Bubble Shock

In my twenty-odd years of life, I’ve never found a place quite like the Bubble. Heck (see… even the euphemisms grow on you), I didn’t even know there could be a place like the Utah bubble until I actually lived there. But I was in for what can only be described as culture shock when I moved as a freshman in high school to Lehi, Utah, having spent practically my entire childhood growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a Mormon, I got used to my religious culture being separate from my life than school and such, and oftentimes it was my only safe place. The school I went to was pretty rough – gang violence every once and a while, and boy there was language that would make Howard Stern blush.

So when I walked into Lehi Jr. High and sat in my 9^th grade geometry class, I didn’t expect a rush of familiarity from world I had always considered separate from my school life. The teacher picked up some chalk and prefaced his explanation with an invitation: “Do as I’m doing.” The following words to a familiar Primary song instantly filled my mind, but it freaked me out a little to hear half the class sing quietly and in unison the words in my own mind: “Follow, Follow Me.” Of course they laughed, but I only shifted uncomfortably in my seat, not sure of how to process what had just happened. It was strange; and it was everywhere.

But it was not only the forced blending of my two spheres something I found strange, but also the secular oddities were just as unsettling. Like with any new place, I had to get used to the lingo and jargon. For example, “PG” meant Pleasant Grove,  the city of “Hurricane” was pronounced “Huricun,” and Spanish Fork was actually called Spanish “Fark.” Furthermore, and depending on where you lived, a “creek” became a “crick,” a “mountain” a “mow’un,” and Layton is ever called “Lay’un.” And one did not talk about the Utah Utes in a friendly  manner in the presence of a BYU football fan and vice versa.

Of course there are oddities in every community and culture,  but such things as the cultural undertones that add depth to Utah’s communities are definitely “peculiar.” And I believe it is exactly these peculiarities that, now that I’ve moved back to the Bubble for college and return every fall, I find refreshing and familiar.

Nevertheless, though I may now say “Flip,” and now that I finally know where the “Point of the Mountain” is actually located, Utah culture is something I can still recognize as delightfully unusual and unique only to the Bubble.