Weird in Washington Part II

I really need to write my intended, long blog post about my visit to the National Museum of American History. Then again I plan to go back so maybe that is my excuse for not writing it yet, plus it will involve posting pictures which I'm too lazy to do tonight.

An interesting and ironic thing about my last two days. I live in and around Salt Lake City and yet almost never have conversations about my religion with complete strangers. Yes, I talk about it all the time with friends and acquaintances (both members and non-members), but rarely do I have conversations with strangers. I mentioned the deal yesterday with the couple from Arizona. Today I ended up having two conversations, one with a nice fellow researcher at the archives who, in conversation about the legion of genealogists there today (more on that later) said, "Oh yeah there used to be a bunch of Mormons here scanning all the time." I have to mention that the word "Mormons" in this context was said in the same tone that one might use when saying "Martians", I subtly (I hope) managed to get out that I was Mormon. She seemed amused by this, and we talked a little bit about the megalithic Family History program before going back to our research.

Then I went to get dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel. Their menu was kind of huge so I asked the people at the counter if they had any recommendations, the lady asked me if I liked southern food. I said, "What do I know about southern food, I'm from Utah." She said, "Oh that's something my Mormon recruit son would say." It was a half snarky/half teasing comment so I responded with "Hmmm....so we got him then did we." She took half a beat and then said, "Is everyone in Utah Mormon? I'm Roman Catholic and they just sucked him in." I quickly assured her that I had a good friend from Utah who was raised as a Catholic (thank you Michaele!) and from there the conversation continued in a very fun and friendly manner. Weird.

Also on the weird front, when walking into the archives a woman who was sitting there said, "Hey, were you on a plane from Salt Lake a few days ago?" I said that I was, and she asked if I was here for the Genealogy conference. I said that I wasn't and the woman next to her said, "You know you look really familiar, do I know you?" Yep, she's apparently been to the County Archives to do research. Weird.