Pioneer Day

Today's Pioneer Day (celebration of the Mormon migration finally landing in Salt Lake City and settling down for good--kinda like celebrating the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Hm. I wonder if we'll ever have a Green Family end-of-migration Day?) We celebrated with a huge picnic (tri tip, a local S. Californian tradition) and roadshows. If you don't know what these are, they are higher quality productions than skits you might do at camp, but they are still sort of campy and funny and sometimes eye-rolling. I thought these were better than most, maybe because one group managed to work Napoleon Dynamite into a time travel adventure back to pioneer days. The Happy Hands Club and the seagulls and the crickets. Yeah. Maybe you had to be there. They were all teenagers doing the shows, and I was amused that really, nothing has changed at all since I was one. Well, there are cell phones and computers. But the core of what it is to be a teen seems to be sort of universal, which is good when you're writing teen books. Anyhow, the kids had never seen a roadshow and were quite entertained (and in the case of my 12YO, a little alarmed, because at last minute he was invited to join in, which he declined, as spontaneous acting is not his thing and singing and dancing in front of basically anyone gives him terrors).

Historical side note regarding pioneers, which I think is appropriate, given that paranormals are so popular at the moment. Some of my husband's ancestors traveled to Utah on a coffin. They were from England, emigrated to St. Louis, and ran out of money when the dad died. The rest of the family took care of a missionary who was very ill who made them promise to bring his body back to his family if/when he died. He did, and they did. The little girls slept on top of it at night, and I think they sat on it in the wagon whenever they were taking a rest from walking. Um. Fun times?