40 Years of City Weekly—Volume 37: 2020 to 2021 

"Everyone agrees that 2020 ranks among the worst years of their lives," remarked John Saltas on Jan. 7, 2021. There had been other years of similar awfulness—1929, 1941, 1968—but those who lived then generally maintained a sense of judgment and proportion through the terrible times—people like Saltas' then-93-year-old mother Stella (1927-2023).

Her bingo nights, senior-citizen lunches and Wendover trips ceased due to the COVID pandemic. She hated the distance necessitated between her family. But, as Saltas reported, she still believed COVID had not been as bad as other periods in her life.

"She doesn't have much tolerance for people who belittle and diminish the sanctity of living," Saltas wrote. "She recognizes their passion for personal liberties because her own father left the Greek island of Crete in 1906 precisely to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of America, but she thinks they're damned fools. She knows his stories of life under Ottoman occupation are 10 times scarier than those of frightened people who fear their neighbors because they voted for Democrats or wear masks. The beauty of freedom, though, is that we should all embrace the freedom to be stupid—so long as it doesn't hurt someone else."

Would that others understood this half as well. While a vaccine had become available, there remained many Utahns flouting any suggestion of wearing a mask, taking precautions or prioritizing a united effort to reverse infection rates. Rather than provide an example in leadership, Utah was racing in the opposite direction in its COVID response. Were one to survey the events City Weekly covered in its 37th year, they would be tempted to lament, with Stella Saltas, the selfish and destructive behavior of the "damned fools" in such a dark time.

Hundreds of thousands were dying from COVID, the gap between rich and poor was at its widest in 50 years, Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality were raging and the Trump administration was dropping protections for lands and endangered species while pardoning criminal trespassers like Utah's own Phil Lyman. Alt-right extremists, white supremacists, Christian Nationalists and conspiracy theorists were increasing in volume, while armed convoys of "Trump Trains" made the rounds on American streets at election time.

Utahns voted to approve a constitutional right to hunt and fish and to weaken the earmarking of income tax for schools. The election was also the first that State School Board members were selected on a partisan basis. Other outcomes included the rise of Spencer Cox as governor and the replacement of Ben McAdams with Burgess Owens in Utah's 4th Congressional District.

As foolhardy as each could be argued to have been, few would likely agree with Sen. Mike Lee's infamous tweet disdaining democracy as "rank." In fact, tens of thousands of Utah Democrats registered as Republicans in an attempt have more of a say in the state's elections, such as they were.

The confusion, misery and ill-feeling reached its grotesque apogee in the failed Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, which included Utahns among the armed participants. And most of Utah's delegation were among the effort's lawmaking contingent.

Damned fools, all.

Benjamin Wood began writing for City Weekly, becoming news editor shortly into the next publication cycle. We mourned several local friends and supporters, such as Salt Lake Magazine's Mary Brown Malouf (1954-2020), Capitol Preservation Board champion Allyson White Gamble (1968-2020) and local market/deli owner Tony Caputo (1949-2021), along with the closures of Blue Plate Diner and the Bricks music venue.

Notable issues included features on CW interns, medical cannabis, local Black activists and poetry honoring Utah's 125th anniversary. Katharine Biele reported on The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News ceasing daily publication, Jim Catano profiled retiring Unitarian minister Tom Goldsmith, Jenny Poplar looked at police responses to mental health crises and Jerre Wroble tracked the actions of elected officials during Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Remembering Vol. 37: In the club
"I remember the first time I walked into a gay bar," John Saltas recalled on Oct. 8, 2020. In the mid-70s, most clubs were closed on Sunday. Someone in his group of coworkers suggested the Sun Tavern across from the Union Pacific station. "This was an exciting proposition," he wrote, "we knew the Sun was Salt Lake City's best-known gay bar, and, well, gay bars were for gay people, when they were called gay, that is."

With the same wonder as Dorothy in Oz, Saltas described himself as "all agog" and all the more so when his group happened upon their boss on a date—much to the surprise of all and much to the outed boss's eventual relief. Saltas credited such a scene even occurring in Salt Lake City to the efforts of Sun Tavern proprietor Joseph "Joe" Redburn (1938-2020), who worked to make his establishment open to all and valued bringing "gays" and "straights" together.

"Joe was one helluva guy," Saltas wrote. "He died a month ago—on Sept. 6—alone and homeless at the South Salt Lake Men's Resource Center at the age of 81. I can only think of a few people who did as much for the Pride community of Utah as Joe Redburn. He did the heavy lifting for decades, including hosting his outspoken radio program, opening the Sun Tavern (now known in its latest iteration as Sun Trapp), promoting and helping to fund the original gay community tabloids and even hosting the seminal event that grew into Utah's renowned Pride Parade. That he died alone and homeless is a real kick in the pants and a warning to all would-be pioneers: Very few will understand or care what you're going through today, including some whose lives you've made better."

Book dealer Ken Sanders understood Redburn's impact—Redburn had inspired him to develop what was for a time Utah's largest selection of gay and lesbian books at the old Cosmic Aeroplane Books & Records. "Here's to you, Joe Redburn," Sanders wrote in an Oct. 15 letter, "and the proud, if not well known legacy you have left us."

In a May 2021 "Urban Living" column, Babs De Lay reminisced on Salt Lake's first Pride celebration in 1974, a summer gathering on City Creek. "Basically, it was a kegger up the canyon followed by more frivolity at the [Great Salt Lake's] unofficial nude hangout, Bare Ass Beach." It was Redburn, De Lay wrote, who had provided the kegs.

"Joe was a hero in this town," Saltas concluded his 2020 editorial. "If you don't know that, especially if you don't know that and consider yourself part of the LGBTQ+ community, then shame on you. He opened the door for you and held it open. He had the foresight to shape the minds of people like me, to push citizens to do the right thing, to hug, to share, to engage, to grow, to awaken, to be proud of one another."

In one quote
"'Freedom' as [today's] American conservatives use the word isn't a big tent, a noble principle that protects us all. For them, 'freedom' is a club—and I mean that in two senses of the word. First, it's an exclusive organization to which only those of a certain ideological bent are invited; your 'freedom' ends where a perceived threat to their ideology begins. Second, it's a truncheon to be leveled against anything they don't like, with claims that their sorts of freedoms are absolute and without the possibility of restriction. 'Freedom' becomes something they can swing in front of them as a license to do whatever they want to do, no matter the likely effect on anyone else."
(Scott Renshaw, July 23, 2020)

In lighter news
As could be seen above, this was a remarkably difficult year on a number of different fronts. While violence, greed, extremism, corruption and cruelty raged high and low, there were also some refreshingly hopeful developments to come out of this year.

The backlog of untested rape kits that had accumulated on police lab shelves (see Vol. 31) were finally caught up, thanks to local initiatives and a 2017 bill from Rep. Angela Romero. Also on the legislative front was Patrice Arent's removal of the straight-ticket voting option on Utah ballots and the unsuccessful efforts by the deep-pocketed Reagan Outdoor Advertising to advance two billboard-friendly pieces of legislation.

The iconic "Y" near Provo's Brigham Young University was lighted with rainbow flashlights by anonymous LGBTQ allies, state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn was a singular voice of reason amidst Utah's COVID response, and hundreds of trees felled by winds along the Wasatch Front were gathered by Urban Indian Center volunteers and sent to the Navajo Nation for heating. What's more, Dr. Christina Thuet's group "With Love, from Strangers" provided needed supplies and aid to the COVID-ravaged Four Corners region.

These little glimpses of good were all welcome, for as Rep. Andrew Stoddard told Jerre Wroble for a February 2021 feature on another subject, "there is something about coming together as neighbors to make a better community ... that can have an incredible ripple effect."