Make-Do

 

Stopping in front of a neighbor’s house on a snowy evening, we discovered that it had been completely gutted and there was a sign out front with a picture of a completely new house.  ‘What was wrong with the old house’ we wondered.  Well, the kitchen counter was granite and they wanted slate, they wanted a truly great Great-Room with 30 foot ceilings, the master bedroom was not a suite with a bathroom the size of a gymnasium and they wanted radiant heat and air conditioning with a heated three car garage and driveway.   The nice house across the street had sold for over 2 million dollars but had been completely razed and now was being rebuilt as a glass cube with a flat roof.   

‘What’s wrong with our house’, we pondered.  The rooms are small and dated, the microwave is on the Formica counter, the mud room is Linoleum, the bathrooms get crowded and claustrophobic during our daily five-minute visit and the windows are foggy and cold.  The roof is still cedar shakes, and the original furnace and refrigerator are only 80% efficient but the trees have grown tall, the lawn is greenish and most of the sprinkler system works.  We Make-Do.

‘Should we update it’ we considered.  Nah, we could throw our kitchen in the land fill and rebuild it but in 5-10 years when we sell the house, they will throw the new kitchen in the land fill and build their dream kitchen.  Besides, we are Make-Do people.  We have gotten used to the way it is, it is our home, and we make the best of it, we do not want what we do not have.  This seems to be a lost art in Park City where every house is in a constant state of redo, rehab, and rebuild.  Why buy a house that you don’t want or like?  Build your own dream home on your own dream lot.  Everybody wants what they want and will not compromise or capitulate.  Everyone wants it perfect and the hell with the costs or the carbon footprint.  But perfection is a journey and not a destination, with Heisenberg uncertainty, and ultimately unobtainable.  As Ms. Fields might have said - perfect is the enemy of good.  Make-Do.

It’s the same with the roads around here where there are three to seven lanes coming and going to town and we only use half of them.  We have huge shoulders for buses we never see and bikers who prefer the bike paths on either side to getting run over.  Use the shoulders for peak traffic, at least through the big intersections.  Don’t zipper down four lane roads for a mile in front of the High School or for 100 yards on the road to Kamas.  Admit it, it’s a four lane road.  Use what we have and Make-Do instead of building tunnels and billion-dollar bypasses.  We have Park-and-Ride lots no one can get to or that are full of buses and tents.  Consolidate that crap where it won’t get in the way (Richardsons?) and incentivize tourists and workers to use the lots we have.  Make-Do. 

It goes for recreation as well.  Dozens of people sit around, in the hot sun or cold gym every day, to play Pickleball while tennis courts and basketball courts sit empty waiting for someone to play.  Adjust your schedules and priorities to maximize the resources we have instead of building more ten million dollar  courts.  Use what we have.  Put temporary nets on the unused courts and if someone comes to play hoops or tennis, let the Pickleball fanatics respectfully step aside.  Make-Do.

Park City has money, so we have water.  But that doesn’t mean we should not conserve this precious resource for things like wildlife, rivers, the Great Salt Lake and other people.  Our water bills are high to encourage us to conserve and to pay for what our water is really worth.  None-the-less there are trophy, second homes watering the Aspens daily because no one is here to adjust the timer, and they just pay the bill.  The rest of us consider brown-is-beautiful so we pay attention, and we use only what we need.  We Make-Do.  It’s not about money or entitlement or prerogative, it is about wisely using limited resources efficiently.  Consider the difference between what we need and what we want.  Make-Do. 

Finally let’s mention the stickers, the stayers, or the people that have lived here through thick and thin.  Miners, Hippies, Latinos and Ski Bums – rich and poor. The Alaskan Inuits consider theirs a subsistence culture with just the basics.  That includes community and belonging, in a harsh environment, but they stay, they Make-Do.  We could all leave our homes in search of a better place, but we stay and make the best of this place and help make this place be the best. Because we stayed.  We Make-Do.

Snyderville, Utah 2023

 

Less is More

 

Gridlock in August?  I can hardly believe my eyes.   Kimball Junction is backed up to town, so is 248.  On a Thursday at 330 PM.  They tell me there is an extreme-soccer tournament in town.  Someone must have thought that was a good idea at one time.  I’m sure they are nice people and great kids, but I am here to remind you politely, politically and publicly, it was not.  Make a note of that so you don’t forget the locals again, the collective consciousness that makes this town real.  This is our home, not Disneyland.

We gave up on Christmas, New Years, President’s week, Sundance and the Art Festival years ago and consider them a necessary evil, a sacrifice we make for living in such great town and sharing it with the world.  Remember the Olympic moto – The world is welcome here.  Well not all at once and not all the time.  We have our own quality of life to consider and maintain.

The planners at the City, the County and the powers that be, have done a better job lately at planning only one big event per weekend, one tournament, one Silly Market or one bike race, and that has kept summer activity to a manageable, low roar.  I am thankful that this extreme-soccer tournament was not on Art Festival Weekend along with a stage of the Tour of Utah ripping up Main Street at the same time as the Shot Ski and A Taste of Park City, but do we really need to have these big tournaments here so often.  Remember when we had a motorcycle race in Thayne's Canyon.  That didn't last.  But it seems like we always have at least one event per week.

We talk about sustainable tourism, but what does that look like? Fodor’s has recently rated Lake Tahoe as too crowded to visit.  Too much traffic. Too much car culture.  They want to limit or charge fees for auto access.  Good ideas but are they too late?  They say they have a ‘people problem’ and need ‘tourist management’.  They want to tone down their Chamber of Commerce, Merchants and their marketing efforts.  Locals cannot live their lives.  Do we want to get that kind of rating?  It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot, or killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.  Could we tone down our Chamber and Merchants and marketing?  We understand the desire of some people to fill beds and paid parking spaces, but we do we need to fill all of them, all the time. 

What kind of town do we want to be?  When Deer Valley started in the 80’s they were all about customer service, like Nordstroms and REI, and the customer was always right.  That set the tone for Park City for years to come, we focused on the customer and the product.  We have been recognized as one of the most expensive places to vacation in the US and I therefore conclude that we already aspire to have a more low-key, high-end appeal, inclusive to all but with a relaxed vibe, in a classy backdrop.   Our Brand has already been successfully and honestly established so do we need to advertise and recruit that much?  Let us try a little more moderation in the planning, scheduling and in the exploitation of our largess.  Do we want to be classy or crowded, bucolic or bustling, relaxed or frantic, success or failure.  Do we want to be Nordstroms or Disneyland?  I know it is a delicate line to draw but we must find the balance.  Sometimes, less is more.