Utahns of all stripes are fed up and ready to protest Donald Trump 

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The first time I saw a mass protest was certainly during one of the many miners' strikes that occurred in Bingham Canyon when I was growing up.

It seemed like the strikers always gathered near our home in Lead Mine, site of the precipitation plant ("P-Plant") that never shut down and where—due to the high profitability of the plant—non-striking "company men" kept it operating. That one of Bingham Canyon's most well-known taverns, the Moonlight Gardens, was also in Lead Mine was just a bonus.

The most onerous strike I remember started in July of 1967 and lasted until March of 1968. That's a long time for a fellow to be out of work and make no mistake, nearly all homes in Bingham Canyon had just one breadwinner.

I don't know the particulars, but among the unions that were strong in that era were the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (later merged into the United Steelworkers Union), plus Machinist, Locomotive and Electrician Unions, all walking out. When one did, they all did. Brotherhood meant brotherhood.

Lots of kids had a pretty sparse Christmas in December of 1967. With their fathers out of work and getting by on union dividends, it was tough on everyone, including me.

My first job—noted here plenty of times—was as a kid cleaning the Moonlight Gardens every Saturday. I'd oil mop the wooden floor, water and soap mop the bar area, and chemical mop the restrooms with some kind of sanitizer that I can smell plain as day as I type this. To say that miners are tough as piss is an understatement, but lo, their aim was terrible. Blue gloves give me the creeps to this day.

My dad was a company man, a salaried boss at Kennecott, along with three uncles. Other relatives were union guys. During the strikes, while half my family stood on one side of the fence, others continued to work. They repaired machinery and organized things, mostly, without doing much actual mining. But many of them slogged right across from the picket line at the P-Plant—where raw copper was extracted from acid waters that were pumped up onto the mine dumps, which then leached out low grade particles of copper.

Faster than you can say aqueous cupris ions, the end result is piles and piles of nearly pure copper (plus toxic water in Salt Lake Valley aquifers, but whatever). Anyway, the P-Plant never shut down.

One day, my dad made me quit the bar. Lord knows that as good as they were to me—paying me $5 each Saturday to do God's work keeping the treasured "Mooner" clean—I had to let Gene Johnson and Bill Hennings know that they'd need to find another person to do the toilet scrubbing. My old man said that so long as he was working, he didn't want me working at a job some other miner's kid could do—or another striking miner for that matter—because it was not fair. And it wasn't.

The fathers of my friends were growing vegetables in their hardscrabble dirt gardens, eating lots of beans and rice and sometimes sharing the venison they shed out of the hills outside of hunting season. Many took odd jobs or seasonal jobs, especially when the vegetable crops or fruit trees were in harvest.

It wasn't right that I had the extra five bucks and they didn't, so my dad laid it out there: You don't need it—someone else does.

It was a lesson that's never been lost on me.

That's part of the reason why this past weekend, I attended the "Hands Off" rally at the Utah State Capitol—people need to help people. I was there from before noon until after 2:00 p.m., basically wandering around and running into all kinds of folks sharing the care gene.

KSL radio (you know who owns it) lazily reported there were 6,000 people in attendance and KUTV (Sinclair-owned) broadcasted that there were "hundreds" gathered. In the language of 1967, both those shameless media are full of skata.

At nearly any point for two solid hours, the crowd was 10,000 to 15,000 strong or more, considering how many people came and went. It was no small matter.

What I saw on Saturday was no different than what I saw in 1967—scared and brave people concerned for their livelihoods, for their future, for their well-being and for the well-being of their entire community, willing to stand up and cause a giant mega corporation to stand down. It hurt them badly, but they didn't waver.

Saturday's crowd was equally brave, strong and, yes, patriotic. Among attendees were union members, teachers, combat veterans, disabled kids, social and ethnic minorities, lefties, conservatives, faith-based people and, yes, even a small group representing DOGE (because they have that right and why not?).

I laugh when MAGA claims everyone there (and nationally, JFC!) was lazy, mindless sheep paid to attend by some sorcerer named Soros who bused everyone in. Even Trump claimed that—perhaps because his blame Hillary, Obama and Biden loop was wearing thin—but it's a lie. Trump lying to his base is no longer an aberration, it's what they want.

In 1967, I wanted a baseball mitt for Christmas. I never got what I wanted. My older brother's hand-me-down Billy Martin mitt became the only glove I ever owned.

Here's what I want for Christmas this year: For MAGA to wake up, smell the roses and take the bold step of tuning out FOX and tuning into your own eyes and ears.

Take that For What It's Worth (google those words, MAGA, and give a listen). There really is something happening here.

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