The Property

The Virgin Town Water Tank - Photo Courtesy the Virgin Town Website

She'd only been my new best friend for a little over an hour when I realized that establishing my new identity was going to be much more difficult than I had originally surmised…

After having driven around for several hours trying to find our new home, my parents had finally turned the family truck toward St. George, the largest city in Washington County, Utah – which really isn't saying much.  The irony is, as we were driving around in circles through the various plots of horse country and farmland, my sister and I were utterly oblivious to the fact that we were lost.  We were in the camper in the back of the truck, after all, and not privy to whatever conversations or navigational concerns our parents were expressing amongst themselves down in the cab.  We were watching endless miles of open nothingness pass by the windows and assuming that we were still simply on our way to wherever it was we were moving and when we finally caught the dim glimmer of St. George's tiny sprawling oasis, I thought that we were almost home.

Perhaps it was because I'd always been a city kid or maybe I'd just allowed my imagination to do more decision making than my ears, but I had imagined that our new home would be quite similar to the old one.  A neighborhood with sidewalks and schools, cul-de-sacs and corner stores – a place with restaurants and movie theaters and traffic lights.  St. George fit that picture quite well, to be honest.  At the time it was small enough, especially compared to Roy, to qualify – in my mind – as the 'small town' my parents had been referencing but large enough to be the kind of place that people actually lived … at least, people who drove cars and used electricity and knew what a computer looked like.  It did have a movie theatre – two of them, in fact – and a plethora of restaurants and fast food and gas stations and certainly it's fair share of traffic lights.  It was a proper town where it didn't seem out of the question to imagine 'living' in a camper while building a home with some land for horses.

Approaching Virgin Town - Photo Courtesy Heidi Puccio

It really didn't even throw me off that much when we first pulled into the RV Park and my dad went inside to rent a space for the night.  Of course we would be living in an RV Park with showers and a sitting room in the office with a community TV while we built our house.  Certainly, I didn't think we would be living in the driveway for a month or more.  This must be why, when my sister and I found the family dog terrorizing a wounded pigeon the next morning, we felt absolutely justified in catching it and putting it inside an empty metal trash can.  I can't speak for my sister, of course, but I had more or less determined that our home was probably only a few blocks away and we would be spending a lot of time at this RV Park over the next few months.  If only that could have been the case!

My dad was vehemently against the idea of a pet pigeon.  Though I don't recall him outright saying as much, I believe he would have preferred us to just let the dog eat the bird and be done with it.  Such as it was, however, he humored us for the brief time that we spent there that day while my mom enjoyed a shower and my sister and I tried to figure out, or invent, the rules to shuffleboard.  It must have been early afternoon when we finally loaded ourselves back into the camper, along with the dog, and my dad turned the pigeon out into some bushes to fend for himself.  I still thought we would just be going to see the new place and probably returning later than night when I could look for the bird and recapture it.  It wasn't until we pulled onto the freeway and the reddish-brown sprawl of that warm little city began growing distant in the back windows that I started to wonder just how much further, exactly, we had to go.

Virgin, Utah is the kind of city that you can drive right through without even realizing it's there.  With one main road that passes right through it at 65 miles per hour and no more than a half-dozen homes visible from it on either side, I think most people just assume it's more a of random dump site than a bonafied town with its own park, church, and even a town hall.  It was largely regarded as a joke to most of the inhabitants of Washington County and the rest generally didn't even know it existed at all.  It was the kind of place that when you tell someone where you live they always offer you half of a chuckle, either because they've been there or because of the inherent humor of the name itself.  Let me tell you, there isn't a joke left to the imagination that I haven't already heard.  

Virgin City Limits Sign

Tourists on their way to Zion National Park were known for stopping along the highway at the city limits sign, a plain green rectangle that said nothing at all except "VIRGIN" in big blocky white letters, and lining up their daughters underneath it for a photo-op.  When we did return to northern Utah to visit family members, some time later, they had a wealth of jokes and jabs to offer about the name, and to this day when people ask me where I grew up I usually just tell them St. George because I know that if I say "Virgin" it will lead to an obnoxious misunderstanding followed by a seven minute conversation about what could have possessed someone to name a city using the social title of a person that has never had sexual intercourse.  Surpassed by none, however, in her unbiased appreciation for the cornucopia of lude humor such a town could inspire, was our mayor, Miss Patsy.  In fact, it was not uncommon for her to turn up to town events and socials wearing T-Shirts of her own design with something along the lines of "I may live here but that doesn't mean I am one" silk-screened on them.

To get to Virgin from St. George you have to exit Interstate 15 at the Hurricane off-ramp which was, at the time, a long lonely road full of nothingness for miles in every direction.  If you stay on the road long enough you'll come to, and pass through, the city of Hurricane which was, ironically, known for having the most over-zealous and ticket-hungry police force in the entire state of Utah.  Eventually you'll cross a bridge over a ravine that could easily pass for a black-rock miniature version of The Grand Canyon and find yourself in an even smaller town called La Verkin where you'll want to make a right turn at what was then a four-way stop onto Highway 9.  This will lead you up a winding nightmarish hill locals call 'The Twist' and then you'll be greeted by more lonely – yet stunningly beautiful, in its own way – nothingness until you eventually find yourself in Virgin.  If you stay on that road you'll wind up in Zion National Park sooner or later but if you take the second, and last, left turn off that road while still inside the city limits you'll be well on your way to finding our new stomping grounds.  I can't be certain, but I think this turn must have been the last successful navigation decision that my parents had made the previous night before getting lost.  It's understandable, of course, because the road winds and twists some more as it leads toward breathtaking Kolob Canyon but if you know where you're going, you'll miss one of the curves, leave the blacktop, and find yourself climbing an incredibly steep hill on a dirt road overgrown on either side by hearty desert trees and there, at the top of the hill on the left, was where we finally pulled in to take our first look around.

'The Property' - Between the red barn on the left and the wooden fence on the right, from the road and as far back as the eye could see (before those two buildings were constructed). 
Photo Credit: Google Earth Street View (imagine my surprise to find it had been 'street viewed'!)

It's not so bad now but back then, remote would have been an understatement.  There were other houses around but not many and most of them on at least an acre or more of their own land.  The minute Patch jumped out of the back of the camper a half dozen jackrabbits and cotton tails scattered from the two-acre puddle of brown foxtails and deer grass that we were planning to tame.  Patch was a young dog then, fairly fit, and certainly full of life so it was no surprise when he gave chase and we knew right away that he, at least, absolutely loved our new home.  My sister and I were wide eyed and full to the brim with the excitement of the many possibilities this new place afforded.  We asked if we could go introduce ourselves to the new neighbors and my dad said yes, so long as we didn't go too far away to hear him calling for us. 

This was also my mother's first glimpse of the new place and though I wasn't paying attention to it then, I can imagine that her reaction must have been somewhat less enthusiastic than ours.  She was never a country girl.  She'd grown up in southern California, moved to Utah, and lived in cities her entire adult life.  She appreciates beautiful scenery as much as anyone, but she was never overly fond of camping, horses, fishing, bugs, or outdoor adventures of any kind that I can recall.  Whenever we did do something rustic she was usually the one behind the camera, taking pictures while the rest of us got dirty and relished in exciting adventures.  At theme parks she would offer to hold everyone's beverages and cotton candy while we rode the rides because she was too afraid of heights to join us. 

Virgin had a town store, even back then but it was all boarded up at the time and looked like it
hadn't been used in over a decade.  I believe it has since been reclaimed and reopened.

Don't get me wrong, my mother wasn't a party pooper – she just partied in a different way.  When we were still attending public school, it wasn't out of the question, on special occasions, for her to take a day off work, call our schools to report that we were sick even though we weren't and then take us to play hooky over a nice lunch followed by a visit to the movie theater.  I even recall her taking us out once to toilet paper someone's yard in Roy before we moved away.  All of our friends absolutely adored her and even we, her own kids, enjoyed having her hang out with us when we were with our friends.  She was definitely a fun mom in many ways … but back then I just don't think the great outdoors were really her preferred cup of tea.  Knowing this, I can't imagine how difficult and terrifying it must have been for her to realize that we'd severed our ties to civilization and followed my dad to Utah's own version of Timbuktu.

My parents began talking about the layout as my dad shared his vision with my mom; where we would begin digging the foundations, what kind of fence we would have, where they would put the garden.  All boring talk to my sister and I so we ran off down the hill toward the first proper house that we could see.  It was a long single-story building that resembled the design and shape of a double-wide trailer, but it was divided into two parts like a duplex.  We knocked on the door and a very kind-faced older woman appeared and greeted us in precisely the manner that two of our three grandmothers would have done.  Since that statement may have confused some of you, let me explain.  Yes, my sister and I had three grandmothers because my father's mother loved and accepted her as much as her father's mother loved and accepted me.  Our mother's mother was the one not overly fond of children and rarely had much to do with us before we became teenagers but Gramsy Smith and Grandma Gresh were doting, enthusiastic, women who spoiled the hell out of us at every opportunity.  This woman, whom we would eventually and unofficially adopt as our fourth grandmother, was very much like them in many ways.  She had a big, fat, old cinnamon Chow Chow named Choppy and two brand new little kittens that she decided to let us name as she hadn't yet come up with something for them.

My sister and I took the naming of animals very seriously and spent several days trying to think up the perfect name for the kittens, but we stayed on Grandma Kathy's lawn for some time enjoying the shade, playing with the animals, and sipping lemonade.  No, I'm not making that last part up – she offered us lemonade and cookies when we introduced ourselves.  She and her husband Jerry, whom we called Grandpa Wilkins, lived in the home alone with their animals and though they had kids and grand kids of their own, we only ever saw them around the house a scant handful of times.  Eventually Grandma Kathy told us that the house we'd passed on the road just before climbing the hill to the property had kids near our age so we bid farewell to go make new introductions.  When we knocked on the door it was initially answered by a boy a few years younger than I was but then his sister arrived, and she was the same age as me.  They invited us inside to visit and we sat on the sofas in their living room chatting very maturely like grown-ups, asking each other civilized questions like what kind of music we listened to and what did we like to do for fun.  The girl's name was Emily, but I don't recall her brother's name anymore.  My sister had introduced herself by her given name but, if you'll recall from the previous chapter, my dad had told me that I could change my name when we moved, and I had taken him very, very seriously.  When Emily asked my name, I said Toni with a confidence and surety that would have made the witness protection program proud and Emily and her brother bought it hook, line, and sinker … at first.

To the right: Emily's house - To the left of the trees and straight back
the steep hill that led to the property.

But as we sat there chatting my sister referred to me as Lynsee a few times before Emily finally got curious enough to ask about it and that was when I froze like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide like tea saucers, full of panic and fixed on my sister in desperation.  I'd hated the name Lynsee my whole 10-year-long life and vehemently wanted my new name to stick.  To her credit she shrugged and smiled and said, 'that's just what we call her' and she did so with enough casual grace that Emily didn't question it further – she didn't even appear to be suspicious!  Not long after that we heard the deafening whistle of summons.  The whistle … it's impossible to understand unless you've actually heard it but let me try to paint a picture for you. 

My dad's whistle was a single sound that started high-pitched and gradually deepened slightly.  Like the last whoop of a police siren right before it shuts off and loud enough that back in Roy we could hear it while playing with our friends in the basements of their homes from two blocks away.  He didn't purse his lips together like most people do when they want to whistle.  Instead he curled his tongue up behind the bottom row of his front teeth and blasted air over the back of his tongue.  He never did it while indoors because it would have been deafening and even our friends knew that the first whistle stood for 'drop everything, it's time to come home'.  In Roy the whistle was so well known on our street and among our friends that if we dawdled just a little too long our friends would say 'you'd better go, your dad just whistled' and then we would find ourselves running toward the house while silently praying that we were moving fast enough for him to get a visual on us before he felt the need to whistle again because if he had to whistle twice … let's just say we didn't make him whistle twice very often.  Our new friend and her brother also eventually developed the same Pavlovian respect for the whistle that our old friends had had but I do remember that they looked quite puzzled, that first time, when my sister and I just suddenly bolted off their couches and started heading toward the door with hurried explanations because it didn't matter that we were in a new town with new names – dad's whistle was universal.

When we arrived back at the camper my sister said nothing of my new identity to our parents who had likely long forgotten my dad's promise, or simply presumed I would have forgotten it, at least.  We had dinner and took turns using the tiny two-by-two bathroom to change into our pajamas before going to bed.  That first night seemed like it was never going to end, and I think my sister was the only one capable of getting even a wink of sleep for the first few hours.  She's lucky in that she and my mother are the kind of people who can slip effortlessly into blissful rest the instant their heads touch down on anything even remotely soft, but I had suffered with insomnia, even at that age, for most of my life and it usually took me an hour or more with soothing music playing softly before I could fall asleep on any given night.  I didn't have music that night but even if I had, sleep would have eluded me just the same.  It had been hours since the sun had set and still the heat was unnaturally sweltering.  If their tossing and turning could have been any indication, my parents weren't enjoying it much either.  The door and every window on the camper was wide open in the hopes of catching even the slightest of breezes to make things bearable but there wasn't a single breeze to be had.  The heat seemed to be emanating up from the ground itself, and indeed that's exactly how things work in the desert, and the whole world felt like a sweltering, dry, oven of misery.

Back home in Roy if I didn't have music to listen to I could also be soothed by the serenading clickety-clack of the late-night cargo trains chugging along the very distant railroad tracks, but this new place had a different kind of crooning in mind.  If the heat and the silence and the excitement and uncertainty hadn't been enough on their own, the ferocity with which my heart leapt into my throat would have sealed the deal the moment that the not-so-distant coyotes had begun to sing.