The pie is a lie!

Pioneer Day is only my sixth-favorite holiday, and in many ways, I feel like it's only a partial holiday. But since I'm writing a book on it, I feel partial ownership of the day.

(Now, you might ask, if it's only your sixth favorite, why are you writing a book? Well, first of all, no one else has done it. And second, I'm familiar with the necessary sources. If I were to write a book about, say, the history of St. Patrick's Day, I wouldn't know where to begin.)

I had to work on Pioneer Day, but I work in a pioneer place, so it's not too bad.

Getting to work was a problem, however. The Deseret News Marathon (which began in 1970) was going along Foothill Drive. If you Googled the route of the marathon, the map on the Days of '47 website was wrong. They did that last year too. Get your act together!

I was stationed in the barbershop that day, which isn't my favorite site to work in. But it occurred to me that it might be a better site for a busy day, because the print shop gets super hot and I get stressed out weighing too much "gold" in the bank. It was a little intimidating when the CEO brought his grandsons in for "shaves." I've heard stories about him being nitpicky when people don't do things how he thinks they should be done. But he said it was the busiest Pioneer Day crowd they had had.

I assisted with firing the cannon, which is a tradition that goes back to the very first July 24 celebration of 1849. (It wasn't called Pioneer Day until the 1870s.) We also had a mini parade that was meant to replicate the first procession of 1849. (They weren't called parades at that time.) I got the men to carry copies of the Declaration of  Independence and two of the women to carry copies of the Book of Mormon, since that's how it started. I was annoyed when one of my coworkers was trying to make the ladies go first. I kept insisting that it wasn't historically accurate! (It also isn't inherently more polite.) But the person in charge made the men go first, thankfully.

Since we had small numbers and limited resources, we couldn't make it identical to the first procession. But in a way, that makes it historically accurate. Many smaller celebrations would replicate the Salt Lake procession using what they had. For example, it was typical to escort Brigham Young to the meeting grounds. An 1856 celebration aboard a ship had a procession with fewer people, and they escorted the ship's captain to the meeting place.

I wanted to do something for Pioneer Day that I hadn't done before, so my options were to go to a rodeo or go to a Pie and Beer Day event. I despise beer and drinking culture, but honestly, a rodeo didn't sound much better. (Rodeos have been part of the celebration since the 1930s.) I searched for Pie and Beer Day events. I was surprised there weren't more events; most of them were prohibitively expensive, far away, and/or at inconvenient times. But I found that Quarters Arcade Bar was having a Pie and Beer Day thing going on.

So down I went into the dark, smelly place and showed my ID. It turns out all they were doing was a discount on beer. There was no pie at all! How can you call that Pie and Beer Day?

So I walked past several bars downtown. Often bars have signs out for special events (e.g. St. Patrick's Day), but none of them had signs out for Pie and Beer Day. Of all businesses, bars would be the ones who would benefit the most from such a "day." In fact, there were at least two bars that were closed for the day, and one of them even said it was closed for Pioneer Day (not Pie and Beer Day)!

I only found one place that claimed to do anything, Maxwell's, which is apparently both a bar and a restaurant, depending on which door you enter. (I didn't see the restaurant door.) Their sign out front had a fruit pie, but inside, there were no fruit pies (that I could tell). Their only pie was pizza, which is what they sell all the time. They had a slight discount on it, but only if you bought a whole pizza. So I ordered a slice of pizza and called it good.

All this taught me something. There is a lot of publicity about Pie and Beer Day, but it really isn't a thing. A few places have events for it, but it's not a widespread thing. Pioneer Day, the OG, is still the bigger event.

I have mixed feelings about Pie and Beer Day. On one hand, it makes me mad that people feel they have to make a separate day. Utah exists because of pioneers. Just because you might not share their faith (or you might disagree with it) doesn't change that fact. So why can't you appreciate what they did? (I also despise drinking, and I have a tremendous amount of schadenfreude for drunk people, but those are tangents for another day.)

On the other hand, it seems to make people more aware of the holiday, whereas they might otherwise ignore it. Many of the promotional materials for Pie and Beer Day that I have seen have made reference to pioneers.

I really think anyone who is fair minded at all, or who is at all capable of rational thought, doesn't have a major problem with Pioneer Day, even if they might not enthusiastically observe it. Utah might have the biggest Pioneer Day, but communities all over the country have similar holidays.

Fireworks are illegal in my neighborhood now, which is definitely a change from my childhood. (Personal fireworks were banned in Utah in 1939, but I haven't yet found when or why they legalized them again. Fireworks have been part of Pioneer Day since at least 1870.) I decided to go on a late run on the Wild Rose Trail (with my headlamp) so I could see fireworks all over the valley. I think aerial fireworks are crazy, but it was fun to see them from far away. But I didn't watch them as long as I otherwise might have, because the mosquitoes were biting.

As I was driving home, there was a family lighting aerial fireworks, even though they live in the restricted area. If you light them where they are prohibited, you have a sense of entitlement, and at least part of you is a jerk. And I was driving in the road, and when the firework was over, a girl ran into the street in front of me! I rolled down my window and yelled to them, "That's illegal!" But in so doing, I forgot to turn on my blinker, and that's one of my major pet peeves when others do it. Oops. (I also have some schadenfreude for people who light fireworks illegally.)