Day 48, Sunday April 14: Salt Lake City, Utah to Park City, Utah

Carnegie libraries visited: none

What’s the difference between an AA meeting and a Mormon* church service?

At AA meetings, we pray and pass the hat.

*The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints requests that the terms “Mormon” and “LDS” not be used, and that adherents to the faith be called “members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” or “Latter-day Saints.” Henceforth, I’ll take their advice.

This is not a joke. I attended a worship service this morning and we sang hymns and said no prayers. No offering plates are passed and, because Latter-day Saints are expected to fulfill their pledges some other way, there is no need for them to collect at services. Most AA meetings begin and end with a communal prayer, and a hat (and it’s often literally a hat) is circulated around so that participants can drop in a dollar or two, although that is not required.

So what are similarities between these seemingly dissimilar meetings? More than I would have thought. Although Latter-day Saints forswear alcohol (and nicotine, and caffeine), I don’t doubt there are Latter-day Saints who are alcoholics and alcoholic Latter-day Saints (Googling ‘famous alcoholic Mormons’ produced no hits, however.) The AA meetings I have attended and the Latter-day Saints service I attended this day were almost identical in structure, purpose, and, dare I say, vibe. Each begins with the “leader” giving opening remarks. I put “leader” in quotes because, in each case, the individual opening the meeting is considered to be a trusted servant. For the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this person is the ward bishop, an unpaid position that rotates periodically, chosen from among the church priests – and all adult male members are priests. For AA, the trusted servants who run the meetings are those who volunteer their service. 

After opening comments, those attending may (or may not) choose to ‘share’ (for AA) or testify (for the Latter-day Saints). These individuals are not (usually) selected in advance: those who are moved to share/testify do so by giving brief (usually 2-5 minutes) personal stories regarding their experience, strength, and hope. The most moving testimonial at the Latter-day Saints service this morning came from a woman deeply mourning the loss of her nephew, who died from alcoholism. As he approached death, her spiritual community prayed for his recovery. If only, she said, he reached out himself to seek recovery he might have been saved. If I had closed my eyes, I would have been hard pressed to determine whether I was in worship service or a meeting.

From my earlier visits to Salt Lake City, I was familiar with the city’s major landmarks: the Utah State Capitol, Temple Square, the state liquor store (4/10s of a mile from the Salt Palace convention center), the state liquor store that is 9/10s of a mile from the Salt Palace, and so forth. The Capitol and Temple are well known to the public, and the latter two were well known to me. 

I had been to SLC twice earlier as a “reader” of an AP (“Advanced Placement”) exam. Every year well over a million US high school students take one or more AP exams. If a student earns a score of 3 or more (on a scale of 1-5) then that student typically receives college credit and can “advance” past the introductory course when matriculating, “placing” into a higher level course. Over 250,000 students take the US Politics and Government exam. One half of the exam is multiple choice, and so can be scored by computers, while the other half involves short essays which must be scored by hand. To do this, the College Board (the non-profit that manages the exams) brings together more than 1000 “readers” to the Salt Convention Center to sit for a week and manually score these essays. Most readers are the high school teachers, but others (say, adjuncts or contingent faculty) that have taught a course on American politics can also score the exams.

When I and several thousand other readers (there were multiple AP exams graded in Salt Lake City that week) descended on the city, one of the first stops many of us made was the liquor store closest to the hotels. The line going into the store was as long as for a Barbie opening, minus the pink apparel. No doubt other alcoholics were in that line, although most were probably just stocking up for the various parties they would attend after work. I was only stocking up for myself but – as is commonly the case with other alcoholics, it seems – I wanted to appear that I was preparing to entertain others. So I bought something like a six-pack of craft beer (a high ABV IPA, no doubt), a bottle of Malbec wine, and maybe a 5th of Evan Williams bourbon, rather than a handle of some booze.

That would be the last time I would go to that particular liquor store. When I ran out of my supply, as I invariably would, I would walk to the more distant store. Why? Because I thought there would be less of a chance that a reader would go that extra distance, and so less chance that I would be recognized. This is what is known as a case of alcoholic thinking. Even if I returned to the original store, and even if someone I knew saw me (a slim chance, certainly), so what? People go to liquor stores to buy spirits. There’s no shame in that. But there is usually shame in the heart of the alcoholic, and this alcoholic at least would rather avoid the chance of appearing shameful than to avoid the shameful act itself.

As a member of a committee that developed an exam, I was (contractually) required to participate in a reading one year. I avoided this as long as possible, as the scoring is pure tedium. The readers sit in a ballroom for eight hours a day (8-5, with a one hour break for lunch) for six straight days, scoring exam after exam. Supervisors used to spot check our work randomly and offer guidance, but more recently the readers' scores are entered into a live database. Some exams are pre-scored by a committee, so some of the scores I entered were compared to the ones already scored to see if our scores matched. My performance was continually evaluated, with a dashboard on my computer showing green (our scores matched!), yellow (my scores are deviating) or, even red (abort! abort!). Supervisors would intervene when warranted. The College Board stresses the importance of scoring accurately, rather than quickly, and there were no punishments for being slow. Still, the readers’ norm was to work quickly, so that we could finish all the work by the end of the week. 

Readers are paid for scoring the exams. When I was a reader in 2020, the pay was $25.60/hour for the 48 hour week, or about $1500. For our nation’s overworked and underpaid high school teachers and contingent faculty, the pay would probably cover the mortgage for a month or even allow their family to go on vacation. It’s almost exactly equal to what a typical high school teacher makes in a week (their median annual pay was $63,200 in 2022). The pay was not really an inducement for me, as it was much less than I was making and, besides, spending a week scoring (often) illegible high school essays had large “opportunity costs.” An opportunity cost is the price of foregoing alternatives: if I didn’t spend the week reading, I could have been doing something else more valuable which, I thought, included just about anything else.  

Even though I was required to be a reader for at least one year, I put it off as long as possible. The thought of spending a full week locked into a ballroom reading high school essays for low pay seemed like low-grade torture. Finally, I could delay no longer, and so I went.

I had a wonderful time. My plan was to go full Zen: reading became a mode of meditation. Readers sit around an eight-person table, and we developed an office jokey-chattey bond. The food was excellent and endless, and I chose to eat most of my meals outside under the bright Utah sun. I explored the city after work, sometimes solo and sometimes with others. When I had to work for my actual job (my summer asynchronous virtual classes began that week, so I had some class management activities to attend to) I would slip off to the Salt Lake City Public Library. The happy hour at the end of the week was truly happy, and it lasted far more than an hour. In fact, I enjoyed the experience so much I went back a second year.

Salt Lake City Public Library

The Salt Lake City Public Library is one of my favorite places to work. It has breathtaking views of the mountains and lots of places to spread out and plug in. Snow was still on the peaks, but the room was sweltering so after about an hour I packed up. Leaving the library, I passed five pairs of chairs facing each other, about six feet apart. I thought it was some sort of Covid thing, until I saw the sign “Need someone to listen to you?” A tall, lean, guy with a friendly smile and salt-n-pepper hair asked me “Interested?” Keith explained that he was volunteering for “Sidewalk Talk," a global community listening non-profit. Its mission? “To teach and practice heart-centered listening in public places.” We spoke – well, mainly I spoke, and he listened – for about ten minutes. Fascinating, and delightful!

The other Salt Lake City libraries I visited also glowed in the spring sun. A glorious day.

The Park City Hostel was deserted; I think only one or two other guests were there. It was the last week of the ski season, and the ski bums were bumming elsewhere. Even the pool table had fallen silent.

Park City Hostel