Back in the Golden 70s, I moved to Sugar House in SLC with my best friend. We palled around (how do you spell "pal around" in the past tense?!) We spent time with another of our friends who bought us Utah Symphony season tickets, and we took the bus to the concerts. Busses didn't run late enough for us to get a ride home, so we walked to his place in the Avenues and stopped to load up on banana splits at Snelgrove Ice Cream Parlor which stayed open that late. We roamed around Trolley Square, which was quite different in those days than it is now, spent time downtown in the ZCMI Mall, and discovered the International Peace Museum. They were halcyon days, no disputing.
But, my friends kept a secret from me. I do not like secrets, by the way--they hurt my heart. I know it's childish to feel that way, but imagine if I feel excluded by secrets now at my age, what it felt like then when my BEST FRIEND had a secret with someone else! I understand it now and even understood it a little bit then, but still and all.
The Secret? 
GILGAL GARDENS.
My friends were LDS and I wasn't and they thought I might be too weirded out by this quirky little find. They really didn't know quite what to make of it themselves and they never told me what or where "Gilgal" was and they really didn't talk much about it, so I mostly forgot about it. I kind of wondered over the years if I could find it, but I was sure it wasn't still there, where ever there might have been. Until just a few years ago.
If you haven't seen this place, you're really missing something, I think. It may look strange, but the more you see and read of it, the more you understand the sculptor's Thomas Battersby Child) love, faith and committment The website has a slick interactive tour that describes the art and explains how it came to be, how it almost came to not be and how it came to remain right there behind Chuck-A-Rama in Salt Lake City.
1 comment:
I have always driven past that place, but have never stopped to roam. Now the next time I am there I will have to stop and look. I grew up in Sugar House, so that's fun to hear about all the places you went. I lived just a couple blocks south of Snelgrove Icecream, I loved that place.
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