Utah’s own holiday, Pioneer Day , is celebrated this coming Friday.  The courthouse will be closed and many businesses and offices will shut their doors as well.

   My dad used to brag that he gave his employees the day off on his birthday.  He would have been 118 on Pioneer Day this year.  The internet tells me that the oldest human right now is 116.   The oldest person who has lived was 122.

   Uncle Sam doesn’t recognize Brigham Young’s “This is the Right Place” declaration worthy of a day off, so the post office and other federal offices will be open as usual.

   It was in 1847 that Brigham Young and his group of pioneers came down Emigration Canyon and overlooked the Salt Lake Valley.  People from Weber County will sometimes say that there was a sign back then in 1847 at the mouth of the canyon.

   The sign read, “Fort Buenaventura – 40 Miles North.”  As some will playfully say, “All of the incoming pioneers who could read kept going to Ogden,  while the illiterate people stayed in the Salt Lake Valley.”  (Fort Buenaventura was established in 1846)

   In 1849, Brigham decided that Sanpete was “a right place” as well.  The Sanpete settlers are sometimes called “the other Forty-Niners.”  That’s not a reference to the San Francisco NFL football team, but rather, for their name sake, the gold seekers who rushed to California in 1849.

   Interestingly enough, gold was discovered in California by James Marshall at John Sutter’s mill on the American River.  That was in January of 1848.  It wasn’t until President Polk’s state of the union address in December, which referred to the gold strikes, that the “rush” really got going.

   Of course, it wasn’t gold that motivated Sanpete’s pioneers to settle here.  It was the desire to get out of Salt Lake City with all that annoying horse and buggy traffic and city hub-bub.

   They heard that there was land in a place called Sanpete where they could raise turkeys in peace and quiet – or something like that.  My history may not be totally correct.

   Actually, it’s my understanding that the Native Americans asked Brigham Young to send settlers here.  (Be careful of what you ask for, is the lesson to be learned from that deal, I guess.)

    It seems like everytime I get out in the mountains or in the “wilderness” somewhere, I think of the pioneers.  I can’t help it.

   I know, and many of you know by now, that I sometimes complain about being “pioneered to death” around here.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have feelings for their lives and hardships.

   I just get tired sometimes of being made to feel guilty that they suffered and sacrificed and that we now are spoiled and selfishly ungrateful.  I don’t think that the pioneer “sermonizers and idealizers” mean to make pioneers seem honorable and people today dishonorable, but sometimes it almost comes out that way.

   Sometimes I think about the early settlers and how they had to cope with the summer heat.  We’ve had some of that lately here.  And, we often hear about the harsh winters that the pioneers endured.

   That first winter of 1849 in Sanpete must have been unreal with the settlers arriving so late in the year (November) and it being a particularly snowy winter.  Living in holes dug out of the side of a hill (Temple Hill in Manti) through that first winter must have had them wondering if moving to Sanpete was a good idea.

   Back to summer heat, imagine what it was like for the settlers of St. George and Southern Nevada.  No air conditioning.  No swamp coolers.  No fan, except the one powered by your hand to fan your face.  No Gatorade.  No Diet Pepsi.

   The white folks that came here didn’t adopt the dress of the Indians.  At least, I don’t remember seeing pictures of any pioneers in loincloths.  Pioneers were pretty much fully clothed from head to toe – bonnets and hats and high-top shoes.  No bare arms even, let along anything else.

   Yes, it was a different world than what we live in.  I won’t even mention matters of odor.  (Sorry, I guess I just did)  Can you imagine life in the summer with infrequent baths and no deodorant?

   I don’t know for sure about some of this.  But I don’t remember any episodes of “Little House on the Prairie” where they go into the general store and say, “I’ll have five pounds of flour, three pounds of beans and a Mennen Speed Stick – Ocean Surf scent, if you’ve got it.”

   Not this year, but a while back, I talked to a woman who had just gotten back from a church camp for young women in the area.  She said that there were a couple of girls who didn’t want to shower.  Given their odoriferous condition, it was not a choice.  They showered.

   I do have to acknowledge that life was tough for our forebears.  But, we have it tough too.  Why just the other day, for example, I got a paper cut.  You know, there’s nothing worse than a nasty paper cut.  But did I complain and write about it in my journal so that my posterity would know about such an extreme hardship?  No – not me.  I just suffered in silence.

   Truly though, we in our present day world, have struggles and problems that in their own way are serious.  They’re different, but serious.

   If we explained to pioneers about our society’s problems of terrorism, drug addictions, gang wars, murders and crimes of all kinds, and the music of Billie Eilish and Justin Bieber, they’d probably not want to trade their problems for ours.

   So, “party hardy” on Pioneer Day.  Enjoy the celebrations around the county.  Fairview, Spring City, Sterling and Mayfield are good places to enjoy the holiday with parades and festivities.

   Remember the pioneers as you get ready to climb into your air-conditioned vehicle to drive to your Pioneer Day celebration.  And as you think of them, daub on a little extra deodorant, cologne, and perfume.   — Merrill