[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13726-13727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NIGHT LIFE IN SALT LAKE CITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, almost a fortnight ago, one of our 
colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts, was waxing eloquent about 
congressional experts, which he considered to be an oxymoron, as he 
said, similar to jumbo shrimp or Salt Lake City night life.
  I have the opportunity of representing the central and western side 
of Salt Lake City, along with my colleague, who hopefully will be here 
later, who lives in and represents the east side of Salt Lake City, Mr. 
Matheson. Now, it's true I don't live in Salt Lake City. I live in a 
much quieter area 60 miles north of a town appropriately called Brigham 
City. But in my younger, wilder college days, I did live in areas that 
I now represent in Central City and Capitol Hill in Salt Lake, an area 
similar to this except about 4,000 feet closer to the heavens.
  I want you to know in the night life, every evening when you went 
out, on almost every corner you could find an ice cream parlor. If I 
ever wanted to forget my worries and drown my sorrows, I could easily 
have a second glass of warm milk. There are some nights we put our 
pajamas on before 8:00, the one without the feet. Even now we will 
occasionally stay up long enough to watch Letterman go through his top 
10. Our night life, and he says there is no night life, when we wanted 
to go out at night, we would take off the working Wranglers, put on the 
clean Wranglers and go down to 7-Eleven and find the new Slurpee 
flavors of the month.
  For a gourmet night, we could even load up the minivan and supersize 
number 5 with extra mayo, for everyone except for the driver, because 
we don't allow drinking and driving. That's why some of our cabbies die 
of thirst. And you say we have no night life?
  It's true our happy hours are determined by how much green Jell-O is 
available, because a party is not a party without green Jell-O and 
carrot bits. Indeed, if you order a mixed drink, it will definitely 
involve chocolate syrup and milk, but you still have to stir vigorously 
with the straw. And he says we have no night life?
  Our baseball fans, after the seventh inning, can order all the root 
beer they

[[Page 13727]]

want. Admittedly, it causes road rage. I remember the last time I came 
out when my buggy was cut off by a buckboard wagon, and I have to 
admit, I said some expletives, like, oh my, heck, move that frigging 
nag. But to say we have no night life?
  Now, lest any other myths continue on here, I do want to tell the 
gentleman from Massachusetts, if he wants to see Tony Award-winning 
regional drama, he will have to come to Utah, and he will fly into one 
of the busiest hubs in the Nation, which is Salt Lake International.
  If he finds himself seated at Pioneer Memorial Theater or Kingsbury 
Hall or Rose Wagner Theater, Capitol Theater, he will be seeing 
Broadway-quality plays all done by equity actors, or he will be 
listening to some of the finest music done by the Utah Opera Company or 
the premiere ballet of the West, which is Ballet West, which is 
headquartered in Utah, or watching the award-winning Repertory Dance 
Theater.
  If he finds himself in Abravenal Hall, he will be listening to one of 
the best symphony orchestras in the Nation. If he is at Franklin Covey 
Field, he will watch the sun shine on the eastern mountains in the 
Wasatch over the left field berm as he sits in probably what has been 
considered one of the nicest and most beautiful baseball stadiums, 
watching the AAA-Division-leading Salt Lake Bees. He can find private 
clubs and dance clubs and comedy clubs and concerts and even, although 
I don't recommend it, get drunk in Salt Lake City.

                              {time}  1915

  He might even be able to listen to a debate between a publicity-
seeking mayor and a radio talk show host about Iraq, in which case he 
would probably want to be drunk. It may just have been under those 
night lights that he didn't see much going on; that it was one of the 
nights when the Utah Jazz, even though they have had two rough 
difficult nights, were still involved in the hunt for the NBA title, 
something which a team in his State can't say.
  In short, I would simply recommend and invite the good gentleman from 
Massachusetts to come and visit our State. I would suggest, perhaps, 
though, he should bring an interpreter with him, because in Utah we 
still do not put an R at the end of our vowels.

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