Tuesday, September 7, 2010

250. Gliding, we are gliding


Magdalena was loaded, but she had issues. She was intelligent, well-educated and, for some reason that she simply could not fathom, had not a conservative bone in her body. If there is such a thing, genetically she was a black sheep.

Born on the windswept plains of Patagonia, her lineage stretched back to the bursar to Captain Robert Fitz Roy, the captain of Darwin’s ‘Beagle’, who in 1834 travelled up the Rio Santa Cruz, then jumped ship with stars in his eyes. She was a throw-back to this one act, a way-throw-back. In the ensuing 150 years, her ancestors grew wealthy, and powerful, and stolid. The stars were replaced with pesos, the adventure, with responsibility. The Estancia Monte Leon generated such wealth and power that the spark of rebellion, the step of the different drummer, was dimmed and extinguished.

And yet, here was Magdalena, exhuming the recessive blue family heritage.

1 comment:

Joan Elizabeth said...

This one really amused me. I like the thought of the recessive gene being exhumed. Love that car too. There is certainly lots of a photographic fodder in your corner of the world.