Wtf - Mormon apologetic junk mail?

[_Blixa]

Geez you guys are provincial!

When I was in high school (Skyline), Zarahemla Drive was where all the nouveau riche Mormon kids lived. When it was created, it was part of a new sub-division waaaay high in the Olympus Cove. I'm sure its not even considered very high up the Cove now, at all.

I hate all new buildings that have been erected since I was a kid. They should all be torn down and everything restored to the way I remember it!!!!

[_harmony]

Geez you guys are provincial!

Some of us are lucky enough to not live in Utah, my friend. But even then, I take provincial to a whole new level. ;-)

When I was in high school (Skyline), Zarahemla Drive was where all the nouveau riche Mormon kids lived. When it was created, it was part of a new sub-division waaaay high in the Olympus Cove. I'm sure its not even considered very high up the Cove now, at all.

Sounds like what an old friend of mine refers to as Recommend Ridge. Many McMansions, all full of Prozac-popping mommies and hordes of misbehaving children.

I hate all new buildings that have been erected since I was a kid. They should all be torn down and everything restored to the way I remember it!!!!

Change is good, especially in Utah. Especially when it pisses off the powers that be at SL Central.

[_Blixa]

Bad as I thought Zarahemla Drive and its ilk were, it's heyday was long before the advent of McMansions. There is a current style of home building in SLC (and possibly elsewhere) that is just so ugly: and its always finished in this crappy beige with white trim. That's what I say wtf to.

I was reading the Trib online this morning and saw an article on an architechture design competition: the Utah division of a national competition, I think. It came with thumbnails of some of the entrants (in a range of categories) for readers to vote for in a kind of People's Choice thing. All the architects were from Utah (or work here), but the submissions were for projects both in and outside of Utah. There was nothing especially creative or interesting (architecture, though, is a more inherently conservative aesthetic art), but a couple of really cool single family dwellings. A new student union at UVSC was also not unpleasant. And then there was the Hinckley Alumni building. Good grief. It really stuck out of the rest of the entries, looking like a shopping center along the lines of what I think is called "Engh Village" on 39th South (the former site of Hank "The Petunia King" Engh's nursery).

[_Blixa]

Change is good, especially in Utah. Especially when it pisses off the powers that be at SL Central.

True, but the kind of change I'm having a gut-reaction to is the opposite: it pleaseth the powers that be exceedingly well. It speaks of the making of money, of the blandification of culture and thought, and overall conformity.

I'm reminded of a nice bit from that venerable tome of western wisdom "The Monkey Wrench Gang," where Seldom-Seen Smith explains to some incredulous acquaitances just what "Bishop" means in mormonspeak.

"Why'd you call him Bishop?"

"He's a bishop in the church."

"That man is a bishop? In a church?"

"L.D.S. The Mormon church. We got more bishops than we got saints," Smith grinned. "Why hell, honey, I'd be a bishop myself by now if I'd kept my nose clean and stayed out of Short Crick and Cohabitation Canyon."

"All right, come on," Bonnie said, "talk American."

Hayduke, who'd only been feigning sleep, put in his two cents. "He means if he hadn't been following his cock all over Utah and Arizona he'd have a bishop-prick of his own."

....

...old Bishop Love hates me because last time we locked horns he's the one got throwed. You don't wanna hear about it."

"Probably not," Bonnie said. "So what happened?"

"Just a litte difference of opinion which cost old Love about a million dollars. He wanted a forty-nine year lease on a section of state land overlooking Lake Powell. Hand in mind some kind of tourist development: summer homes, shopping center, airfield and so on. There was a hearing in Salt Lake, and me and some friends talked the Land Commission into blocking the deal. Took a lot of talking but we convinced 'em Love's project was a fraud, which it was, and he ain't forgiven me yet."

"I thought he was a bishop."

"Well that's on Sundays and Wednesday church-study nights only. Rest of the time he's neck deep in real estate, uranium, cattle, oil, gas, tourism, most anything that smells like money. That man can hear a dollar bill drop on a shag rug. Now he's running for the state legislature. We got plenty like him in Utah. They run things. They run things as best they can for God and Jesus, and what them two don't want why fellas like Bishop Love pick up. They say its a mighty convenient arrangement all around. Jesus Saves at eight and a half percent compounded daily, and when they make that last deposit they go straight to heaven. Them and all the ancestors they can dig out of the genealogical libraries. It's enough to make a man want to live forever.."

[_Who Knows]

Actually, there is such a place. I stand corrected.

Check it out.

Yeah, but there's no actual house numbered 4550, from what i can tell.

Maybe someone from the SCMC was spying on us that day we had lunch in Draper. ;)

Maybe someone in your ward works in Salt Lake and mailed it from there. Surely the well-meaning members of your ward know about your apostate condition.

That's why i posted this here. To see if anyone else has gotten anything like this. Since no one has, I'm left to assume it's some coward from my ward, or someone i work with maybe.

[_Who Knows]

I could easily zip up Zarahemla Drive and find the place if it exists.

If you're close, could you do that? At least to be able to tell me if there is a house numbered 4550?

[_Blixa]

Its my pleasure. I'll do it in a few hours and post later tonight...

[_Who Knows]

Its my pleasure. I'll do it in a few hours and post later tonight...

Awesome! Thank you!

[_moksha]

They should all be torn down and everything restored to the way I remember it!!!!

Would that require considerable restoration?

I know it would in my case.


by the way, it is within the realm of possibility that one of the McConkie clan might be named Mahonri Moriancumer.

[_harmony]

Change is good, especially in Utah. Especially when it pisses off the powers that be at SL Central.

True, but the kind of change I'm having a gut-reaction to is the opposite: it pleaseth the powers that be exceedingly well. It speaks of the making of money, of the blandification of culture and thought, and overall conformity.

I'm reminded of a nice bit from that venerable tome of western wisdom "The Monkey Wrench Gang," where Seldom-Seen Smith explains to some incredulous acquaitances just what "Bishop" means in mormonspeak.

"Why'd you call him Bishop?"

"He's a bishop in the church."

"That man is a bishop? In a church?"

"L.D.S. The Mormon church. We got more bishops than we got saints," Smith grinned. "Why hell, honey, I'd be a bishop myself by now if I'd kept my nose clean and stayed out of Short Crick and Cohabitation Canyon."

"All right, come on," Bonnie said, "talk American."

Hayduke, who'd only been feigning sleep, put in his two cents. "He means if he hadn't been following his cock all over Utah and Arizona he'd have a bishop-prick of his own."

....

...old Bishop Love hates me because last time we locked horns he's the one got throwed. You don't wanna hear about it."

"Probably not," Bonnie said. "So what happened?"

"Just a litte difference of opinion which cost old Love about a million dollars. He wanted a forty-nine year lease on a section of state land overlooking Lake Powell. Hand in mind some kind of tourist development: summer homes, shopping center, airfield and so on. There was a hearing in Salt Lake, and me and some friends talked the Land Commission into blocking the deal. Took a lot of talking but we convinced 'em Love's project was a fraud, which it was, and he ain't forgiven me yet."

"I thought he was a bishop."

"Well that's on Sundays and Wednesday church-study nights only. Rest of the time he's neck deep in real estate, uranium, cattle, oil, gas, tourism, most anything that smells like money. That man can hear a dollar bill drop on a shag rug. Now he's running for the state legislature. We got plenty like him in Utah. They run things. They run things as best they can for God and Jesus, and what them two don't want why fellas like Bishop Love pick up. They say its a mighty convenient arrangement all around. Jesus Saves at eight and a half percent compounded daily, and when they make that last deposit they go straight to heaven. Them and all the ancestors they can dig out of the genealogical libraries. It's enough to make a man want to live forever.."

Too funny! But never having been forced to live in Utah, and visiting only occasionally (although I fly through Salt Lake airport quite frequently), it's not something I feel compelled to do in order to gain the trust and friendship of the leaders of the Saints. Although I don't doubt they could all use a little more harmony in their lives, the reaction of their chief apologist to a little more harmony in his life is no doubt indicative of what theirs would be. A thousand miles between us is enough, I think.