A few weeks ago I met a couple new-ish to Park City. They’ve had a home here for years, but California had long been their primary address. When they told me this, they carefully looked over their shoulders, like someone does right before delivering an inappropriate punchline, cautious of who might overhear them. I’m pretty sure they whispered too, like they were confessing something one might find unsavory. Then they got bolder and ended their admission with, “But we moved here before Covid,” with a strong emphasis on the word “before.”
The delivery was a bit comical, but also understandable. They were well aware of the stereotypes and for the most part, didn’t disagree with them. But they also wanted the record to show they were not Covid refugees. They had made up their minds to live here year-round an entire six months before any of us had ever heard of a place called Wuhan. An important distinction in their eyes.
As our conversation continued, we learned we had all recently seen the Park City Follies, the annual spoof on all things Park City. As we chatted about this year’s show, the wife spoke about the first time she saw the play in 2019, the first year they were officially full-time Parkites.
“They had a skit about moving here, and it was so comical, but actually kind of accurate too,” she told me. As she described the scene from a few years ago, I remembered it as well, having also been in the audience that year. It went something like this: A wealthy couple had just moved to town and were trying to fit in. A welcoming committee of sorts attempted to “localize” them and began assigning the couple important local attributes. Here’s a paraphrased version of the performance:
Townspeople: “What color is your Subaru?”
Newcomers: “We don’t have a Subaru.”
Townspeople: “We’ll put you down for blue.”
Then the newcomers are introduced to Park City’s “Dog Placement Counselor.”
“But we don’t want a dog,” they protested.
“You’re required to have one. It’s in the code,” they were told before being given the choice between a rescued border collie, pit bull, or lab mix.
After checking those boxes, the only thing left was the NPA, or nonprofit assignment. The newcomers soon learned all the good nonprofits were full, but volunteers were still needed at the Friends of Asparagus Club.
“It was kind of like that,” the woman told me, chuckling as she recalled how she and her husband adopted a dog, bought a practical mountain car, and began volunteering within just a few weeks of residency. They weren’t exactly assigned to an animal, vehicle, or a charity, but they quickly realized these were the pseudo requirements of living here and happily obliged.
I thought about this random conversation again last weekend when talking to an old friend who has been in town so long people just assume his dad was a miner. He’s the kind of local who was probably conceived in a gondola and born in the back of a VW van. We sat on his back deck, discussing one mundane topic after the next, sipping wine, joking people could easily assume we were auditioning to be in a modern-day Bartles & Jaymes commercial. I asked him how he ‘localized’ himself when he moved here in the 70s.
He thought for a minute and said, “I didn’t know anyone when I moved here, and I wasn’t too sure I’d fit in being from the east coast. So I traded in my Camaro, got myself a dog, and signed up to be a volunteer ski patroller.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Despite all the changes this town has seen over the past 50 + years — new people, new politics, new priorities — I guess some things really do stay the same.