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Show Page A12 Thursday, July 26, 1990 Park Record ooo ! rv m You are invited to our OPEN HOUSE Lowell I. Gerber, M.D. and Sheldon S. Sbar, M.D. are pleased to announce the opening of Park City Cardiology and The Preventive Medicine Center in Park City. You are invited to attend an Open House on Saturday July 28. 1990 from 1 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. 1901 Prospector Avenue Park City, Utah 649-5565 The Preventive Medicine Center In Pork City 1901 Prospector Avenue 649-5565 9JK-- U9e a or a" & a...: p - uuamcas luims yT-Jt 9 v o;itafe far "I Trmnl (MM i)iH - Buainca Card 11 ' Corcfs To rI.- 0sn? ' VHP : Forms Posters Business Forms brochures Business Cards (Statements Laminating Menus Invoices 11 BY TOM CLYDE Let's celebrate the 26th of J u ly Over the past week or so, I've been on the phone a lot with people out of state. We've been trying to schedule some business stuff that involves banks and courthouses and the like, and inevitably, they wanted to do something on July 24th. "Oh, no," I'd, say, "we can't do anything on the 24th of July. That's a holiday." "Oh, what holiday is that?" "It's the 24th of July." Seemed pretty obvious to me. This was always followed by a long pause on the other end of the phone. Sometimes I could hear calendar pages flipping at the other end. "And, um, just what is it that you folks there in Utah celebrate on the 24th of July? " "Well, it's just the 24th of July ." I'd try to explain that it was Pioneer Day, and that it was about ten times the production as the 4th of July in Utah, and also that if the 24th was on a Tuesday, the 23rd of July was about as good as a legal holiday because there would be a flu epidemic of biblical proportions that would leave only a few essential public service workers on their feet and able to work. Anybody with any seniority at all is out on the 23rd as well as the 24th. Unless, of course, the 24th is a Thursday, in which case everybody gets sick on the 25th instead. in-stead. It's all very simple, as long as you know that the 24th of July is a holiday. The rest of the summer kind of falls into place around it. Although it is confusing to out of state business people, I personally like having some odd, Utah-only Utah-only holidays. More would be better. We have a lot to celebrate here in Utah. For example, if we really real-ly wanted to get into the holiday business, there is always the usual birthday-of-important-citizen format. We could close the banks for Philo T. Farnsworth's birthday. Farnsworth is usually credited (especially among the Farnsworth family) fami-ly) with being inventor of television. And he lived right in Salt LakeCity, even though he was born in Idaho. Maybe they could join us in a multi-state holiday. I think a holiday in favor of Philo T. Farnsworth Farn-sworth is a good idea. We could just call it Philo Day. I assume young Philo had the good sense to be born on a convenient day for a holid U would be a shame to waste it if he had been box u on a day that was already a holiday. But in addition to the birthdays-of-the-great holiday format, there are also the historic-event-commemorating holidays. The 24th of July is certainly cer-tainly one of those, but to single it out makes it sound like nothing of note has happened in Utah since 1847. That hardly seems fair. There have been other events, like the day Charlene Wells was crowned Miss America. That's deserving of a holiday, holi-day, especially if it comes around, a day or two 'after1 some other holiday making it a double! Great Salt Lake Pump Day is another holiday that should be more widely observed. We spent about $60 million on the Great Salt Lake Pumps. In most countries, they have a dozen holidays commemorating wars that cost less than half that much. Any piece of hardware that set the state back $60 million and operated for about three days is certainly worthy of a holiday. s And then there is always Cold Fusion Day. I think the state's banks and schools, maybe especially the institutions of higher education, should close down one day a year in honor of the discovery of Cold Fusion right here in Utah. It . would be great to tell somebody back in New York that you won't be in the office because it is Cold Fusion Day, and the whole state will be out celebrating science and sticking straws in Mason jars full of lemonade. I'd be proud to forego mail delivery one more day a year in honor of Cold Fusion. And if the actual ac-tual day of discovery was in one of the sort of crumby months, when everything is too muddy to enjoy a day off, we can move Cold Fusion Day to some other date. I think we could probably get away with moving the date around a little. Maybe it could be one of those Floating Holidays that you take whenever you feel like it. Cold Fusion itself was kind of imprecise. Maybe Stanley Pons Birthday Birth-day would work out nicely with the vacation schedule. If we wanted to adopt a European approach to holidays, so there was one just about every week, and sometimes two or three during religious festivals, I think we could do a lot for the local instate in-state travel business. In Europe, they have lots of Saints Days. Almost every day on the calendar is St. Somebody's Day, and depending on the local status of the particular saint in question, some or all of the businesses and government offices close. You don't want to take a chance offending some of the saints by toiling away at your usual mundane work on Their Day. Saints have never had much political clout around here, but I have a solution. Let's take a holiday on Brigham Young's Wedding Anniversary. Anniver-sary. All of them, which ought to give us two holidays every month, assuming that Brigham was moved to matrimony on a more or less regular schedule. If he was into June weddings, well, that's even better. We just shut down for the whole month of June. There is some merit in that. But as it now stands, we only have a few unique holidays in Utah. I know a guy who was bragging about his new job. In addition to $4.25 an hour at the Toxic Waste Dump in Tooele, he gets all three special Utah holidays off with pay. I thought having hav-ing to work overtime on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter was kind of a drag, but he said it all evened out, since he got the Big Three off. The Big Three, we all know are the 24th of July, the Friday Before Deer Hunt, and of course, the biggest local holiday of all, the day the new Chevy Suburbans comeout. ; . . - Sibrffike.a Veto BY TEfll OUR SsJ Pretty women dreams deferred Allright, everybody else and her sister has taken a shot at it so I guess it's my turn at an awkward explanation on why I loved the movie Pretty Woman. As a modern '90s kind of woman who has, as an under-30 friend of mine recently commented, "lived "liv-ed through the revolution", I know I should scoff at the contrived Pygmalion production that says the hooker with the heart-of-gold and the cold-hearted cold-hearted businessman she warms up live happily ever after. In fact, in a recent discussion with a man who may be even more cynical than I am (imagine that), I found myself defending the movie and the notion. Our conversation began with me telling him about a Park City woman who was working at classy hotel here last winter checking coats one night when she meets Mr. Megabucks Wonderful. He sweeps her off her feet and to Paris for her birthday bir-thday and gives her an emerald boulder as a pre-engagement pre-engagement ring. I know I was sighing as I told the story. "It's just such a Pretty Woman kind of tale," I said. "Well," my friend said, "I admire the style of this guy and I'm happy for your friend but let's talk about the Pretty Woman stuff for a minute. You of all people don't actually buy that ending... en-ding... do you?" I looked down at the bubbles exploding in my champagne glass. I sheepishly said, "Well, it's nice to think it might be possible." My friend put down his glass. "Look honey," he said in a voice tinged with New Yorkeese, "they weren't back in New York a month before she started wearing her pager again. And the first time he took her to Four Seasons for dinner, one of her old johns recognized her from across the room. He came stumbling over drunk to the table and reminded her of their last evening together in detail. And the Gere character never never introduced her to his mother. That's the way it really ends." "You cynic! Is there no fantasy to your left-brained left-brained life at all? " I demanded. And then he answered, as all men I know who have seen the movie reply, "I loved the scene with her long legs wrapped around him in the bathtub. Who wouldn't want 88 inches of therapy like that?" . . '. . t--' Probably no other scene in a movie has elicited such a universal response intelligent career women by the dozens went home and got out a tape measure to see just how long their legs were. And no one measured from the inseam. My under 30 girlfriend said she was annoyed by how many women's publications felt a need to trash the movie. Articles saying how silly and scary it was that bright women were going two, three and seven times to see it. "Why, is it so wrong to have dreams and fantasies? fan-tasies? Why can't your generation lighten up? My age group didn't have to fight the battle and true, we reap the benefits of what you all have put up with, but we want to think people with baggage can find each other and put their past, past. Can't you let us have that? " I didn't have an easy answer for this woman who is at an age between my daughter and me. The fairy tales I read as a little girl about Cinderella and Prince Charming and Snow White and The Gang I was careful to not overdue with my own daughter, who is now, at age 17, an emerging woman in her own right. I gave her real books with people men and women making their own way in the world with dual careers and shared responsibilities. Still... I knew what my almost thlrtysomething friend meant. I like the movie because the Julia Roberts character is the one who holds out for her dream. Lots of women would have seen the chance to upgrade their accomodations and move up within the limits of what the gorgeous Gere was offering. of-fering. But she wanted him to make a committment committ-ment and change his lifestyle. And by god, in the end, he realized money doesn't buy everything. And he realized something equally as important I heard once from my friend Heidi, "Nobody ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I'd spent more time at work." And it strikes a vein with me perhaps the appeal or non-appeal of the movie is a reflection upon where you see yourself. For those drenched in materialism andor one-dimensional realism you discount the movie. For those realistic romantics who say dreams are worth holding onto, even if you both have histories and a few regrets, then the movie is a reassuring statement that while nobody lives unconsciously happily ever after there are some folks who get second chances at living happi- |