Driving, Family, a wedding, and Polygamists

By Johnny

August 14, 2006

Category: family, religion, travel

4 Comments »

Que onda gente?

This weekend, Holli and I drove Holl’s sister Alexis home after she spent a few days in the Valley. I actually really like going to Holl’s hometown — the people are nice, I like the wide, open space, and it doesn’t hurt that I really like Holli’s family. It is a little ironic that Holl and I haven’t been to my hometown in two years…

Saturday was an interesting day to say the least. Holli’s cousin was married in St. George, Utah and all of us made the trip to see it. After the wedding, the subject of polygamists – mostly the fact that I had never seen one – came up, and the family entertained me enough to make a stop at Wal-Mart where I was sure to see one in the fabric section. I got a kick out of that, but it was true – we saw a few. Even more entertaining was my father-in-law Jeff who piped up, “We have a sighting! Another one! And another!” Hilarious.

There was a wedding luncheon to be held in Kanab that afternoon and we headed off for that. Afterward, we took a slight detour for a brief exploration of the towns of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT to take a closer look at the polygamists. It was all quite fascinating to me. The exceptionally large (and mostly unfinished) houses with high brick walls or wood fences with several “NO TRESPASSING” or “TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED” signs. We saw maybe two kids jumping on trampolines and shooting hoops, and a handful of adults who all slowly turned thair heads and glued their eyes to us as we passed. At one point we’re fairly sure that a van was following us for a while — surely someone wanted to know what the outsiders were doing.

It seemed that the deeper we went into the town, the more gigantic the houses became, all while I kept inquiring about polygamists in general. “Can they read newspapers? They don’t watch TV do they?” I asked, along with a barrage of other questions. We saw cornfields and other gardens (as well as houses) that had “UEP” inscribed on them in some fashion, which I later learned stood for “United Effort Plan” which was based on the old United Order in the earlier history of the LDS Church.

As we turned to go back toward the main road, we came upon a large complex of multiple houses that took up an entire block and gated off either section of part of one of the perimeter streets. This HAD to be Warren Jeffs’ pad. You couldn’t park anywhere on the perimeter, the walls were at least six feet tall, and of course, “NO TRESPASSING” signs all around. It was verging on the creepy.

Overall, it was a very unique experience, but the more I really thought about the situation, the sadder I became. It’s just not a practice that’s in line with the reality of our current state. All I can really do is shake my head and feel sorry for them.

Well, it’s the weekend again. Classes start on Monday – but then again, this is the first time in many years that I haven’t taken classes. Needless to say, when I do go back to school in the fall of ’07, with all the work being a PhD student encompasses, I will surely be grateful for the year I had off. Have a great weekend, everyone!

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