I was born in Boston over 70 years ago and within days became a Boston Irish Catholic which one remains the remainder of their life in spite of any moving away or loss of Faith. As such, we learned from the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Cluny, why the Red Sox were better than the Yankees. We also learned all about those people we know who might be good people, but, sadly not being Catholic, will not be saved and that is why we needed to bring Jesus to them. 

We ransomed “Pagan babies” for this.

In the first grade I heard officially that the Jews were still waiting for the Messiah and I thought it was lousy that no one told them about Jesus yet, and suggested to my first grade teacher, Sister Mary Frances, that I could be the one to go tell them since no one else had. Thought that was nasty of us not to tell them and then claim they killed Him and act accordingly. 

And so, I, along with the other religious who uselessly meant well but would not be saved, I became familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, the Mormon Temple and all, of course through the filter of the Nuns. The Mormons had a great choir and a big church with an angel on top made of gold. I saw documentaries, the choir on TV, taught many Mormons over the years especially where there was a concentration in the part of L.A. where I taught, Carson, with my many Samoan students, the Osmonds, and all of that, but I thought, since I had no reason to go to Salt Lake City, the Temple would be something I knew about but had little chance of seeing or wanting to see.

There are things all over the world I will never see because I cannot get there while there are others I can see if I choose. Resigned to that, I accept that I will not see everything but will be glad to see what I can without any regret toward the other situation.

Whenever I have gone to a strange city, the first thing I do is note the tallest building seen from my starting point if I am walking, and between noting its position and, in the day, the position of the sun I can always find my way home.

With all I knew and had seen about the Temple, I was looking to be impressed on my way from the airport as the Temple stood tall and proud above the city like a beacon on a hill. Johns Hopkins does not allow any building on campus to be higher than the main building’s dome so if you plan a building that would violate the height rule, those excess floors go underground.

I assumed such a rule regarding the city below it and the temple, but for some reason that is not the case, and my Uber driver explained that since modern buildings have no such restriction, the unseen Temple was inside that “cluster of buildings over there”.

Not to worry, as I will just go among those buildings when I was exploring.

The Uber driver also explained I should have an easy time getting around as all street signs indicate where you are in relation to the temple. I told him that that was all well and good if you lived here and you knew where the Temple is, but that is useless to me as I can’t even see it from the highway and, because the cluster of tall buildings, would not know where it was until I had entered the forest. He laughingly agreed and said that was a standard assurance to tourists knowing full well that, if they were there the first time, they had no idea where it was, so trying to establish where you were in relation to a hidden thing could get annoying. Which it did.

I am not looking for any scientific explanations or some techno-over explanation of how, why, or why that is not what happens as I lived it, so, accepted or not, this is what I found through my experience. 

Other than Boston where downtown streets are laid out according to colonial usage leaving a series of spider webbed streets of all sizes and destinations, or none, to be rectified in the back Bay that came from landfill, cities that I have visited began with a plan and that included grid streets based on numbers and the alphabet with the letter being left alone or used as the first letter of a name. A and Adams Streets come to mind.

In Salt lake City all streets are numbered to indicate where you are in relation to the Temple. My hostel was located South of the Temple but to the West. Being familiar with grid layouts I had assumed I would be on SW 600, but that is compass direction not Temple relationship so I was on W (of the temple) 600 (street number) South (down from the Temple). Put the Temple in the center of a square and it seems easy enough. But this was only convenient for visitors in the old days when there were fewer and shorter streets, and you could see the Temple from anywhere in the valley to find your location. But that was then.

At a certain point, although I had not changed streets but was at the Temple line, my street became S 600 W . You could not see the Temple, and as they are getting ready for the 2035 Olympics, there is a lot of construction, mostly hotels in the area I was in and lots of remodeling that leaves the hotel up but perhaps without the soon to be replaced whenever they get to it hotel sign. Lots of huge, unnamed plywood palaces there.

If you missed the change, apparently GPS does often as well.

I stayed at a hostel one block from the reunion hotel where my three-day stay was the price of one night and so I had to walk where I wanted to go and I used my phone’s GPS. The reunion hotel was the Hampton Downtown, formerly the Hampton Inn, the sign still on the side of the Building. There are Hamptons all over the city with variations of the name, Hampton Court, Hampton by Hilton,  Hampton Gardens, the Hampton Rye. I had arrived hours before check-in time and I decided I would drop my backpack off at the hostel to be held while I wandered around looking for the other hotel. On the map it was just around a corner or two

It took two hours using GPS to locate the hotel as GPS was sending me everywhere. I finally did what men do not do, I asked directions and found I was actually one block south and one block over from the hotel and GPS had brought me almost to it more than once. The manager of the hotel informed me that driving with GPS is one thing as you zip through the “vortexes”, walking is another as you slowly pass through. The difference between jumping over a chasm in a car with speed and trying to walk across it.  Had I been looking for the Sheraton, things would have been easier as it was one hotel with a huge sign. When I entered my address as starting  point it apparently confused the GPS which I eventually heard from many of the people I talked with was common, so that as I approached a “vortex”, what people called the concentrated point of the satellite signal that like light through a magnifying glass eventually gets concentrated at a single point, the omni-direction point, anywhere in that field, the GPS will either continue you on your way or switch you toward another location from that spot because of the odd street numbering. If you could see the Temple there would be no problem, but you can’t, so there is.

This might not be the scientific explanation but it is the one that makes experiential sense. 

I found my hostel was very close to Harvey Milk Way. In spite of it being Mormon Central, they have already had a Lesbian mayor, there is a Gay district, and the city is rated one of the most accepting cities in the country. I found one bar with Drag shows that was a block from the Temple. Either the Mormons are in their own hell now, or they have a great, but unseen sense of humor as you see many sarcastic product names based on Mormon tenets, real or assumed, like Polygamy Porterhouse BBQ Sauce and Sister Wives Toast. Although it was not my intention, I ended up going to that Gay bar by the yet to be seen Temple only because the GPS route to Harvey Milk Way had become too complicated and had too many sudden re-centering notifications when I was following the voice telling me where to go. I finally gave up and spent the $10 on a cover charge and the same on a drink in a highball glass that stopped a fingers width from the rim. 

The next night, I entered the name of the bar on Harvey Milk Way that I had entered the previous night but this time from the reunion hotel not my hostel that was two blocks down and one over, and the direction had me go straight down 300 st. for 8 blocks, passing my hostel on the next street over and taking a right to the door of the bar where the $10 drink from the night before was $4 and I got the word that the other bar was the tourist one with tourist prices, frequented by the locals only occasionally because of the prices unless you are one who buys expensive coffees while complaining you cannot afford essentials.

From the reunion hotel it was one straight line then a right when the night before from my place, one street over, I kept getting the recentered while following the route I was being directed on.

The hostel manager said that because of the similarities, yet differences, between W600S abutting S600W, it is best to get away from that area and then begin your walking GPS search to avoid this, and he apologized for not having told me that on signing in.

This explained why any attempt] to find the Temple by foot and GPS was so confusing and easy to give up. 

I attempted to see the Temple by getting to it by the on-off train, but GPS often had me at the wrong station platform so I eventually gave up looking as the train had me everywhere but on the line that goes right by it with my having been directed by GPS to get on and off a lot of platforms that went elsewhere or were around the corner or near a building blocking the view so I got off as directed and missed by that close.

I did get to see a lot of the city this way from top to bottom and side to side.

I got philosophical about this and figured that as close as I had gotten, I would just never see the Temple. I had been searching the equivalent of day and a half and, as I was to find, just missing it until I gave up and went GPS-less and, looking for something else, turned a corner, and there it was.

I was standing in front of a building that I had seen on film and television, had heard good, bad and rumored things about, knew a lot about without being a member of the church for 74 years.

If it had been one, a goal was reached or an item could be checked off on the bucket list.

However,

Recently, as the LDS became concerned about the arrival of the Big One, the biblically proportioned earthquake out west, and realized the Temple, being of old construction, was not earthquake proof and decided to address that.  They needed to get the Temple on to piles and a firmer foundation while making all necessary adjustments to the building and surrounding structures because, I guess, they have some doubts that God likes them enough that He will preserve the building.

So in my 74th year, I stood before the Salt Lake City Temple that was totally surrounded by construction equipment, wrapped in scaffolding and that orange mesh protective fencing. Here I was standing in front of the Temple, physically standing in front of the Temple, looking right at it, I have pictures, yet unable to see what I was looking at.

At my age and with no need nor desire to return to Salt Lake City, I have to accept that I will never see the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City in my life time.

Talk about a lesson in setting goals. Imagine if I had made a religious pilgrimage to see the Temple before I die but, while I could see where it is, I could not see it.

Ironically, I now know that I will go my whole life without ever having actually seen the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and I was right there.

What one might say I waited 74 years to see.

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