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Show 70's!-to make that Garden of Eden he foresaw at first, a small but bountiful one. And he did more. If I over-glorify him, please forgive me as I'd understand your leaning toward the side of loyalty and love for your own Father. Observe, I don't flinch from telling his blunders too. What I've attempted is a picture of a family at once representative of families that pioneered the West in this century but also different, as your Father, your family no doubt are. What's more, since you've persisted thus far, I'm counting on you as representing a new kind of young American who aspires to more than material victories. With a bit of vision we can see Americansrenewing the dream that the wisest Founding Fathers of '76 held, a dream not of wealth gained selfishly, piratically, but of a union of free brothers and sisters aiding each other. The biggest blocks of stocks and bonds or the largest fleet of Cadillacs anchored beside a vast chateau-no. But courage to follow a high goal even if it nets one only a modest income, or less, or loss-that's the important point. Why is dramatic tragedy the highest form of poetic art? Because in defeat and ruin a person is tested to the utmost, to reveal the highest qualities a human being can own, qualities that give us hopes of a better race, a finer world. Was Father's leading us to the desert a blunder after all? He found his lost health there. But more importantly he kept his vision of beauty beyond wheat and potatoes, corn and alfalfa and cattle. He saw, in his own way, what padres Escalante and Dominguez saw when, two centuries ago, they named it "Valley of Our Lady of the Light.' When, near death at 76, Father stood in the little paradise he had created, sheltered from the sand-toothed south wind by the dark green wall |
