Idaho’s Culture Changed and We Didn’t Even Notice

You don’t notice a tree growing on a day-to-day basis.  In 1979, my dad and I planted a red maple.  Then I moved away, and he sold the house in 1990, and I didn’t see the place again until 2017.  The tree was doing well 27 years before, but what I saw on that last visit was a massive maple.  It took me aback for a moment.

I was thinking about that story as an analogy to cultural change in Idaho.  It was nearly 10 years ago that I visited a small church in Hagerman.  St. Catherine is affiliated with a larger parish in Buhl.  These smaller churches are called missions, operating as a satellite of a larger church.

When I was there in 2015, I was among the youngest in the pews.

Last Sunday, I was driving through Hagerman to get some pictures of Idaho in spring, and realized Mass was scheduled in half an hour.  St. Catherine has just one mass on Sunday mornings.  I stopped, and found a seat, and did I get a lesson in how things can change when you’re not looking.

I was among the oldest in attendance.  There are more young families today, and the young are primarily Latino.  Mass was a mix of English and Spanish.  I was an unfamiliar face, but people were especially kind and polite.

In January, I went to the March for Life in Boise, and I booked a seat on a packed bus.  I was in a tiny minority as an English speaker.  Or, as a guy who knows only one language!

Idaho Changed and I Didn’t Notice

You can talk about illegal immigrants, and I sometimes do, but not everyone with a Spanish surname is here illegally.  Jumping to conclusions has often left me feeling quite stupid.

What I do know is that these are people who are often more conservative than most Republicans I know, especially when it comes to social issues.  Two high school graduates were awarded scholarships after Mass.  One of them also sang in the choir.  Members of the church contributed to the scholarship effort.

Change can make us uncomfortable, but not all change is bad.