Salt Lake City Memories

Day 5--My (Bas') family immigrated to Salt Lake City in 1958, when I was 10 years old. My parents lived there for 20 years. During that time, my dad worked as a carpenter and construction superintendent, supervising the construction of multi-story buildings and structures around the Mountain West. This is one of the buildings that my dad built in Salt Lake City.

I graduated from high school in 1965, when I was 17. Three months later, I was on my way to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since then, I have returned to Salt Lake City only for one summer and several brief visits. Lynn, our children, and I were last here more than 30 years ago. Nevertheless, my childhood memories of Salt Lake City are very strong.

On Saturday, Lynn and I drove through the neighborhoods I called home during my time in Salt Lake City. We visited some of the places that shaped my life—schools, homes, churches, parks, mountains.

I’m proud to say that I could drive to almost all of these places without a map or GPS. That’s quite a feat because Salt Lake City has mushroomed in size since I was a child. Entire cities have come into being in the Salt Lake valley since I left. Everywhere I looked, there were new buildings, freeways, stores.

I hardly recognized some places, like downtown Salt Lake City, which has changed dramatically. And then there were places, like the duplex we lived in while I was in Salt Lake, that seemed so familiar that I could almost hear the voices of my family inside when I stood in front of our home.

It’s so interesting to go back to a place where you grew up as a child. Houses, neighborhood, stores, churches, schools seem small compared to their size in your memory. Distances seem much closer while driving in car as an adult rather than walking or riding a bike as a child.

I attended three schools during my time in Salt Lake City. The Christian elementary school is no more, although the building that my father and other church members built still stands and is used as a worship center by several small churches.

The junior high school has moved elsewhere and is now occupied by a private school. The high school from which I graduated has been completely torn down, with a new facility built in its place. Only part of the old façade remains.

While much has changed in the neighborhoods I visited today, the memories remain strong and clear. As I stood in front of the house where we lived, I could picture my mom cooking, my dad coming home from a hot day at a construction site, my brother and me wrestling with my dad on the living room floor, my practice sessions on our upright piano, the desk that my dad built for me as a place to study when I got my own room, the gunfights my brother and I had with our air rifles in the back yard, the old wooden garage where we carefully parked the family car.

I remembered the hymn sings, the family gatherings, the endless rounds of kickball during recess in the playground at the Christian school, the happy voices of families gathered for a church picnic in a canyon near the city.

While there are many changes in Salt Lake City, one thing has not changed. Everywhere you go, you see the Rocky Mountains, towering over the city toward the east. These mountains have not changed. They dominate the landscape. When I looked at the mountains today, it was as if I was looking at them as a child 50 years ago.  

Psalm 90, one of my dad’s favorite psalms, begins with these words, “Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! Before the mountains were born…you are God. (NLT)

As a Christian, I know my true home is not to be found in Salt Lake City, Utah, or in Tigard, Oregon, but in God, who has been our home through all generations, before the mountains that surround Salt Lake City were born.

I treasure the memories of my childhood, although some are bittersweet.  In my memory I hear so many voices of people who have died. I see the faces of many people who shaped my life.

Even more than my childhood memories, I treasure the promise that one day I will hear these voices and see the faces of those who shaped my life when we meet again in heaven.

That will be a glorious day, when we will be with those we love and the God we love for eternity. I thank God for making this possible through the death of His Son, Jesus. My faith in this promise is perhaps the greatest gift and legacy from my life in Salt Lake City. For this, I will be forever grateful.