It amazes me to think it was two years ago this month that our family sold
the house my parents built in Moab nearly 60 years ago. It doesn’t seem that
long ago, yet it seems like forever since I’ve made the drive that was a near
weekly event in 2020.

Moab has been in the news this weekend due to flash flooding. It makes me
miss all over again those barefoot days running down the flooded gutters. In
plenty of ways Moab is just a ghost of the town of my childhood. When I last
visited it was a bustling tourist trap with seemingly endless hotel and motel
construction. Everyone seems to know of Moab and has either been there or wants to go. I find I kinda miss the days when I would tell people in other parts of Utah that I was from Moab and have them ask, “Where’s That?”

Nowadays I see bumper stickers, billboards and TV ads – but the real Moab,
my Moab, no longer exists. In my Moab, traffic was not an issue. You could
jaywalk across Main Street without concern. Even during jeep safari weekend,
you didn’t have to plan your route downtown, you just went. Nowadays you’d
better plan your errands to minimize your time on Main Street and avoid left
turns at all cost.

In my Moab, kids from all over town would make their way to the ballpark in
the morning and the swimming pool every afternoon. We didn’t need adults to
drop us off or keep an eye on us at all times. We played, ran, biked all over,
occasionally quarreled, then went home in time for dinner.

My Moab was quiet after dark. If you were close enough, you might hear the
cheers of an exciting ballgame that was going late, but you didn’t hear the
traffic of downtown. We heard crickets and the critters of the night. You could
roll out your sleeping bag on the back lawn (no tent) and fall asleep watching
the satellites pass overhead and thinking about the vastness of the Milky Way.

Recently, when I see Moab in the news it’s because there’s so many people in
town they have to close down the parks for a time. All too often it’s news-worthy because of a crime that a younger me would have never dreamed could be committed in my Moab. I know the world has moved on and I’m happy that so many people now appreciate my hometown, I just miss my Moab – the one before all the big changes.

To all my friends and acquaintances in Moab – I’m thinking of you and your
struggle to share our picturesque hometown while protecting it from the world
that would love it to death.