Strange Happenings in Dixie Part I

For the uninitiated, Dixie is the term used to describe southwestern Utah.  The term came from the late 1800s when Brigham Young sent a colony of settlers to raise cotton.  J. Golden Kimball, one of the LDS Church's more colorful characters, is reputed to have said "If I had to choose between living in St. George and living in hell, I'd rather live in hell."  Dixie had nothing to do with the Confederacy or the Civil War.  It was a term just used to describe a place that gets to be in the middle one-teens in the summer.  Before air conditioning, that was hot.  Now scads of stuff around here is named Dixie as the first name--Dixie Regional Medical Center, Dixie Whatever, long lists of them.  Now the entire community is engaged in a civil war over renaming Dixie State College as it achieves university status.  The anti-Dixie types are squabbling with the pro-Dixie types.  Many speeches, many letters to the editor, much vitriol and bile being spilled.  But I digress.  I return to strange happenings in Dixie.

Yesterday, my dear wife wanted me to accompany me to Walgr een's so she could maintain the same hair color she had at 18.  So I bought a couple of six packs of Hawaiian Sun guava and orange passion, the only place in Utah I have found that carries it.  Hawaiian Sun has a strong tug of nostalgia for our many visits to Hawaii.  Little did I know after I left Walgreen's, following enduring a dear lady who sort of barged in front of me at the cash register with a whole boatload of stuff and who couldn't find her Rewards card and had to fish for awhile to find her cash.  But I tried to make allowances, since it is the New Year,  that I would be accompanying my wife to the Dollar Store.  Yes, I know this is a long sentence.  Live with it.

The one advantage of the dollar store is that you know immediately how much everything costs.  We bought exactly thirteen items.  But I was not through.  My wife then opined that the water softener salt was gone and I needed to buy salt at Lin's Grocery, next door.  Whereupon I quickly rounded up a few grocery items we were out of such as pancake syrup, paid for it plus five bags of extra course salt, and headed for the car with a healthy young man to load the salt.  Whereupon I asked him, as I ask every young person of college age, "Are you going to school?"  No, he said, I'm, a swimmer and I broke my leg so I'm working for awhile and then I'll go back."  He then informed me he was going into physical therapy, and I said, that's great, I have a grandson in the physical therapy doctoral program at UNLV.  So I had my college student discussion in the parking lot since I am of no use on a college campus any more.

When we returned home, the strange happenings began.  For that, you need to go to the next post.