Ogden: A Love Story

You can fall in love with a place. I understood Nora Ephron completely when she wrote, “I honestly believed that at the lowest moment in my adult life I’d been rescued by a building,” in “Nora Ephron’s Apartment: A Love Story” published in the New Yorker two decades ago. Only I was rescued by a city—the community of Ogden, Utah.

It was at the 'O Town’ bar, Lighthouse Lounge (pictured) that I fell for my sweetheart in the Fall of 2019, four and a half years after I was smitten by Ogden and impulsively moved, ran, here from Salt Lake City. If a place can choose a person Ogden definitely wrapped its gritty arms around me and lured me into a safe stronghold—I know I’m not unique in that. This town does that to people. To walk the sidewalks of Two Bit Street is to be arcanely swooned. It’s this grip that behooves us to obsessively read about and study its character and history, more so than most other places I think. It’s the locals, not tourists, that proudly wear Ogden t-shirts and any other Ogden-branded products we can get our hands on. I haven’t seen this phenomenon other places.

Coincidentally, it was also at the Lighthouse Lounge bar (just tonight) that I told my friend Chris that I was going to start writing these letters. Something powerful happens when we actually speak our intentions. Ogden has become a safe place for me to shout out all of my weird and crazy dreams. My sweetheart Paddy bought this website domain for me within minutes when I said the words ‘The Ogdenite’ out loud one night a few months ago. Sometimes the words come before you actually know what will come of them. I still don’t know.

Tonight, what I do know is that I am an Ogdenite who writes. And I want to send Love Letters from Ogden to you.

P.S. A lot of people who live here generally don’t regard themselves simply as someone who lives in Ogden. We don’t just live here. We are Ogdenites!