I have to warn you that this column is almost, but not quite
political in nature, and I promise not to include any endorsement for either
presidential candidate.
I know that there will be a lot of talk in the next two
months about religious beliefs, because one candidate is openly Mormon and the
other professes to be Christian, though he also has roots in Islam.
I have never, to my knowledge met a Muslim, so I cannot
speak for what I believe any person of that religion truly believes. As in all religions, there are good and bad
people in the mix. However, I tend to
give our president the benefit of a doubt and accept that he is what he says he
is, a Christian.
The Challenger does come with some baggage, much like JFK
did when he ran for and won the presidency.
He was the fist Catholic ever elected to that high position. We’re
supposed to keep religion out of politics, but we cannot help ourselves, we do
have some prejudices when it comes to those topics.
I want to relate to you my one encounter with a family that
practices Mormonism. It was in Utah and
took place on that mountain hike my wife and I took up Mount Timpanogos to Timpanogos National Cave last summer.
In case you weren’t privy to my journal, I’ll tell you that
the hike up and back covered about 3 miles, 1100 feet of elevation and 3½ hours. Judy and I each took one liter of water to drink,
but no food. We learned quickly that we
had made a mistake!
On the way up the trail we stopped frequently to rest and
hydrate. What should have taken about
90 minutes turned into a full 2-hour trek.
At some point on our journey we met up with a family of 6 who had
stopped along with us at a bench. The
littlest member, a 4-year-old girl, must have thought we resembled her
grandparents, as she became very friendly and chatty. The family was from
Provo, only a few miles away.
When we reached the cave entrance, we had missed our tour
time, but were allowed to go on the following one that wasn't entirely filled to the maximum of 20 people. It turned out that the
family we had met, the Locketts—not their real name—were also on that
tour. We all went on the hour-long trip
through the cavern.
The exit from Timpanogos Cave is about a half-mile from the
entrance and, since cave rules prohibited taking walking sticks or strollers
and such into the cave, retrieval of those items entailed a long walk back
across the mountain with more ups and downs.
I was content to leave the walking stick behind, but it was not to be.
The two older Lockett boys volunteered to go back up to the
cave entrance to get my “cane” for me. They trudged up the trail and returned
with the stick in about 10 minutes. I thanked them and then we started back down the trail.
We continued to catch up to the Lockett Family at several
rest areas on the way to the bottom of the mountain, and they graciously
offered us some of the snacks they had brought with them. On the second or third offer we took them up
on it, as hiking was hard, hot work, we had used up all of our water and I was
getting hungry. We received some
granola bars and some juice, for which we expressed our thanks once again.
At the parking lot, we parted ways and wished each other
well. There had been no attempt to
proselytize, but there certainly was a friendly and caring attitude.
I had been told that Utah was a nice place to visit, but if
you are not a Mormon you wouldn’t want to live there, as they are very
stand-offish. Well, I certainly
couldn’t find anything to be further from the truth when we met and shared this
caving experience with the Locketts. They were the kindest and friendliest
people I would ever hope to meet.
I have always loved Utah for its scenery and variety of
attractions, but now I have good reason to love its people as well. I go back there as often as I can.
