I’m not sure if it happens to everyone who lives in Castle Country but it sure happens to me. I will be somewhere in the metropolitan area of the state and the topic of where I live will come up.
“I live in Price,” I say. Now that is not technically right because I live in unincorporated Carbon County, but close enough. Besides, if I said Carbon County, what happens next may make the issue more confused, which is something I want to avoid at all costs, as you will see.
So what does come next? Well, it is often one of a number of different reactions to my answer. Here are the common ones I have noticed in my 26 years of residing here and letting the cat-our-of-the-bag by telling someone in the city where my home is:
1. They give me a blank stare, but in the blankness of their eyes is the, “Why in the hell would you want to live there?” look.
2. They stare blankly and ask, “Where is Price?”
3. They say, “Oh, you know, I have an old Italian (or Greek, or Slavic, etc.) uncle who lives there.”
4. They tell you a story about how when they were in high school (and it doesn’t matter whether it was in the 1940s or 1990s) their high school’s football team came down to play Carbon High and all their school’s cheerleaders got beat up by the ruffians in the community. But if you quiz them about the details, they will say that they weren’t there but heard about it from “other people.”
5. They will say, “Oh yeah. I stop there for gas when I go to Moab (or Lake Powell, or Denver, etc.).”
6. They say, “Why do you live in the middle of nowhere?”
Why live there?
While the other responses/questions are interesting and can lead to some spirited discussion with individuals whom a Carbon person is talking too, the one I usually concentrate on is the “middle of nowhere response.”
When someone says that to me I either think they are being rude or just can’t figure out why someone would not want to partake of all the big city has to offer. Either way I reply, “Don’t you think the middle of nowhere is kind of relative?” They usually look astounded by that question no matter what their feelings are.
A common expression
I see it this way. We all, at times, have used that term. My car broke down one time between Woodside and Green River and when I made the call to get help I basically said that same thing to my wife and the tow truck service. However, I did know where I was, and I was somewhere, but it was just that there wasn’t an address or any structures nearby. Instead I used a milepost number to describe my location, which in essence, is somewhere.
In the middle of nowhere can mean a lot of things. When I am out in the Swell riding my ATV or dirt bike on a trail I have often had people stop me and say things like, “We are lost out here in the middle of nowhere.” I smile and say something like, “Well I know where we are, so it really isn’t nowhere, but let me show you how you can get to where you want to be.”
But when someone says Price is in the middle of nowhere, I say, “Well you may not mean that rudely, but you do realize that people from New York City consider where you are living right now to be the middle of nowhere, too.” Of course New Yorkers often consider anywhere outside of their immediate area – you know, even Long Island and Jersey – as the hinterlands. I remember a map I saw many years ago that was called, “A New Yorkers View of the U.S.A.” The map was a view from a skyscraper and Manhattan took up about two fifths of it, with New Jersey taking up another big piece. Then there was a long space and Chicago was on in the middle of that space. Then was another very long space and at the end of it was Los Angeles. Nothing else was in between at all. No Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City or even Las Vegas. It was truly a myopic view of the country.
If we drew a similar map for many Salt Lakers looking from the state capitol building south and called it “A Salt Laker’s View of Utah” it would be similar. Salt Lake and vicinity would take up at least a third of the map, with Utah County occupying a little less than another third and toward the right way at the end of an empty space would be a big St. George (written in a seemingly disproportionate size) and in the left corner way down at the other side a Moab (written in red with a big arch over it). People’s inability to know about geography of their own state has always amazed me, but as I discussed recently in another column, the GPS syndrome has made it even worse.
Usually when I point out that Salt Lake, and particularly Provo if that is where I am, are backwaters if you ask people about those areas in many large Eastern, Midwestern and even West Coast cities, those from the Wasatch Front smile and pretend that it just isn’t true. I tell them if you don’t believe me go to downtown Philadelphia or Boston and ask someone about Utah and all they can really tell you it is where the Jazz plays basketball and that only Mormons live here. They will also tell you that if you come here you will have hard time finding a cup of coffee, too. Myths about about our state abound, just as the myths about Castle Country do.
No arguments have ever ensued with anyone I have ever said this to, that is, except those who once lived here and moved away because they didn’t like it. But then that is true of everywhere. There will always be those that don’t like a place or the circumstances they were in when they lived there. I have that same bias about southern California; my experience there was not very good.
Recently, however, I have turned over a new leaf and have started to be proactive instead of reactive in these middle of nowhere situations. When asked, I tell people “If I tell you where I live all the mystery will be gone. It’s a place you probably have never heard of. But it is beautiful there and there are a lot of good people. I am originally from the Wasatch Front, but where I live now is so much better. I would never come back unless I was forced to.”
Some still ask exactly where, and I tell them. Most others shrug off living in the city or say something like “Yeah, the traffic is pretty bad” or “I hate the pollution.” In fact, what I find is that many of them wish they could be just about anywhere else in the state than where they are.
The day will come when we will be discovered. Whether we want that or not, it will come. We will probably never be a St. George (heaven forbid) or a Moab (ditto to the previous heaven comment) but the area will become more popular and more well known as the Wasatch Front grows, construction fills up all the empty space and gridlock becomes so bad that many will be looking for other options.
Meanwhile, I think we should enjoy living in the middle of nowhere for as long as we can.
The middle of nowhere is somewhere, and I happen to like it here
Rick Shaw