And Here We Have Idaho…Falls

Since many of we locals don’t have a whole lot to beat our chests about when it comes to monetary gain or land ownership or careers, bragging rights about how long your family has been in Idaho Falls is of the utmost importance to the many circles of one-uppers sitting around playing Texas Hold ‘em and swilling Bush Light every weekend. I’ve spent 35 of my 50 years based in South East Idaho and most of those 35 years right here in beautiful Idaho Falls. My Dad grew up here, my Grandad moved here from Pocatello in 1935, and my Great Grandad moved from Franklin to Pocatello with his three wives in 1908. I could go back many more generations but that would reveal more about my Mormon pedigree than I am comfortable sharing, bore the living hell out of whoever is reading this dribble, and worse yet, possibly uncover some family lineage that once and for all proves one of my ex wives is somehow related to me by blood through a 19th century plural marriage. Like other local folks in the valley, that’s something I just don’t want to know. No, I don’t have any hard facts on whether or not the valley is lousy with inbred dullards, to my knowledge nobody does, but I do argue that the East Idaho State Fair provides an excellent inventory of specimens for an anthropological case study on the long term health effects of cousins… that marry cousins… that marry cousins…

In the 15 years I was away from my beloved Snake River Plain, I lived in large cities, I lived in small towns, and I even lived abroad for a couple years. For the entire time I was gone, whenever some snooty city-slicker or smelly foreigner would condescendingly ask me where I was from, I always replied with an air of surly swagger, “Idaho Falls, Idaho”… with an implied “B*tch” at the end of my response. For me, living in Idaho Falls is something to be proud of, it just feels comfortable living here, much like my thread-bare boxers that have been circulating in and out of my dresser drawers since INXS had their last number one single. The very same boxers my current spouse keeps threatening to have the Bonneville County HAZMAT team dispose of, just one of the many reasons I still refer to her as my current spouse.

I’ve lived in other SRP towns; I was in Pocatello for several years. Good people in Poky, met one of my wives down there. The one thing they have over I.F. is a thriving and relevant live music scene due to the university; unfortunately they also have a noisy stinking mass of railroad tracks running through the middle of town that make our stockyards seem like a fresh urinal mint by comparison. I lived in Rigby for a short time, turns out my 5th cousin Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the Cathode Ray Tube, used to live there too and has his own museum smack dab in the middle of town. Based on my experience, the only things to do up there are drink and visit the museum. I’m pretty sure the museum is open M-F from 10 a.m. to 5:00p.m. but it’s strictly BYOB, I learned that the hard way one afternoon when I got the stink-eye from the curator because I asked for a Crown neat with a Bud chaser. Good people in Rigby, met another one of my wives up there, but as the old saying goes, there’s no place like home. And I’m happy to say Idaho Falls has been and always will be my home.

Over the years I’ve developed a great respect for my fellow citizens of Idaho Falls. Although we I.F.ers have many differing views on life and the philosophies one should adopt to live it, we also have many things in common:

We love to camp. If you are reading this and are saying to yourself “I hate camping” I have four words for you: You are missing out. I remember as a kid Island Park was “the” place to beat the summer heat. Big Springs, Riverside, Ponds Lodge, Macs Inn, Henry’s, IP Reservoir, McCrea’s Bridge…I loved all of those spots and in the 60’s they were fantastic places to recreate, but then came the Utahans and we locals were forced to find new places to camp since no self respecting resident of Idaho Falls (or any town in Idaho for that matter) would camp next to some carrot-snapping Utard…ever. So we were driven Northwest to Salmon, West to Mackey, and East to Palisades to avoid the locust-like infestation from the south; hell bent on driving up all the real estate prices, catching all our fish with marshmallows, and polluting every decent camping spot between Ashton and Yellowstone with used disposable diapers, 3.2% beer cans, and empty boxes of lime Jell-O. The horror…the horror…Island Park, you deserved so much better.

We love box stores. You would be hard pressed to find a community anywhere in these United States that sports two Super Wal-Mart’s with a population of only 50,000. Oh sure we have Lowell’s, Target, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Shopko, and the like, but we LOVE Wal-Mart. The whole valley has a “thing” for the Box in Blue, but Idaho Falls is borderline John Hinckley Jr. / Jodi Foster in our relationship with this chain. We commit our murders there, have our drive by shootings there, hell we even deliver our babies there. It’s somewhat understandable, we I.F.ers have always been thrifty with a buck so regardless of the cost to the U.S. and local economy, we are absolutely bound and determined to save $1.27 on those crappy Chinese built widgets, who cares if we put another local business in bankruptcy? Man up and sell your hand-crafted doodads cheaper we say!

We love the 4th of July. This is probably the only summer weekend that we take a break from camping, fire up the grill, drink a few long necks or Mountain Dews (depending on age and religious affiliation) and watch things explode in mid-air. When I left Idaho Falls in 1980 we called the fireworks display “The Independence Day Celebration” and when I returned some slack-jawed rube had apparently sold our favorite summertime holiday to an out of town multilevel marketing outfit while I was gone. I went down to the river in ‘98 and watched in shocked awe at the grotesque spectacle, I have not returned. Just up the highway a few miles in Menan there is a fantastic fireworks display on the very same evening called “The Independence Day Celebration” that feels just like it did when I grew up here. An added bonus is after the show is over, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing the fireworks you watched were purchased by the city of Menan through anonymous donations made by honest hard working local farming families and you paid homage to the birth of our great nation in the spirit it was supposed to be celebrated, as opposed to applauding the financial success of a smarmy sweatshop.

Above all, we have an opinion on everything. Be it potatoes, abortion, global warming, movies, religion, food storage, guns, camping, politics, education, sex, restaurants, hunting…you name it, if can be argued, we’ll argue. Facts, figures, charts and graphs? Mehhh! These things meaningless to us, it doesn’t matter if you went to some fancy college and got some fancy degree, we KNOW what is right and wrong and black and white. Gray only exists in far off places like New York City or France. In Idaho Falls we wield our opinions with the precision of a Marine sniper rifle. Our opinions do not waiver, they are beyond reproach, we are right and you sir, are WRONG! Many long winter months are frittered away blathering our opinions in an infinite loop of he said /she said diatribes by mentally masturbating all over the internet; insuring other internet users know exactly how we think, what we stand for, and how they should be living their lives. Why? Because we’re from Idaho Falls, Idaho…B*tch.

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