Those Were the Dayzz

I grew up in a suburb of Salt Lake City called Taylorsville. A small community of families that brought their kids there for high school baseball (John Buck and Brandon Lyon went to school with me). Other than baseball Taylorsville didn’t really have anything to be known for, until 1997 happened and Taylorsville Dayzz began.

When Taylorsville first became a city they decided that every year they wanted to do a little something to celebrate. The first few years started with a stage and a few fun performers would happen. It was a place to go with your family on a Friday night in June to enjoy some entertainment and getting together to celebrate the beginning of our city.

Well, when this happened, my dad happened to be on the city council and helped with all the planning. For me this has always been a huge part in my life. At first it was just participating in the small parade where the city council rode in golf carts and me and a friend would take the carts back to the place we rented them from.

Then after few years Taylorsville Dayzz started to get a little bigger, adding food vendors, places for people to sell their products, and a bigger stage for even bigger performances. It became tradition for the Utah Symphony to add Taylorsville Dayzz to their list of FREE outdoor performances. The community loved this and it was a great place to bring family. In 2001, my dad became the chairman of Taylorsville Dayzz and has run it ever since.  So for me it’s like a family tradition.

Once the stage got bigger, that meant that there had to be over night security. Clearly I was ready to step up to the plate and get this done. Me and all my friends were more than willing to do this. Our job, protect all the vendors product and make sure the big stage was watched over. We do that and we will get to ride four wheelers all night, eat pizza, and play 007 on the projector that my friends could see from their house 100s of feet away.

We would ride all night long, stopping anyone that would try to pull into the parking lot, swarming them with our four wheelers saying, “You can’t be here there is expensive equipment and no one can be here.” We felt like we had power and the cool security shirts became a prized possession that everyone wanted to get their hands on.

Some of the greatest stories in my life have come from working security at Taylorsville Dayzz. Like the time that one of the four wheelers ran out of gas and so we pushed it to the gas station down the street. We were just about done filling it up with gas when a highway patrol pulled up. He asked how we got it there and I told him that we pushed it. Then he asked how we were planning on getting it back to the park. I knew that it was illegal to drive it on public streets, so I told him we would push it back. He told me to put my hands behind my back and was getting ready to arrest me. I was nervous because it was my friend’s and it wasn’t registered. Another friend that was with me called my dad telling him what was happening. The cop yelled at my friend to get off the phone. Within minutes my dad was there to help me out- everyone listens to my dad.

Another time was when I had gone 76 hours with no sleep. When you do security you’re up all night and being that my family was so involved in helping with Taylorsville Dayzz I would be at the park all day with my dad’s booth, trying food from all the different food vendors, and just having fun with all my friends. Then up all night doing security. It was the third night of security when I was riding with my brother-in-law and cousin chasing seagulls. I found a great little area where if you went fast enough you could catch some air, but you had to turn pretty quick once you landed so that you wouldn’t hit a new tree that the city had planted. I gunned it, flew over the walk path that goes around the park, and turned to miss the tree, but as I did that I turned again the opposite direction making the ATV roll. It rolled over me, smashing me and tearing my pants in half. I quickly got up, flipped the ATV back onto it’s wheels, and just stood there looking at what just happened. My cousin and brother-in-law rushed over to see if I was okay. All I could say was, “I think I need to go home and sleep.” I lived up the street and walked home, pants torn from my knee up to the zipper, and walked into house to pass out on my bed.

Taylorsville Dayzz has always been big part of my life: being in the parade for my dad (running for city council or the House of Representatives), security, eating anything and everything with my friends, riding the rides, and seeing long time friends unite for this fun city tradition. I even took my wife on some of our first dates to Taylorsville Dayzz.  She was still just a friend and I wouldn’t even hold her hand but we did ride the ferris wheel.  It was the start of a fun tradition and I can’t wait to bring our son into it.

The best part of all this is that it starts tonight! Here is all the information and I hope to see you there and for your family to join in the Taylorsville Dayzz tradition too.