Pilgrimage

As the only member of the family (that I know of) to have made a pilgrimage to the land of our fathers, I feel an obligation to share my experiences. For those readers who are not family members, you probably already guessed this (based on my feather-light feet, my antelope-like quickness, and my keen hunting instincts), but I am part Native American. Yes, it is true. My family descends from the Indian princess Pocahontas, daughter of the great chief Powhatan. We have suffered some persecution because of this noble ancestry. When Amber told her elementary school teacher that she was related to Pocahontas, her teacher ridiculed her, and, since that scarring incident, Amber has ridiculed the rest of us for our 'foolish belief in the traditions of our fathers.' Still, many of us remain proud of our noble heritage.


A couple of summers ago, I went with Katie's family to the D.C./Williamsburg area, as Katie's dad had some meetings back there. We saw the sights in D.C. and spent a day in Williamsburg (which is one of the coolest places I've been). But we also went to Jamestown, the first successful settlement in the New World. It was there that our noble grandmother pled wither her father, the great Chief Powhatan, to spare the lives of the settlers. It is beautiful country. The marsh grass is green, and the trees are as ancient as the stars. I can only imagine how beautiful it was before the white man scarred the land with his buildings made of stone and steel. It had a familiar feeling, like a place you would go to in a vision quest. It felt like coming home, and I felt my blood running strong that day, like a herd of bison.


We heard the tour guide speak of the hardships suffered by the settlers. There was a statue of Pocahontas that had been erected in her honor. I had to laugh that the white man chose to memorialize her with cold, hard materials (the same cold, hard materials that they had used to drive the Native Americans from their native lands). Still, I appreciated the gesture of the statute, and I paid homage to these great people, my ancestors.


But what may have been most rewarding was the validation of my family's claim to being descendants of this great tribe. Next to the statue, there was a sign describing Pocahontas' life. It explains her intercession between the settlers and her father, her marriage to John Rolfe, her trip to England, her return back to America, the death of her only daughter, and the survival of her only son. The sign concludes by noting that many Americans claim to descend from Pocahontas through this son. I interpreted this to mean that my family's claim was not some romantic dream created to excite the imagination of the children in the family, but a legitimate ancestral claim.

Book/DVD Exchange for Christmas '06

Amber's book recommendation in her comment on my last post gave me this idea. Because my family didn't get to do our book exchange this year at Christmas, I would like to do one here. Every year, on my mom's side of the family, we get together on Christmas Eve (attendance has grown more and more scarce as we have married and have other families to visit, but it still generally happens). Part of our Christmas party is a spin on the white elephant game. We basically use the rules of the white elephant game, but instead of bringing a gag gift, we bring one of our favorite books or movies. It can be one or our all-time favorite books/movies or it can just be one of our favorites out of the books/movies we have read/seen in the past year. It is quite fun, and we all walk away with a cool new book/DVD and lots of other ideas for good books to read.

So, because we didn't get to do our book exchange this year, I would ask everyone to comment and suggest a few books/movies.

I will start. I would probably bring the play Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. It is absolutely brilliant! I finished it just after Christmas, and I haven't gotten around to reviewing it here yet; stay tuned for that. I might also recommend Elder Maxwell's biography, which is very interesting and well-written (a major plus, since many biographies about LDS leaders aren't very well-written, I feel). I also liked All Over But the Shoutin', which I reviewed here. As for movies, I really liked The Prestige, although I am not very qualified to give movie recommendations because I haven't seen hardly any since Grace was born.

Book Review: Cities of the Plain

If there is a better living American author out there, I would like to know about him or her. Cormac McCarthy is just so good. Cities of the Plain is the third title in his Border Trilogy and is equally good as the first two books in series, All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing. As with the first two novels, you have a story set in the Southwest, near the Mexican border, where underspoken cowboys live in a changing world that is starting to phase them out. You also have McCarthy's standards: excuisite writing, a blind sage, brutal fights, and interesting asides into philosphy. This book brings together the main characters from the first two books--John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham from The Crossing. John Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute, who he wants to marry and bring back to the United States. He must wrest her away from her Mexican owner/pimp, however, which is not a rosy proposition. The story and the dialogue are always deceptively simple but endlessly interesting. I would love to read some literary criticism on McCarthy's novels because you always get the sense that there is more there than what you can get out of it on the first read.

In related news, McCarthy just came out with a new book called The Road, which is supposed to be awesome. We got it for Spencer for Christmas, so he'll have to let us know what he thinks of it.

State v. Bradshaw

The first opinion that I did a lot of the work on, State v. Bradshaw, just got published (here's a pdf viewable online if you're interested: www.utcourts.gov/opinions/supopin/Bradshaw2122906.pdf). I wrote a couple of early drafts. Then Justice Nehring did some substantial editing. Then I did another strong edit or two, and it was ready to go (after being read and edited by the other Justices and law clerks at the court). Its a criminal case involving the Utah communications fraud statute. We had to define what a "scheme or artifice" was a little better. I have to be careful about what I say about it, so I'll just let the opinion speak for itself. Its a fairly interesting case. We've got some more interesting cases coming down the pipeline here soon, so I'll let you know when those come out.