OCR Text |
Show THE MOUNTAIN FLOWER PAGE 4 A . OCTOBER 21,. 1972 .. personal look at the town. Park City, surrounded by the hills that hide it from the here and hectic now. been aide to put my finger on. So Pin back to simply describing it as mystique and not explaining shy that mystique is there. But entertainment and, most of all, its peculiar1 mystique. Park City is a town of Joy. That Joy is tied in with its mystique, but Im not sure whether one is a. result of file other or whether they perhaps thats all right. Explanations are for practical ' By MIKE WHITNEY Ive wondered often about die attraction Park City bolds for me during the course of my three year affair with the town. (I say affair with reason, because for all this time Park City, has remained a delicious mistress. I steal a few hours to see her whenever I can while I have remained, not by choice, married to the Wasatch FYont megalopolis is bliss. Someone once told me that Park City has a mystique.. He was right- - But that still doesn't explain anything. That's like saying the . . Beatles were popular because they had charisma. They did and r Park City does, but why? I first saw Park City from the cab of an ancient Ford flatbed truck that have should died a timely death years ago. But nineteenth century style main street, people, children, dogs, children with dogs and occasionally. piles of rock or ' decaying wood that for some reason attracted my attention. In all that walking, driving and . something kept it going. I felt the same way about Park City the first time I saw it; An ancient town, filled with wooden buildings and houses with wooden foundations that were hurriedly tacked up during the silver mining boom of the last century, a town out of its time. It should have died years ago. But something kept it going, nod something brought the skiers here. The mountains and snow, yes. But something else as Brigadoon: Here was a town from the past, which had no right to exist in this time, but which nonetheless did, and which would welcome visitors with the right feeling in their hearts. The most important filing is to believe that it is there. I believed in Park City file first time I saw it and I have never stopped believing in it. . So Park Citys feeling of being something out of the past is part of its attraction. But certainly not all of it. Ive walked and driven all over Park City and taken rolls of film of rusting and rotting buildings, the picture-takin- g, I've tried to analyze what it is about Park City that makes it fascinating. The things that fascinate me in Park City certainly exist elsewhere. But they are not file same as the ones in Park City. Or maybe in fact, they are the same and it is the atmosphere of the city that is .Afferent. I think the last is more likely, although I must invoke some . . mysterious seductive force at work in Park City that I have well. I felt almost, the first time I saw Park City, as if I were involved in an experience parallel to (he one described . in . the , play.. never felt at work anywhere else, (with the possible exception of San FYancisco). But so be it. There is i V something .there that Ive never people. Acceptance without explanation is for romantics. And if it is nothing else, Park City is town for romantics. Park City has attracted dozens of them and some, intoxicated by the seductive atmosphere of the city, have tossed all practicality aside and started businesses that were doomed to failure before they opened their doors. Anyone who has known Park City for a few years can walk down Main Street, pick out a store front and give you a list of the different names that have hung over its door. But that seems to be almost a thing of the past now. The ski runs are going full blast in the winer. hi summer there are concerts, art festivals and rugby games. The condominiixns are going up and people are moving in. The tourists are coming in ever greater numbers. It seems tbgt now anyone who opens a restawant or bar, (which seem to rank second and third, Im not sure which is which, behind skiing as Park Citys main businesses), and exercises only average sense will . remain in business. The second boom, the real second boom, which everyone has been talking about for years, is finally hitting Park City. Park City, the old silver boom town, rising like a phoenix from its own ashes. But transformed by the rebirth. No longer does it offer the people who come to it silver. Now it offers skiing, food, drink, simply co-exi- st. Ive connected joy with Park City from file first time I saw the town. So it was only natural that on the eve of the most Joyous occasion of my life, my marriage, I went to Park City to celebrate. There were about a half dozen of us including myself, thoughlm not sure of the exact number as my memory of the event is a bit fogged. We rolled into Park City in lf a old Ford panel truck named Faithful Norton. We traveled from bar to bar soaking up file joy of the city and a fair amount of golden brew. The only bad part of the evening . decade-and-a-ha- was returning to Salt Lake City at the end of it. No one in the party remembers driving . bade to Salt Lake. The most popular theory is that Faithful Norton did it on his ' - own. A friend of mine, Frank Erickson, the owner of Faithful Norton, went so far as to be married and spent his honeymoon in Park City . He Ad it for no other reason than it felt right. Park City has that sort of joyf ul feeling. Park City also has a feeling of expectancy. The last time I drove into Park City the hills around the town were veiled with mist the mist of time it seemed to me as I entered the city that has no right to exist in this frantic era. The hills were covered with expectant odors of gold, Vermillion, amber and sunset red; colors that woulu CnVXUfd.onJageS |