Originally published in Utah Business.

I recently returned from a 10-day vacation in England with my daughter. My husband picked me up at the airport and during the drive home we compared stories about my trip and his time here at home. Within about 15 minutes of conversation a theme emerged that gave me pause. I think our community needs to be careful not to lose our edge, and it starts with the little things.

Public Perceptions

I am a huge soccer enthusiast, and I described to my husband my experience at an English Premier League soccer match in Southampton, England, because I was struck by the ambiance at the game. This was not the rowdy, crazy, pray-for-your-safety soccer match I had imagined. The fans were courteous, respectful and helpful. Yes, they were loud, but even more, they were polite. There were many families in attendance, and the whole experience struck me as a national pastime, much like American baseball. What surprised me most was they did not allow alcohol in the seating area. That’s right…they had a beer garden of sorts outside of the seating area, but no alcohol was allowed at your seats.

My husband found all of this interesting because he attended Real Salt Lake’s opening match at Rio Tinto Stadium while I was gone. He had a very different experience. The game was great and the setting remarkable, but the beer drinking got a bit out of hand. A couple just in front of my husband drank enough to lose their class, yell obscenities at the ref and demonstrate time and time again how not to act in front of your young children, whom they had sitting at their side. The contrast between his experience in Sandy and my experience in England loomed large. Sometimes reputation and reality really are at odds.

It didn’t end there. My husband went on to describe his bike rides along the Jordan River Parkway while I was gone. While crossing a bridge at a particularly narrow area, my husband almost collided with two men who had congregated at a turn. My husband couldn’t help but notice that both men were wearing a holster with a firearm exposed just under their coat. It caught him off guard, and he told me he had never seen this blatant display of weapons before along the parkway. He wondered out loud what would motivate these individuals to open carry their guns in broad daylight along this remarkable urban park?

In return, I mentioned that in London—by every measure a world-class, international city with plenty of security risks—the police officers carried batons, not firearms. Sure there were firearms at Buckingham Palace, but they were behind the gates, not on the streets near the people. Policing in England, while controversial to some, is done with what is called “respect and consent” rather than the force of a gun. This stands in dramatic contrast to the flood of police shootings locally this year in Utah, let alone the growing interest in openly carrying firearms in public places in our state.

Public Spaces

One more brief story also supports my point. My husband is a furniture maker. We have always loved the customary benches sprinkled throughout the parks and public gathering places in London and farther afield in the United Kingdom (UK). I saw them in Hyde Park, St. James Park, the City of Bath, Portsmouth Harbor and at the Old Bosham sailing club facing out to sea. These timeless benches are found throughout the UK and offer an attractive resting place for reflection, relief and meditation.

Coincidentally, while I was gone, my husband put a new finish on a replica of these benches that my son built two years ago and donated to Murray Park to help fulfill his Eagle Scout requirements. After two years of sun, sprinklers, use, abuse and weather, the bench needed a touch up.

My husband commented on how there were initials carved in the bench and even some skateboard grinds along the front wooden seat. While not surprising, it’s still disappointing. People take something beautiful and deface it. Too often we look the other way and tolerate such senseless acts.

I realize beer at a soccer match, exposed firearms and carving initials on a park bench are completely trivial. They are the least of our problems…so small that I hesitate to write about them. But history has shown that little things beget bigger things. If you want to do great things you have to get the little things right.

If you want to build a great community and a strong economy, fight complacency, set high standards, and expect and enforce good behavior. Little things really do matter, and if we aren’t careful with our behavior we can lose our edge. Remember this next time you see a park bench, attend a sporting event or see the open display of firearms in our society.