Just in case you don’t know, today is a holiday in Utah. Well, technically speaking, yesterday was the holiday, but since that was a Sunday and nothing much is allowed to happen here on Sundays, the festivities were bumped to today.
This isn’t news to the locals who read this blog and who probably have the day off and won’t even see this entry until tomorrow. But if you live somewhere else and are not of The Body — apologies for the obscure Star Trek reference — let me explain:

Pioneer Day is the local version of what other communities would call a “founder’s day.” It commemorates the 1847 arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley and is traditionally observed with the same sorts of activities one usually does on the Fourth of July: picnics and barbecues with the family, semi-lame homegrown carnivals, fireworks at dusk, a big rodeo (this is the Wild, Wild West, after all), and, of course, a parade through the streets of downtown Salt Lake. Utahns love parades, and the Days of ’47 Parade, as it is formally called (and which is actually underway as I type this) is the biggest in the state.

I believe it may be one of the biggest in the country, too. Like other big, well-known parades, it features floats, high-school marching bands, bagpipers, equestrian groups, and antique cars, as well as entries specific to Utah, like representations of local industries and historically authentic Mormon handcarts drawn by costumed re-enactors.

In recent years, the parade has drawn some fire from people who think it excludes non-Mormons and ignores the various “gentile” groups that played a role in the state’s history. This has been remedied somewhat by a self-consciously PC effort to spotlight different local sub-cultures, so now, in addition to cowboys and blond moppets, the parade also features Polynesian dancers, Americans Indians, and Greek business boosters. (Floats representing Irish pubs, the gay community, and Bruce Campbell fans remain conspicuously absent, however.)

Pioneer Day itself has also been criticized because many Utahns seem to make a bigger fuss about it than that other little holiday that has the misfortune of occurring in July, and this really rubs some citizens the wrong way. These critics usually stop short of suggesting that Utah Mormons are outright treasonous because the local celebration trumps the national one in local hearts and minds, but it’s pretty obviously what they’re thinking. At the very least, they find something questionable about the prevailing attitudes in the state. Many of them seem to believe that Mormons would happily secede from the Union and set up an independent theocracy out here in the desert, if given half a chance; this is hopelessly outdated thinking, and not at all based on recent observations. While the Mormons may have disdained federal rule back in Brigham Young‘s day, modern-day Mormons — Utahns in general, really — are almost hysterically patriotic. It seems to me that most people around these parts tend to view Pioneer Day as a de facto extension of Independence Day, and American flags abound on both days. That’s right, folks, we Utahns like the Fourth of July so much, we celebrate it twice a year!

I’m not exaggerating, at least not by much. When I was a kid, I honestly had some difficulty distinguishing between the two holidays because their trappings are so similar. The flags, the fireworks, the hotdogs and midway-style games at the park, and the salt-water taffy thrown at you with deadly accuracy from passing parade-floats… it’s really all the same, regardless of whether it’s the beginning of July or the end. The Days of ’47 Parade even includes many of the same entries that appear in Utah’s Independence Day celebrations.

I used to enjoy these two holidays much more than I do now. Partly, that was because of the afore-mentioned candy — how can a child not like the thoughts of taffy raining down from a summer-blue sky? But I also enjoyed the festivities that went along with the July holidays. You see, when I was a kid, Riverton and its neighboring town Draper had a kind of sweethearts-deal about the July holidays. Riverton put on a parade, fair, and fireworks show for the Fourth, while Draper did the same a couple weeks later for the Twenty-fourth. Residents of each town visited the other for their respective celebrations, you saw a lot of familiar faces, and it was all very small-townish and quaint.

These days, Riverton and Draper still host their traditional alternating celebrations, but both towns have grown so much in recent years that old-timers like me no longer recognize faces in the crowd, and the various events have become too slick and professional-looking. Instead of farmers riding tractors bedecked with crepe-paper streamers, the small-town parades are now dominated by cars carrying politicians and car-dealers.

As for the big celebrations in Salt Lake… well, I never have understood the fuss that’s made over the Days of ’47 Parade. People actually camp out overnight for this thing, sleeping on hard sidewalks (or not sleeping at all) and enduring the sun and heat of Salt Lake in July, just to get “good” seats at curbside. Hell, I wasn’t even willing to do that for the final Star Wars premiere of all time, let alone an event that happens every year and can be more comfortably viewed on television. But then I guess I am kind of an old party-poop that way.

Or maybe I’m just bitter because I’m at the office today instead of outside, eating hot dogs and taffy… anything’s possible.