Welcome to Home of the Brave. I'm Scott Carrier. I'm doing okay, but lately my thinking has been off or my approach has been wrong.

A couple of weeks ago I was following the news, watching videos of statues being torn down around the country, and I thought,

we have statues here in Salt Lake City maybe some of them should be

torn down as well. We don't have any statues of Confederate generals or Spanish

conquistadors. our statues are mainly of Mormon pioneers, the most important

one being the statue of Brigham Young at the top of Main Street next to Temple Square. He's up on a granite pedestal, 25 feet high,

wearing a long coat and raising his left arm, palm upward toward the southern horizon of the great Salt Lake Valley, as if to say,

behold what God has given us.

At the base of the monument, there's a statue of a Native American sitting down at peace as if he also believes in this God.

My thinking was that I should make a sign that said take down this statue, and then my approach

was that I should stand at the base of the monument holding the sign to see if I could get some good interviews for this podcast.

The monument is in the center of the city, but the area was somewhat deserted because

Temple Square is closed and under major reconstruction.

There was some traffic and a few people walking by, but not as much as usual.

Most of the people who walked by avoided eye contact,

as if they didn't see me,

but people going by in cars would crane their necks and stare too long, not paying attention to the road.

A few honked or gave the thumbs up, but I had the distinct impression that I was being seen as a crazy person.

And then a woman pulled up in a car,

rolled down her window, and told me straight out that I was a crazy person.

She said, this is craziness, and you are a crazy person.

I asked her if I could talk to her on tape for my podcast and she said,

...