WELCOME TO DRAPER

D.I.: Dirty Indigents?

By Randy Harward, 3-15-06

For most of my life, I've lived near a Deseret Industries store -- or D.I., to use the local vernacular. They are what they are: secondhand stores where you can dump your old junk or, if you're in need of old junk, an oasis of needful things. Those are the practical functions. Many Utahns regard these stores as they would a blood donation center, welfare office, adult bookstore or dumpster.

In my life, the D.I. has been the dump and the oasis. As a kid, it was a place for my single mom to find everything from a saucepan to replacement Wranglers to Halloween costumes or church ties or funeral clothes.

Lately my D.I. dealings fall on the other side of the spectrum: I am fortunate enough to be in a position to donate more than I shop. However I am not averse, when my children need that one last piece for a Halloween costume (or when someone in the house scorched the saucepan), to relying on Deseret Industries' secondhand stock. For 34 years, it has been a valuable resource for myself, my family and my friends—on or off the dole.

It’s true: for part of my childhood, my mother accepted both welfare and WIC. Of course, these were the days when we used the D.I. most. This fact, our resultant wardrobes, my mother's marital status (divorced from a cheating flake) and her pack-a-day habit qualified us, even to those who lived on the same street and attended the same LDS ward, as white trash.

I was teased for that and for the way I wore those hand-me-down Wranglers (up past my bellybutton) and awful Western shirts. (My mother desperately wanted me to be a cowboy—Sam Elliott, if possible. Sorry, mom.). The harassment was such that I started to believe I was what they said I was. When I got the chance (read: was old enough to object), I steered clear of the D.I. and helped my mom run up a credit card bill because I had to have new jeans and new shirts (and parachute pants!). Now a few inches into the right side of the tracks, I dished out some abuse of my own.

Now, as the co-head of my own family, I sincerely regret my behavior. I’m ass-deep in the struggle and can see how my mother used the dole and the D.I. just enough to keep our family going as she attended college. I’ve had the humbling-but-empowering experience of using WIC and even payday loan/check-cashing stores and pawn shops—two other enterprises for plebes. I used these places and worked until I didn’t need them and I again found myself a few inches into the right side of the tracks. Only now I understand how I got there: a combination of hard work, a helping hand and a determination to do better.

That’s why I’m so infuriated at the Draper City Council's decision to block a Deseret Industries store from opening in what they regard as their prime real estate, their right side of the tracks. The 38,000-square-foot store, which would have sat on five acres near 12300 South and 300 East, was rejected when the Council approved a new ordinance restricting secondhand stores larger than 5,000 square feet from operating east of I-15. Draper, it seems, is getting big for its definitely-not-Wrangler britches.

The Deseret Morning News reports that Councilman Bill Colbert said that no other city puts secondhand stores in their downtown redevelopment projects, and that they needed to tighten restrictions now that—gasp!—a check-cashing business and pawn shop have opened at the gateway to the city. "Salt Lake doesn't allow this to occur in their prime real estate district. It doesn't occur downtown."

Someone should tell Councilman Colbert that four of seven Deseret Industries locations from Magna to Sugarhouse and downtown Salt Lake to Sandy sit east of I-15. And at one time, all of the land in all of these places was prime real estate (the right side…). Not that these places are ghettos now. Sandy’s always been mostly affluent, but look at the other places: Sugarhouse is looking rather spruce. Rocky’s done a fine job fixing up downtown SLC. Even Magna’s not so stinky.

It’s because people are taking pride in their surroundings, working hard to do better. Every place has potential; bad neighborhoods only exist because some elitist moron(s) decided to draw an arbitrary line in the sand. Wherever they are, standing proud and turgid in new jeans purchased with old money, that’s the right side of the tracks—it must be kept free of dirty indigents in their D.I. dungarees. Otherwise, they might find themselves a few inches into the wrong side of the tracks, juxtaposed with hardworking white trash whose presence and perseverance will bring out their ruddy complacency and snobbery.

And yet, that’s exactly what Draper has brought upon itself.

(So far Deseret Industries' parent company, the LDS Church, has not commented on the controversy because they simply must be stunned to silence.)

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