Such amazing research in this piece! I've heard before about how damaging sugar plantations are to the environment but I tend to forget about it because it's really not something you hear about often. You always hear about the more obvious ways were harming the environment (cars, planes, trash, etc.), but not things like sugar. Kind of makes me think of how we often pick and choose what we want to criticize and turn a blind eye when we feel like it.
My Great Grandpa and his offspring (my grandma) had a sugar beet farm in Sandy. He owned from State Street to 700 East and 9000 to 9400 South. A huge parcel of land. When my grandma on received a $9000 inheritance because her step mother Aprilla squandered the family fortune. Grandma used the harshest words I'd ever heard her to call someone. She called her "That...Snake in the Grass!" A side note: My great grandpa's name was Joseph. My parents gave me that middle name to goad him into getting part of this fortune. He never took the bait.
People never believe me that Utah's as colorful as Louisiana, with its own culture and everything. Comment here: Exhibt #7,890, right? I've never heard the name Aprilla, but I know a lot of LDS families do name neoglisms (I knew sisters named Johnette and Renon, for example). Also, it's so odd and wonderful imagining a sugar beet farm anywhere near State Street. That fact alone is gonna make me walk around all day feeling a sense of wonder. Cracking up about "Snake in the Grass!" I remember visiting my best friend in St George after she moved there in high school and hearing all kinds of creative cussing like "son of a biscuit," "son of a grit," and every varation on "fetch," the human brain could produce. Good on your parents for that bait. Smart ones! It's a handsome middle name, too. So many people are in that "please, teacher/DMV clerk/doctor's assistant, don't say my middle name out loud!"
Evil aside, I'm tickled that Domino calls the bulk sugar warehouse a "sugar shack" even though it's the size of a zeppelin hanger.
I missed that somehow! Damn. You just made me laugh out loud.
Such amazing research in this piece! I've heard before about how damaging sugar plantations are to the environment but I tend to forget about it because it's really not something you hear about often. You always hear about the more obvious ways were harming the environment (cars, planes, trash, etc.), but not things like sugar. Kind of makes me think of how we often pick and choose what we want to criticize and turn a blind eye when we feel like it.
Also really loved your ending! Very powerful.
Thanks, Summer!!
My Great Grandpa and his offspring (my grandma) had a sugar beet farm in Sandy. He owned from State Street to 700 East and 9000 to 9400 South. A huge parcel of land. When my grandma on received a $9000 inheritance because her step mother Aprilla squandered the family fortune. Grandma used the harshest words I'd ever heard her to call someone. She called her "That...Snake in the Grass!" A side note: My great grandpa's name was Joseph. My parents gave me that middle name to goad him into getting part of this fortune. He never took the bait.
People never believe me that Utah's as colorful as Louisiana, with its own culture and everything. Comment here: Exhibt #7,890, right? I've never heard the name Aprilla, but I know a lot of LDS families do name neoglisms (I knew sisters named Johnette and Renon, for example). Also, it's so odd and wonderful imagining a sugar beet farm anywhere near State Street. That fact alone is gonna make me walk around all day feeling a sense of wonder. Cracking up about "Snake in the Grass!" I remember visiting my best friend in St George after she moved there in high school and hearing all kinds of creative cussing like "son of a biscuit," "son of a grit," and every varation on "fetch," the human brain could produce. Good on your parents for that bait. Smart ones! It's a handsome middle name, too. So many people are in that "please, teacher/DMV clerk/doctor's assistant, don't say my middle name out loud!"