Small Town, Olympic Hopes

I've lived one place my entire life. My family did move at one point but it was only from "old Kearns" to "new Kearns" a few miles away so we could have a slightly bigger house with a slightly smaller yard. Nothing changed but my ability to keep dogs.

Kearns, Utah started out as an air force training camp in World War II, named camp Kearns (named after a past Utah Senator), it served as such from May 1, 1942 until deactivating on August 15, 1946.

Although a town sprang from it, a lot of the military charm is still around. The Junior High is one of the original buildings and I've always been told has a tunnel underneath to allow props to be moved. Just beyond our borders in West Jordan is the original airstrip where you can drive by and see various kinds of aircraft (and the reason I've vowed to never live near an airstrip again). We have a cannon! What does the Airforce do with a cannon? I'm not sure. For years we pointed it at Taylorsville like we thought they were going to invade but when the memorial mentioned in the picture above was created in 2004, it was moved to look more ceremonial.

Small changes continue throughout time and what started out as a small swimming pool where I learned to float and swim got a giant add on of a fitness center and several pools before getting its most impressive addition to date: the Olympic Oval.

I was in Junior High at the time but my brother was in High School which is right across the street from the Oval. He was in swim team which swam in the old, tiny pool. Because this was still close to 9/11, people were very worried about their students, even more so when one of the suspension arms collapsed as they were building the oval. It was a tragedy, and put everyone on edge.

Utah kids got to take place in raffles and sign up to go see the Olympics. I got to go see the long jump which... was canceled due to high winds. Now it was rescheduled for Sunday, but this was a school event and this is Utah where almost no one lets their kids outside on Sundays, so we never got to see it. But it was nice having the Winter Olympics here anyway and it makes for great Pokémon Go playing now.

Kearns is pretty diverse as the numbers from Wikipedia are: 60.21% non-Hispanic White, 0.89% Black, 0.79% Native American, 2.07% Asian, 1.95% Pacific Islander, and 2.41% from two or more races. 31.68% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. I remember it being less diverse when I was in Elementary but every year growing up it's become a more colorful place to be and that makes me happy.

Growing and learning is important. Kearns started out with a tiny library, roughly the size of a house. But then a church and the second hand shop it operated next door decided to move to a different plot, meaning the library could grow. It chose the perfect time to do it: the pandemic reared its head, making it so going to the library was impossible anyway.

The library finally opened this year and writing this gave me a reason to go inside and check on something I've wanted to know for almost two years.

I was 100% for a bigger, more advanced library. What I worried about was the art from the original library. There were murals and mosaics I loved. I figured to murals were a lost cause, they were part of the framework of the building itself- but I hoped somehow the mosaics could be saved.

Not only had they been saved, for the first time ever, they'd been brought inside.

The old and the new in a cycle together, becoming better because we recognize and remember the frailties of the past and build on them. My hometown is a township, and so far, has chosen to be rather than become a city on our own or become part of one of the bigger cities surrounding us. We like it just fine as an Olympic town, with the best views.