Entries by Babs De Lay

Food Sharing

2015 Utah has an official food, a flag, a dog and a tree. The State Tree was for many years the Colorado Spruce but has been changed by our legislators to the Quaking Aspen. Really, I think the state tree should be the historic mulberry. Although it’s not indigenous to our ecosystem, it has plenty […]

Convention Hotel

2015 Have you ever been to a convention for your job where you sit at a hotel/convention center in a room full of supposedly like-minded people, sit at odd shaped tables stacked with sweating water glasses and stare at bad power point presentations for 8 hours a day? Oy, I’ve been to a million of […]

Sugar History

2015 Candy is almost its own food group here in Utah. We eat enormous amounts of it in all forms and there are tried and true historical companies here that have been enabling us for years. How many of you have taken a tour of “Taffy Town” as a kid? Glade Candy Company has been […]

Money Lending

2015 What’s going on in the world of money lending? Take a step back to quote of the most famous lenders of all time, a fictional Shakespeare character in The Merchant of Venice. “Shylock” lends the hero Antonio money so that he can woo the woman he’s in love with (the heiress Portia) enough to […]

Sandy Rising

2015 A wise Greek once told me “The economic health of a city can be seen by counting the number of cranes in the sky”. After many years of development drought, there are currently many of these metal praying mantises hovering over various blocks in downtown Salt Lake City. A high rise office tower is […]

Addicted to Homes

2015 Admit it. You’re a complete addict. You look at them in bed, at work, on your phone. Your heart flutters, you feel tickles inside your lower belly, and you’re totally obsessed. “You like to think that you’re immune to the stuff. It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough. You know […]

St. Jennie

2014 It may be hard to believe that the area surrounding most of the homeless shelters and The Road Home used to be even sketchier than it is now. The drugs, drinking, homelessness and crime that haunts the non-profit oasis has been established there since Salt Lake City became a town. The ‘Red Dirt District’ […]

Poopy Problems

2014 Recently Salt Lake City had its own version of Old Faithful when a 48-ince water main broke on Foothill Boulevard just south of the University of Utah. Millions of gallons of precious water flooded homes and a Montessori School (the old Jewish Community Center) located just west of the break. Officials say that the […]

Our Oldest Cemetery

2014 Whaaaaaa? October already? For you folk that love summer I’m sure you’re sad that cooler weather is upon us. I’m a fan of hoodies myself and I’m happy as hell to see that the ski resorts around the capitol city got a half foot of the first dusting of snow this past weekend. When […]

Carriage Days

2014 This holiday season you won’t be seeing horse drawn carriages in downtown Salt Lake City. The only company providing rides to paying customers has quietly closed-to the cheers of PETA supporters. You might recall the sad pictures in the press during the summer of 2013 when Jerry, the dapple gray horse belonging to ‘Carriage […]