By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Catholic monasteries are not known, let alone acclaimed, for their Halloween pumpkins. That may be changing, thanks to some enterprising Northern Utah Latter-day Saint family farmers.…
Posts published in October 2023
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Good historians often are good storytellers, and my friend Utah historian Gary Topping knows many good tales about Utah’s past. He’s worked a lifetime to collect…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Although sometimes I think visiting graves is a strange custom, I still do it. In fact, I recently visited the final resting place for my dear…
By Gary Topping– Like our blogger-in chief, Mike O’Brien, I have lots of memories of Las Vegas. Unlike his, most of mine are negative: the noise, the lights, the water-wasting…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– In the blistering heat of a recent summer day, I sat in a large, air-conditioned, packed-to-the-rafters Las Vegas venue. I heard something few Vegas visitors get…
By Gary Topping– Looking back over my career as a historian, I am struck by how much of it has involved the work of the great Utah and Mormon historian,…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– To be an O’Brien does not mean you are ugly, but it does mean you are not an icon of classic physical beauty either. Generally, we…