Having lived in many of the same places you have (and in Boston at the same time…by the way, hi, it’s been awhile…) I can certainly relate to your observations. I live just off of Lee Highway in No. Va., and noticed a sign for a business on John Mosby Drive on the way to work in D.C. this morning. Come on. Celebrate who you must, but Mosby?

Your thoughts about Utah also struck a chord. I also have my issues with Utah…which for some reason culminate in this horrible claustrophobic feeling I get everytime I go into the WalMart in Springville…but I digress. I guess my attachment for Utah is in the landscape and the gospel, and somehow they’re interconnected for me. Everytime I fly into Salt Lake I sing “Oh Ye Mountains High” in my head and everytime I drive along the east bench portion of I-215 I compare the dry brush on the mountain with the green valley and think, you go Brigham–way to irrigate. (But, honestly, then I also have that guilty, shouldn’t we be concentrating on desert friendly foilage and save the water feeling–but not the point here.) I guess that I see civilization in Utah as a testament to the faith of people who gave everything for a radical new religion. And then I wonder how my faith compares. I guess after you have those same thoughts over and over, they just sort of sink into your identity, and you become connected to the land.

The other thing you get around DC are all of the plaques stuck in odd corners of suburban N. Va. noting that this or that fort once stood here. The ubiquity of these things is a continuing testimony to the fact that there was a time when Washington D.C. was the most heavily fortified city on earth.

We currently reside in a community in SoCal that used to be a farming community. It has become a commuter haven for all of those working in Orange County. I have lived here since I was a senior in high school, departing at times to go to school and to live in various places for short times and then to return. My daughter pointed out once how she thought it was so funny that all of the streets in town running north and south are named after ivy league colleges. (I had never put it together) What is so funny was that very few of the high school kids actually go to college. It is a strange place. Even the mountain in the valley has an S on it to signify one of the high schools, but everyone knows it really stands for “stuck”. Some make it out and become successful, most however stay and lead day in, day out lives. Needless to say, we got out and then returned. It was a native american community and legend has it that if you’re born under the shadow of the great mountain you can never leave. Thus our return – my husband was born here.

My favorite place in the whole world though is Texas. The first time I went was like going home for the first time. Then to visit the Alamo and west Texas was incredible. West Texas is where you can actually smell oil in the air! I love it. Then there’s little Bartlett, a small farming community with the earth as black and rich as coal. The people are friendly and welcoming. Austin and the Texas government, going to the gallery and listening to the state senate argue over the needs of the citizens of the great state! The fact that they have their own militia and can secede from the nation if need be, shows their inclusion yet independence. I long for Texas and the bluebonnets.

I’ve noticed, with part amusement and part exasperation, that at social gatherings many Utah Mormons (and this is especially true of those from the Salt Lake area) instantly connect on the topic of high schools. My exasperation extends from the frequency of these discussions, and my amusement from the topic itself. Why high schools? It seems like such a juvenile and nostalgic topic. (Perhaps it’s precisely its nostalgic quality that justifies itself.)

My wife has suggested to me that perhaps part of Mormons’ affinity and fondness for Utah is that its culture and geography (as Nate suggested) are enmeshed with their religion. Like most Mormons, I value my religious beliefs highly; however, for me, Mormonism is not associated with any specific geography. That must be why I am so confused by this tendency of Mormons to have an inordinate (in my view) attachment to Utah.

An aside: I too greatly admire Wallace Stegner, and also recommend his fiction. He wrote my all-time favorite novel: Angle of Repose.

East and West High School represent the “core” Salt Lake suburbs. These are areas that were built up mainly before the Depression. It is amazing the degree to which there are northern East Bench families that have inhabited the northern East Bench (and hence East High School) for generations. This is where the old-line Salt Lake City families and the Utah/Mormon aristocracy live. For example, this area has produced a disproportionate number of GAs and prominent Utah politicians. The families are frequently inter-married, or related. I married into a wonderful, north East bench family (I have nothing but good things to say about my in-laws). Nevertheless, I am amazed at the extent to which my wife is related to people.

In contrast, if you went to Skyline, Olympus, Brighton, etc. then you are from the southern East Bench. This represents the outer ring of SLC suburbs, areas that were built up since the 1970s. Those who live here are much more likely to be recent move ins to the state, many of them — like my parents — did not grow up in Utah at all. This does not, of course, mean that these move ins are non-Mormons. Quite the opposite. The south East Bench is now more Mormon than the old Mormon elite heartland of the north East Bench. However, on the southern east bench you are much more likely to encouter people who grew up in small towns in Idaho or Wyoming and then settled in the “big city.” The families are less interconnected, less likely to have representives in the top ranks of church or state, and are less likely to have deep roots in Salt Lake.

Then of course, you have the west side high schools. Having grown up on the east bench (south), I have a less nuanced sense of the cues. The west side is universally less wealthy than the east side. However, there are other distinctions as well. For example, Taylorsville High School represents a post-1970s suburban community. A couple of miles away is Bingham High School, which represents an old, non-Mormon minining town at the foot of the Oquir Mountains.

Blake, I expect that many of the “what high school did you go to” conversations that you heard occured in the Cambridge, MA wards. To the extent that these ward are populated by Utah transplants, they are likely (especially among undergraduates) to come from north East Bench families. They are simply getting oriented. It is not that these people are snobs (some are; the vast majority are not). It is just that they are using fairly reliable place holders as a way of locating the social origins of particular Utahns. Note, I don’t think that most of them would even consciously articulate the social groupings that I have laid out, but I nevertheless think that they are there.

Having said that, I’m chuckling, because I bristled a little at your explanation of the high schools. Very accurate assessment of East/West, but you started to lose the distinction as you moved south. I would argue that Olympus, Skyline, Highland, and Granite, are more depression/WWII communities, with Alta, Brighton, Cottonwood etc. being the 1970s+ areas. My Olympus high neighborhood was subdivided in the depression, and many people still have chicken coops in their back yard to prove it. My family has been in the same ward for four generations. Roots go deep in Salt Lake. People don’t move, and yes, there is a ton of intermarriage.

Talking about the high schools you went to (no matter where you’re from) is always tedious for anyone else in the room. Since I never meet other Coloradans out here, I don’t get to exact that torture on anyone.