Sparkyguru wondered the other day what might the fallout be for his children when word gets out that his family has flown the coop/cult. The general tone of the responses was that Logan was a Mormon hellhole, and any sane person would run, not walk, to the nearest real estate agent, throw their 72 kit in the back of the car, and make an immediate escape.

OK, that is how it sounded to me, and I do have a penchant for the hyperbolic sometimes. As if that were rare around here, but I digress.

I knew a prof up in Logan who had a jazz ensemble, mostly brass, named Mormons with Horns. That was decades ago. Even then, whimsy existed. World renowned astrophysicist and exmo Kip Thorne grew up in Logan.

As did poet May Swenson. There is a shindig for the hundredth anniversary of her birth, and Garrison Keillor is showing up to festivities in Logan. For those of you not familiar with Garrison Keillor, he's about as A-list as it gets for birthday party guests, especially when you are an already dead poet.

May Swenson was born in 1913 into a Mormon family of (eventually) 10 children, was a lesbian, and if you think Logan is isolated now, getting to another city from Logan in 1913 was an all day affair. She did OK for herself. Can any good thing come out of Logan? Hell, yes.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56210972-78/swenson-poet-poetry-logan.html.csp

There are challenges to living in Logan, some unique to that city. There are challenges growing up anywhere. Growing up is always a fraught process. Which is more difficult, being an exmo teen in Logan, or a Mo teen in California? Serious question. I think I would despise being known as the kid in school who belonged to that weird, homophobic Mormon cult, if I were a contemporary Mormon CA teen.

I know perfectly happy, well adjusted, successful exmos from Logan, Salt Lake Valley, even Alpine, Pleasant Grove, Highland, and even tiny Lovell, WY.

People are resilient. They grow and bloom where they are planted. And, like Swenson, they transplant if that looks better.