Salt Lake City ? This place is going straight to heck in the morals department. I blame all these outsiders and foreigners, coming here with their caffeinated beverages and their sinful outside foreign ways.

Take jaywalking. When I first got here, nobody jaywalked. I’d be walking in downtown Salt Lake City (an area about the size of a regulation tennis court), and I’d come to an intersection, and there might be 150 people waiting to cross the street, with no car visible for a thousand yards in any direction, but if the “don’t walk” light was on, everybody just stood there, waiting for the light to change. My impression was that if the light got stuck in “don’t walk” mode, everybody would eventually turn around and go home.

But then cracks began to appear in the moral dam. About the middle of last week, I noticed that, on occasion, a corrupt outside foreign individual, not from Utah, would disregard the “don’t walk” light and start across the street. If you’re wondering how I know that this individual was not a Utahan, the answer is: I was the individual. I couldn’t help myself. I come from Miami, where we NEVER obey traffic lights. Sometimes we shoot them.

So I’d be out in the middle of the intersection, alone, and I’d feel the pressure of 300 Utahan eyeballs staring at me from the curbs, waiting for me to be struck by lightning. (I’m getting used to feeling like an outlaw here. I am an aging white man, but here in Salt Lake City, I feel like a hip-hop gangsta. Snoop Doggy Dave.)

And then, maybe the third time I jaywalked, it happened: SOME UTAHANS FOLLOWED ME. There were only a few, and they giggled nervously, but by gosh they crossed the street, in open defiance of the “don’t walk” light. The next time I jaywalked, more followed. Soon there were dozens. A crime wave! Utahans In Wild Street Rampage!

And that’s not the only evidence of moral decay. Last week, a big scandal here was an allegation that the local Olympic chief, Mitt Romney, had, while dealing with a traffic snarl-up, said some naughty words. I’m not kidding: This was an actual news story, generating much controversy, and forcing Romney to make the following statement to the newspaper: “I used the ‘H-word.’ It takes a lot of frustration to get me to say the ‘H-word.”‘

Whoa! The H-word! Again, this does not seem so bad to me, as a resident of Miami, where our official tourism motto is: “Miami: Come On The (bleep) Down!” But here in Utah, it is shocking.

One last sign of moral decay: A friend of mine claims that, the other night, outside the ice-skating arena, she saw five Utahans, right in public, attempting to dance.

My point is that, because of the corrupting influence of the Olympics, this once-pure state has started down a slippery slope. It’s only a matter of time before they start smoking crack and watching “Sex and the City.” I’m thinking of staying.