Talking Utah History with visiting relatives (again)

Are you ready for the annual conversation with the family about Utah?  I guess when you visit family in New Orleans, you'll ask about Mardi Gras.  In Indianapolis you'll talk about the Indy 500 and in Kentucky you'll chat up your family about the derby.  So it stands to reason that when family and friends visit Utah, they ask similar questions about the stuff on the surface they know something about.   If your family flew into Utah via Salt Lake City this week, they saw this billboard.  I've seen this vodka in liquor stores here for years and it always makes me laugh.  Hand them a Polygamy Porter while you're talking about it.  They'll love the slogan right on the bottle that says, "Why have just one?"

If you want to enrich their mind with other facts about Utah, I stumbled upon a few this week worth sharing around the dinner table with your friends and family.  They might like to know - the official cooking vessel in Utah is the Dutch oven.

They might also like to know Utah is #1 when it comes to charitable giving.  Not just tithing either.  We pony up to help the community more than any other state.

You could even thrill them with a trick question about where the KFC restaurant chain started.  It wasn't in Kentucky like one might expect.  I have eaten at the FIRST Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and read the history on the wall in Salt Lake City.  You could even win a bet with that knowledge but then, you don't gamble, do you?

Frisbees were invented in California, right?  No.  The Pluto Platter that later became the Frisbee was invented here in Utah by Walter Frederick Morrison.

Seagulls also seem "very California" but they are our state bird in Utah.  Mainly because they'll eat ANYTHING, including crickets so when zillions of seagulls were turned loose in Utah back in 1847, they saved the crops by eating all of those pesky little critters.

Ask your family where the television was invented.  When they say it was invented by RCA Victor you can laugh in their face and tell them that's not even a person. Then tell them the story about a smart guy from Utah name Philo T. Farnsworth who lived just up the road in Beaver UT.  When you're in Salt Lake City dropping them off at the airport, you can point to all of the TV towers on top of the mountain. That's Farnsworth Peak.  (Wow, you sound smart).

There's a whole bunch of others stuff to share but just remember, you are not making fun of them.  You're just helping them learn.  If you really want to have some fun, invite a half dozen of your wife's friends over and stick to the story of your 7 wives through the entire visit.  Wow.  Will they have a story to tell when they get back to Nebraska.