Monday, June 23, 2008

The Seavey Diaspora

franken.jpg

As mentioned in an earlier entry, I’m off to New Hampshire this coming weekend to visit friends from college (and my leisure reading on the train, largely by coincidence, is likely to be an advance copy of a new book by Pagan Kennedy, who’ll be teaching at Dartmouth in the fall, on the ride up…and an old book by David Lipsky, Brown alum from the late 80s, on the way back down — and there’s your advance glimpse of my September and October Book Selections).

Being in New Hampshire, of course, not only means being in the state whence my father’s side of the family, like many Seaveys over the past four centuries, hails but also being close to Seavey Island, the disputed territory recently fought over by Maine and New Hampshire (I mean legally, not with guns).

Should Seavey Island ever be handed over to me, my resulting royal house will have a readymade slogan, for I have just discovered what is purportedly the traditional Seavey family crest online, with its fine slogan, “Virtue is more excellent than gold.”  Of course, I would have preferred “The gold standard and moral standards” or even “Virtue and gold — it’s all good,” but those might not be considered as poetic by some people.

My empire should include not only automatic citizenship for all who bear the Seavey name — and exalted positions for those precious few Seaveys with Google rankings comparable to my own, such as Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey, military commentator Mark Seavey, and comic book professional John Seavey — but also should involve a treaty of unification with Seavey Township (population sixty-four and population density about two people per square mile) in Minnesota.

Here’s hoping Al Franken will not end up representing Seavey Township’s state in the Senate.  (He might do to America what he did to hapless Air America!)  Should he triumph and Seavey citizens decide to secede from the U.S. as a result, they know what fledgling nation to turn to for support.

6 comments:

Todd Seavey said...

Speaking of John Seavey, by the way (not my Uncle John but the aforementioned comics columnist), you have to love the opening paragraph (after the parenthetical) of the blog entry he wrote on Saturday:

http://fraggmented.blogspot.com/2008/06/review-dont-look-now.html

Todd Seavey said...

Big month for little-people crime, actually (since this delightful story is on Drudge at the moment):

http://wcbstv.com/local/Dwarf.Pimps.Runaway.2.754338.html

Laura said...

Somehow I think if we’d moved to Vermont instead you would not be as excited about visiting…

Todd Seavey said...

The empire would maintain an open-border policy (albeit with security checks at the border) and respect freedom of movement between neighboring states, including between NH and (for example) VT as you or other residents might choose. Your value as a human being would not be diminished by residence in VT, even as taxes there likely dealt a crippling blow to your income.

And if my father ever acts upon notions of moving to Nova Scotia with Mom, the empire will even welcome them and their new friends with open arms as Canadians flee southward to get MRI scans and other specialty services denied or greatly delayed by their socialist healthcare services.

Canada is also home to our fellow Brown alums Jacob Levy and Miranda Hickman and, lest we forget, to Sasquatch, as seen in this informative video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a0gq9fzi6M0

David Lipsky said...

Did you know Pagan and I went to grad school together? We each other’s second-best friends at Hopkins.

— David Lipsky

Todd Seavey said...

It’s all connected! And, Mr. Lipsky, I just this very day sent Dan Greenberg — who you may recall as the _Brown Spectator_ editor from your days at Brown and who just recently gave me a copy of _Three Thousand Dollars_ — an e-mail saying that you’re a genius (but more on that in October!). An unexpected honor to have you in the Responses thread.

Now I really will have to read that book about West Point you wrote.