 2007 production has been disappointing, with a cloying vanillin sweetness and a weak finish, but just about everyone will agree that the 2006 Hires, with its heavy sassafras notes, has only gotten better after spending a year in the food storage closet under the stairs.
The day usually ends with the traditional Bonfire of the Zucchini, in which all of the neighborhood’s excess produce is piled into the middle of the street and set ablaze. However, wildfire concerns have prompted a bonfire ban this year, so most families will be spending the evening indoors, baking dozens upon dozens of loaves of zucchini bread that they will leave on each other’s doorsteps in the dark of night.
As the children are tucked into bed, their parents will tell them harrowing stories of the hardships their pioneer ancestors endured so they could grow up to be snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabouts with no sense of history. And they will explain to their children that they, too, are pioneers, blazing a trail for the generations of snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabouts with no sense of history that will follow.
Yes, we are all pioneers in our own snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabout with no sense of history sort of way. And this is our day.
Comments
apaperbackwriter
You could take over for Robert Kirby with writing like this.
I may have to start reading this blog regularly.
Kim
I am in Utah…. surprisingly they didn’t serve the Southwestern Egg Rolls with pink fry sauce…
Looking forward to reading your blog tomorrow, that undoubtly will have to do with your first date in x years. (Or so you say). If you don’t write about your torturous afternoon that despite, d.w.’s concerns, unfortunately, did not require my skills in CPR, I will have my sister (who DOES know who you are) write my version.
Kate
I have been inspired. So VERY inspired that I shall now write the music and lyrics for our next hit musical (we had a first one, did we not? I should dig that out).
Well, I’ll borrow the tune for the first song, called “Oh, Pioneer Day,” and set the words to the tune “O, Canada.” And don’t think I cannot smush all the syllables of “Pioneer” into the first TWO of “Canada.” I can. And I will.
I MIGHT steal the tune for another song, too, called “Snotty, Ungrateful, Over-Privileged, Upper-Middle-Class Layabouts With No Sense of History.” I would use La Marseillaise. It works. Especially when you set the title line in La Marseillaise that means something to the effect of “May the blood of our enemies water the furrows of France.”
I’m realizing the inherent symbolism now of the idea of the pioneers from worlds away coming across the plains to live in Utah and stealing - pardon - I meant PAYING HOMAGE to National Anthems from some of those very countries. It will look backwards and forwards in a multi-cultural mélange of buffalo chips and petticoats.
And in case you were going to say - wait - CANADA? Well, DUH! They have plains to which people from many lands came. And then sometimes Canadians would come to Utah, and then sometimes, Mormon Pioneers were asked to go to the CANADIAN plains to settle. That explains it all, don’t you think?
And for the finale, you can tell me what the HECK (that’s especially in honour of Pioneer Day) a DATE is?
Kate
I meant to say “the title line of the SONG to the line in La Marseillaise the means something to to the effect of “May the blood of our enemies water the furrows of France.’”
I don’t suppose it makes much difference; I realize that most people’s eyes glaze over around my second paragraph (especially when they see how many are left afterwards).
Wait… DATE!!!:
Pam
Bravo, Grettir! Spot on!
Kate: it would be a dream come true if I could assist with book & lyrics.
P.S. Grandma Delila usually scolded us about not appreciating our “heritage” instead of “history.” Same diff, though.
Kate
Pam, I MISS YOU even though I’m the most horrid friend in this wide world.
Pretty PLEASE write the book and lyrics! You know I’m too verbose to write good lyrics. Sondheim would turn over in his grave (if he were dead, that is) and you also know that I haven’t the patience or, to be honest, the “mad skilz” to write a book.
I must say, I dig on my history and/or heritage. It’s diverse - festively Euro-Mutty - well documented by my diligent relatives, and sometimes deliciously sordid. For instance, “Old Man MacArthur” was a dirty old man. Oh yes he was.
And the NAMES! If I ever have male Kitten Children they will have names like “Daniel Buckley Funk” and ” King Frosti Karasson of Kvenlandâ?? or, perhaps, â??King Jokull Frostasson of Kvenland.â?? Good stuff. I could even do â??Charlemagneâ?? and Robert the Bruce (to be posh Iâ??d go with â??KING Robert the Bruce). Other options are â??Nameless Destitute Cornish Minerâ?? or â??Random French Huguenot.â?? Does it make me a snob to not remember THEIR names? Probably. But, either way, these are my ancestors.
chronicler
I very much loved this. Even though I have serious pioneer envy now! We never got anything as good as suspenders or a bonnet here in good ol’ Kaliforniay!
The best we ever got was a baseball field and an old woman complaining, as she served her lime jello entree, that hadn’t we already been through this line? Are we trying to get seconds before everyone else has been served???!!!
Sigh.
Alas, I can only hope to return tomorrow. Comment #2 has my interest piqued. Spill TP Spill!
Chris
Oh, please let this be true. It may even entice me to move back to our lovely Deseret.
Grettir
@Kim: We got home late from our rehearsal tonight, so I’ll have to respond to comment #2 tomorrow morning…though I’m tempted not to, just to see if you’d follow through on your threat. After all, I already know my side of the story…
Kim
Grettir… this is YOUR blog… isn’t it all about telling YOUR side of the story? I’d like you to tell all though… from your reaction in finding out you were not going to get out of this… to what on earth was going through your mind when you find yourself trapped at a lunch table with someone who doesn’t stop talking! You know… what plans for escape or daydreams of suicide were you experiencing? Spinach in your teeth… And of course the ending relief of knowing this girl is headed 2000 miles away in less then 24 hours… ahh the relief! :) And… just so you know… I always follow through on my threats~! :)
joe
How in the world is this not published??? This is the best post EVER. Every pioneer day eve I will read it to my children.
Christine
So- how about the date?
Deborah Gamble
Hey! Great blog, I am pleased to have found it. Hope all is going well.
Kim’s version, or as near to it as I could get, is now posted.
s'mee
Late in reading and commenting…however, Far and away the (read THE) best Pioneer post I have ever written.
(humming the gentle strains of “O Pioneer Day” as I turn my computer off…)
Michelle Thurgood
I was reading Debbie’s blog about “The Date” when it linked me to your blog. I liked the idea of reading “Oh Pioneer Day” to my children on the eve of Pioneer Day each year. I am a huge fan of children’s literature and have a collection of picture books for each of the holidays. This narration set to some great illustrations would make for a great children’s book.
What I’d really like to read about next on your blog is a narration about the date. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Michelle (Kim’s REAL favorite sister in the whole wide world). I was up from Pheonix visiting Utah while Kim was there. I was there when she came home from what I pressumed was a poor use of her precious time. However checking out your profile on LDSSingles, reading your blog and hearing Kim’s version of your date has all been wildly entertainning and has left me wanting more. Will you deliver?
apaperbackwriter
Good heaven!
I dropped back again to see if any more posts had been made and found I’d walked in on a soap opera!
As the blog turns….
Tune in next week when we will find out who’s dating whom and what everyone’s sisters think about it.
I’m laughing, folks. True, the comments and side-lines are nowhere near as funny as Oh, Pioneer Day! (Bring on Willa Cather!), but it’s a different kind of funny.
Michal
What a clever boy. The homage to our ancestor pioneers and the ways we attempt to honor them in the blazing sun in mid-July was hysterical. I obviously need to introduce my kids to the wonders of pioneer cuisine. The snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabouts might then appreciate what they are fed the rest of the year!
Michal, who crept over from Debbie’s blog to spy on yours