Writing Endeavours

Recently I've been spending a lot of time in the library.

I live within walking distance of a huge one in Burnaby; I love it there.

It has an immense DVD section, and I randomly pluck titles off the shelves hoping to find a gem.

That happened a few days ago.
"Everything is Illuminated", starring Elijah Wood, is a fictional story about a young man from America who wishes to visit Ukraine and find his Grandfather's roots. It's filmed in Ukraine, very close to the place where my Great-Grandparents lived. It looks a lot like Amity, Oregon, where they eventually settled in the 1920's.

The young man in the story is Jewish, so his tale is much darker than my family's.

I enjoyed the film very much and I think I'll add it to my collection.

It's my dream to one day visit Ukraine, even though the villages where my Mom's family lived are long gone. I'd love to breathe in the "flavour" of the place which was their home for many years.

We're not Ukraine, that we know of; our ancestors on my Mom's side are German and Polish. But a little Ukraine might have got in somewhere, because the family records are lost.

For the conclusion of the whole matter: I'm very thankful that my Great-Grandparents had the fore sight  to flee Ukraine while they could. At the time, of course, it was part of Russia. They felt and knew that a wicked, dark time was coming for all living in that area. I shudder whenever I watch films like "Everything is Illuminated", and read history books about those ghastly years of ugly and evil men, and what they did to the beautiful people of Ukraine.