Personally, barring future uncontrolled, unorganized development- I don’t see myself ever leaving Tooele County. It’s nice to be able to see more than a couple stars at night and mountain ranges not littered with rich-people houses. It’s nice to walk around at night without the fear of being shot/stabbed/mugged/sodomized/beaten. I sometimes work graveyard shifts in downtown Salt Lake and believe me, outside of the Temple Square area, you don’t want to be out after dark.

But if you want some good entertainment, visit the 7-11 on 300 E. 100 S. Billy Bob Thornton lives there. No, really, he does. He’s slightly younger than he appears on TV, but it’s him. He has long, highly intellectual conversations with himself in front of the store. Be sure not to miss Jimmy the 300 lb man-whore who struts his stuff on the corner of 200 S. and 300 E in a midrift and short shorts, to 80′s ghetto-blaster tunes. Or the dude across the street with a shopping cart full of electrical gadgets from the 70′s, which he’s selling in order to raise enough money to buy a gun or a knife so he can learn his ex-buddy a lesson. My favorite character is the 60-something wannabe gangsta that pretends to talk to people on the pay phone outside the Maverik on 600 S. He knows all the street lingo and spends a great deal of time telling stories on that phone. If I hadn’t seen his act numerous times, I might think he’s actually talking to somebody.

And no trip to Salt Lake City would be complete without a visit to the ZCMI mall to talk to Long John Silver’s unofficial spokesperson. This guy’s from Boston, and he knows his seafood. He also knows where to spot the chicks. He’ll gladly point out his favorite table where you can view the “biggest knockers you’ll ever see.”

Back to the topic at hand, which was what- Tooele? Oh yeah. Can small towns be somewhat backward? Yes. But big cities tend to be looney bins. And as a former downtown Salt Laker (I lived right on 200 South), I can definitively say that Salt Lake City is wack-job central. I’ll take an occasional backward hick over an army of wack-jobs any day, thank you very much!

Oh, and I cut through parking lots and hung out at Wal-Mart even when I was living in an affluent part of West Jordan!