4/22/2006

Presentation: Pacific Union College Pre-Vespers

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking about Rainbow Over Hell to a small group of English majors and professors at my alma mater, Pacific Union College in the Napa Valley.

The students I spoke to were around the same age as Saburo Arakaki was during the Battle of Saipan. As such, I focused on the idea that we are all chosen for lives of significance. Saburo Arakaki's life was preserved and renewed, I believe, so that he might live a life of significance. Likewise, I wanted to emphasize the idea that no matter what the specifics of our lives may be, we are each meant to make a positive impact in the world.

I also spoke briefly about what it has been like for me to work as a writer. Being a writer and a person of faith brings a certain tension to one's work. Jewish writer Chaim Potok often said that this was a constant but beautiful struggle. I encouraged students to own that struggle and to explore it in their writing.

Perhaps more interesting than my presentation--and certainly more exciting--was the fact that our trip to PUC coincided with the arrival of President George W. Bush in the Napa Valley. President Bush helicoptered in and out of Angwin Airport on the PUC campus, bringing unusual excitement and bustle to the normally bucolic town of Angwin.

Bush spent the weekend at the upscale Meadowood Resort, just down the hill from the college, and on Saturday morning rode his mountain bike in the woods behind PUC.

Apparently, Napa Valley had been crawling with secret service agents for a week, and over the weekend, the normally quiet Angwin skies were abuzz with the sounds of helicopters and a fighter jet patroling the area.

This afternoon, we found ourselves in a small crowd of onlookers at Angwin's main intersection, which had been blocked off by CHP cars. A line of armed sheriffs stood along one side of the street. Twenty minutes later, the Presidential motorcade rolled into Angwin, preceded by a line of CHP cars marked "Forward Sweep" and "Forward Escort."

The Presidential motorcade consisted of about ten black SUVs with tinted windows, a SWAT team, an ambulance, dark vans marked "staff," and white vans with the press corps. It appeared that the President's car was the only one driving on the far side of the street away from the crowd. What seemed like an excessively long line of CHP cars and motorcycles followed.

My husband managed to snap a photo of the motorcade as they rolled through the intersection at full speed. (We only had a camera-phone, hence the low resolution):



Bush was scheduled to helicopter out of Angwin and make a visit to the California Fuel Cell Partnership in West Sacramento, and as we made the return trip to Sacramento, Interstate 80 came to a complete stop for several minutes just outside of West Sacramento.

Bush's visit to Northern California has brought out protesters and supporters alike. On Friday afternoon, Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley was lined with about 2,000 protestors--some calling for him to step down--and a few Bush supporters among them. In Angwin, one skate-boarding student held up an amusing sign that read "I don't like your face or politics, George," while others cheered and waved American flags at the President's motorcade. A bomb squad was called in during Bush's Sacramento visit.

With the U.S. at war in Iraq, there seems to be a growing and volatile split between Bush supporters and critics. Saburo Arakaki's life serves, I think, as a reminder of the impact of war on an individual level, and that's something we need to be reminded of in times of war and peace alike.

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