September 13, 2004
LDS on LSD
9/13/04
My Mormon family, which includes the 100 living and in-law descendents of my maternal grandma, have begun to coalesce back in the homeland Zion of northern Utah. Once they scattered themselves across the Los Angeles basin, but now they have all returned to the Mormon promised land, and everyone is living in houses under construction, with bare rooms waiting for unborn children.
They aren't much for the hustle, bustle and smog of Salt Lake City; they prefer the university setting and unshakably beautiful mountains of Provo, a place I've frequented since I was three months old. It's funny that the unofficial symbol of Mormons is a beehive, because my family has finally buzzed back to the honeycomb, surrounding the Queen Bee that is my Great Aunt Idonna.
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Donna circa 1939
"Auntie Donna" inherited the role of matriarch once my grandma passed away, and her house in Pleasant Grove is now the aorta for my family's activities - much to her chagrin, because she loves living alone, and the 40+ cousins at her house each day are driving her up the wall.
Today and yesterday Tessa and I went around to a bunch of my favorite cousins from the different families and she got an ear-and-eyeful of my family's bizarre and lovely peccadilloes. I wont bore you with the details, but suffice to say she gorged herself on Mormon Jello, saw breeding in its purest form, and could probably make the movie "My Big Fat Mormon Christening."
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my awesome Worsley cousins - click here for the 1991 version
Last stop before heading for the sin of Las Vegas, we drove up 700 North to see my grandma's old house. The site of so many of my earliest memories, the best Christmases and cousin crushes, her house was magical to all of us. We pulled up to the driveway and this is what we saw:
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The Mormons may live forever, but damn, their houses sure don't.
Posted by irw at September 13, 2004 11:12 PMMy god, those girls are gorgeous! Not too sure about the hairstyles from the earlier pic, but they've certainly come into their own! I'm impressed.
Who are the two in the upper right? They have smiles that would melt a glacier. If I were single, I'd be composing sonnets to them at this moment.
Gotta tell you, Ian, looking at all the marching morons out there in the world, I take some comfort in knowing there are so many people who share some part of your genetic make up.
God, seeing Grandma's house bulldozed is a huge kick in the stomach. First her roses, now this.
It gets worse: They're building a Kum & Go!
I think the LDS are on LSD.
Pardon me, if I'm out of touch ......
(read: aging mom of three, working 70 hours per week, catch the radio occasionally, no time to watch tv, no social life to speak of)
Maybe you're actually someone famous and I should know who you are ... ???
Well, I think you should be! Your writing style is fabulous, engaging, and your sense of humor would excel in any medium, books, radio, tv.Soooo enjoyed your humorous "LDS on LSD" ... One of my jobs as a temp in a hoity-toity bank with two "brothers" (actually some of the most solid people I have met -- very grounded, good men), but I know that collectively it might be "quite" .... the experience to grow up in it.
And .... thanks for the trip! Since I won't have time or money for a summer vacation ... your gift, your writing tour crossing America, was fun.
...actually the Latter-day Saints are agains mind altering substances....and you speak like you think the propaganda spit out by the government is right. read the studies and scientific journals written by the first synthesizer of lysergic acid dithalymide (lsd) and you might actually learn something.
lsd is a wonderful chemical, far better than anti-depressants (that lead teenagers to commit suicide). lsd has such a bad rep, which if you take into consideration the actual nature of the drug, makes people have "bad trips" it's a mind based drug (like other mind drugs) that must be used in a propper "set and setting". meaning "set" a controlled mind, one that is sound and not on the verge of a brain disorder, and "setting", meaning a controlled environment.reading and getting to the source sure does have it's benefits. the goverment is a middle man that has the power to twist truth, so that it has it's civillians in almost complete control. you come to that realization after a lot of truth seeking to the source of the truth.
a bit off the topic, but I BELIEVE THAT LSD SHOULD FLOW FREELY ON TAP AT ANY BAR OR PUB - THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD MAKE HEAPS OF "SUPERLABS" AND ADD *A LOT* OF LSD TO THE DRINKING WATER SUPPLY, AND USE THE SAME WATER FOR MAKING ALCOHOL - THIS WOULD BE INTERESTING!!
"LSD can be a very insightful and useful tool if one can harness it's powers for good!"