299 Days: The Preparation

Chapter 5 History

Grant joined a fraternity of good guys. The fraternity wasn’t the bunch of dicks he assumed they would be. Several of them came from small towns like he did. Most of them seemed to be like him; they were at the UW to get good jobs and have some fun.

Grant was doing really well in class, especially history. He took an introductory class on the Revolutionary War and after about two weeks, his professor, Professor Estes, asked him to stay after class.

“Where did you learn so much about the Revolutionary War?” He asked Grant.

“The library.” Grant wasn’t trying to be a smart ass. “What is the one question you would ask a Founder?” his professor asked. This was his standard question for seeing if a person was a serious thinker on this period of history or not.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Grant said. “I’d ask Thomas Jefferson why he thought the American Revolution turned out so differently than the French Revolution.”

“What do you think President Jefferson would say?” Professor Estes asked.

They spent the next two hours talking about the differences between the American and French Revolutions. The basic answer was that the American colonies had a tradition of self-rule and diverse religious backgrounds, while France was run top-down and only had one religion. The American revolutionaries were also very conscious of how most revolutions end up—a bloodbath of terror by opportunistic politicians. Also, the American revolutionaries did not try to hunt down and kill all their Loyalist opponents. They hung some of them, of course, but they let most of them either go to Canada or reintegrate into America if they pledged not to cause trouble. Reconciliation was the difference.

Grant shrugged and summed up his point to Professor Estes. “The Founders were practical people,” he said. “They understood that they needed the former Loyalists to be doctors, businessmen, farmers, laborers. The nation wouldn’t last long if it was constantly re-fighting that war among its people. At some point, a country must put all the old vendettas aside and get on with building roads, establishing institutions, growing businesses… living life. The Founders prized the country actually working after the Revolution more than they wanted to hunt down people they hated. That’s where the French went wrong.”

Professor Estes was taking it all in. He just sat there for a while. “Are you in the History Department?” he asked Grant.

“Yes, I’m an American history major,” Grant said.

“Would you like to work for me as a researcher?” Professor Estes asked.

Grant blurted out, “A job working on this? Getting paid to learn about the Revolutionary War? Hell, yes.” Then he corrected himself. “I mean, yes, Professor.”

Grant ended up producing a senior thesis paper on the differences between the American and French Revolutions. It was even published in a scholarly journal, a very rare honor for an undergraduate. For a senior seminar project, he wrote about the differences between the guerilla warfare in the American and French Revolutions. He compared the theories of Mao and those of the American revolutionary guerilla leaders and found that tactically, they were largely the same.

The UW was so different than Forks. Grant thought that just about everyone he met, especially the rich kids, lived in such an artificial world. In their world, food was always in the grocery store, the power was always on, and the police always came when they called 911. They had no idea what being hungry was like, what a cold night was like, or what violence was.

Lisa fell into this category. Grant couldn’t expect a beautiful, charming, future doctor girlfriend to be a hillbilly. In fact, her being a hillbilly would defeat the whole purpose of Grant starting a life in the suburbs with a respectable job and a respectable wife. Hillbilly was exactly what Grant was trying to get away from.

But every time Grant saw how the affluent Bellevue people lived, he kept wondering how this could be sustained. No one else seemed to be wondering about this. He couldn’t get his mind off of this topic: American life was unsustainable. He thought about it all the time, in between thinking about Lisa and his future life in the suburbs.

American history was great and all but Grant found something that was even cooler, and that would pay better.

He had always worked at least one job since he was kid. He wanted to earn some more money—partying and having a girlfriend wasn’t free—so he took a job at the federal prosecutor’s office as a photocopy clerk. He got to meet all kinds of lawyers and FBI agents. It was very cool. He quickly realized that he could be a lawyer.

Grant was drawn to the law. His mind naturally worked like the law: elements, applying the facts, coming to a conclusion supported by a law, and making arguments. He could instantly pick up on legal theories and could remember every detail of legal cases and history. It was weird. He was made to do this.

Many people he respected were telling him that he should go to law school. He brought up the idea with Lisa.

“Law school would be great for you,” she said with a huge smile. “We could do med school and law school at the same time.” She had stayed a pre-med major and was getting straight As. She was actually going to be a doctor. She was also probably very glad that she could tell her family that her boyfriend from little old Forks was going to law school. It sounded a lot better than a “history major.” And way better than “unemployed logger.”

Grant remembered his conversation with his Grandpa: “Only rich people can be lawyers.” Well, now, he was about to be one.

The one thing Grant didn’t think about much during these years was Forks. He was completely wrapped up in Lisa, school, working, achieving, achieving, and achieving some more. He was getting papers published, planning on law school, and was in a very serious relationship with a gorgeous soon-to-be doctor. He was accomplishing everything he set out to. And more. Lots more. This was the path he thought about when he was nine. It was all coming true.