Zona

"This is the place"

Those were the words uttered by Brigham Young when he paused at the edge of the Salt Lake valley. There's a monument there now and on July 24th there's a parade down State Street to commemorate the event. Now there are many Mormons who are under the impression that the Salt Lake valley was empty but there were people there and not all of them were happy when they were overrun by the new settlers.

As you know, Mormons control most things Utahan and being born and raised in the faith I can tell you, as many other non-Utah Mormons will, that them Utah Mormons is interesting people.

Green Jello is their "poutine" and "oh my heck" is their "eh".

Brigham Young would have a university named after him but not in Salt Lake. It's about 100 miles south in Provo. The University of Utah is in Salt Lake and every year the football game between the two is called "The Holy War". For years the coach of BYU was a man named Lavell Edwards. During one of his many TV interviews he was asked about BYU fans. You see, BYU is a favorite invitee for college football bowl games because it guarantees big ticket sales. The Mormons really come out to see their team play. But, the interviewer mentioned, related sales (merch, restaurants, etc) in the town where BYU plays aren't that great. When asked why he thought that was, Edwards responded, "when a Mormon leaves the house, he takes two things. A fifty dollar bill and a copy of the ten commandments. And he doesn't break any of them".

So you see, Mormons like to poke fun at themselves and are pretty good at doing it.