Riding down Main Street on a bicycle in only underwear, putting “For Sale” signs on friend’s houses, or dropping a hitchhiker off two feet from where he was picked up are a few small town experiences I’ve seen.
I’ve heard students complain about Cedar City being a small town and not having enough things to do, but they are mistaken.
I grew up in Boulder, Utah,75 miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park and 75 miles North of Lake Powell, and attended school in Escalante, 28 miles west of Boulder.
The town’s population adds up to 250, which is more than small towns like Ringling, Mont., which has 12 people and Kirby, Wyo., with 50.
At Escalante High School, with 190 students in 7th through 12th grades, something needed to be done for entertainment. Through the years, I shot my share of rabbits and made plenty of prank calls to hotels at 1 a.m., asking for reservations in Dolly Parton’s voice or making calls to the state prison to bail some random person out of jail.
Sure, Boulder has no Wendy’s, Walmart, mall or movie theatre, but who needs it when you can entertain yourself by doing crazier things that keep the money in the pocket — unless you’re into cruising Main Street all day, where the fuel tank needs filling up every 40 times your car goes up and down the street.
Cow tipping never became an option to me because a friend told me it didn’t work.
I also wanted to stay free from a bull’s horns stabbing me in the gut after I disturbed his sleep.
Even my friend Marsha’s brother, Tyler was up for entertaining others when he rode his bike down Escalante’s Main Street in his tighty whiteys. There was more to it than just the entertainment; $75 would be his, his friends told him, if he would do it.
He did it even when he had no idea he’d have a shocked mother walk out of the Post Office just in time to see her 17-year-old son pedaling his way through traffic half-naked and almost $75 richer.
Although this next experience was entertaining I think hitchhikers may not feel welcome in Escalante after what my brother and his friends did as they pulled out of the high school parking lot at the end of a day of school.
The high school is located on the way out of town going toward Boulder, with a gas station across the street.
My brother and his friends had no room in the cab but kindly told the man — who stood thumbs up outside the parking lot — to get in the back of the truck and they’d get him to where he needed to go.
After the man, with a big grin on his face, jumped in the back of the truck, my brother’s friend Ryan pulled over across the street at the gas station, which was about 3 feet away from where they picked him up and said “Sorry, this is as far as we can take you,” and drove up another street, which took them farther into the town.
I could only imagine the disappointment which crossed the man’s face after my smart-aleck brother and his friends found a form of entertainment.
This does not end the many things that can be done in small towns. A roommate from my freshman year at SUU found entertainment in her small town in Idaho by putting up “For Sale” signs on friend’s houses. It made some parents angry when phone calls about selling
their house were answered, but that is what made it fun.
On a good note, fishing, camping, horseback riding, midnight swims and hiking were activities which brought lots of fun and kept us out of trouble.
These things can be done in Cedar City and can bring greater satisfaction than spending the little amount of cash college students carry in their wallets.
I have roller skated down Cedar City’s Main Street in my Halloween costume at 11 p.m. Halloween night, ran from the Centrum Arena to Taco Time while playing the game “Fugitive,” played games late at night in the graveyard, walked through the sheep tunnels with a date and even went Christmas Caroling in September. The options are endless and should be taken advantage of.
Holly Coombs is copy chief for the University Journal. She can be reached at hcoombs@suunews.com
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