James Jots

Beryl Utah The streets are carved into the desert, but most of the blocks remain empty. NOTE: I have changed the specific location and some of the details out of concern for the privacy of the other individual. A few years ago I was tasked with visiting some of the most remote places in Utah. I used to live in Cedar City, and I felt fortunate whenever my job kept me close to home. So when I saw Beryl, Utah on my travel list, I was happy about it. Beryl, a sparsely populated community of about a thousand people -- two people per square mile -- was just over an hour away, to the west. To get there, I drove along a winding little two lane highway that leads over and between all the juniper covered hills that separate Cedar City from the vast west desert, then I entered into the flat desert valley. To look at Beryl from above one can see how desolate it is. It is brown and gray. Even the sagebrush has taken on the color so that everywhere you look, there's no escaping the...

A Visit To Short Creek

Several years ago I had a job traveling throughout the State of Utah visiting the homes of the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. This job frequently took me to Hildale, Utah, the hub of Warren Jeff's Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) Church. During those years, I had many experiences that eventually taught me how gentle and sincere the members of that community are. Once they are convinced that you are not hostile, they might just talk your ear off. On a perfect Spring day in 2009, I sat in my car watching the goings on in the Hildale park, while I waited for a morning meeting to start at their town hall. I was marveling at the fun all those children were having. Their park was a wonderland. Most city parks are built with concern for potential injury lawsuits, or for the safety of children, with pathetic plastic slides and with swing sets that hang too low to the ground, so if a child falls he won't fall too far. That is...

Strangers In Monticello

M onticello is a small town in Utah’s eastern high desert. To the west of Monticello are mountains and Utah’s world-famous geological wonders — red and white stone towers, and otherworldly sandstone and limestone canyons with their soft curves and forbidding facades. To the east of Monticello is flatland filled with farms, fields, desert brush, and junipers. And if you can see far into the distance, the flatland seems to drop away abruptly, into another strange alien landscape where on a clear day you can make out the distant silhouettes of stone towers, like monsters or buildings, far away. I was driving drowsily on my way to Blanding, and decided to stop for the night in Monticello. I pulled into the first hotel that caught my eye, booked a room, then went in search of food, settling for an old storefront with “Pizza and Pasta” painted on the window. Expecting to find myself inside a restaurant, I took a book — Herman Melville’s Moby Dick , which I’ve be...

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