A Pembroke Man

Today has been quite the important day in our family's lives, to say the least. To begin with, Jen celebrated her birthday (the first one when she's been living outside the US), her brother Dallon gets home from his mission to Peru, and I forever joined myself with Pembroke College.

Already Pembroke holds a unique place in my heart. Our time spent here three summers ago as part of the Pembroke-King's Programme will always be something I remember as an event which set us on the path to returning here to Cambridge for our graduate schooling. There is a peace to be found in the quiet courtyards of the college, in the reading room of the library, and in the lovely Wren Chapel which defy my ability to put into words. Just from our two months here before Pembroke already felt like a haven, and now my future is tied to it's story.

Pembroke is the third-oldest college in Cambridge. It was founded in 1347, or 528 years before my alma mater BYU was organized. The ancient nature, and tradition-laden history, of the college really sank in as, wearing my university robes, I sat down in the Old Library at a table bearing a thick, leather-bound tome and a fountain pen bearing the Pembroke crest. Sir Richard Dearlove, the Master of the college, asked me my surname, looked at his list, carefully blotted the fresh ink from the last student to sign, and flipped to line 10 of this years entries. There I carefully wrote out my full name: Derek Jackson Bruton, to stand forever as a record of this day when I matriculated into Pembroke.

The significance of the moment was not lost on my as I wrote those 18 letters. First came Derek: me, the written representation that implies my own being. Then Jackson: My middle name, my father's middle name, my son's middle name, a family heirloom. Finally Bruton: the descendant of those who at one point labored along the River Brue for a living, the great-great-....-great-grandson of John Bruton who came to Virginia as an indentured servant in 1634, the representation of those who came before me and got me to where I am today. All of this will now reside in Pembroke's records for years, decades, and even centuries. Today I did more than join a school, I became a Pembroke man forever.



The "Freshers" matriculating into Pembroke.

Expect a higher resolution image in the not-too-distant future
Picture courtesy of Pembroke Facebook page.





Officially becoming part of the college and the university under

the direction of Sir Richard Dearlove, the Master of Pembroke.







The three of us. Henry can't figure out

what on earth Daddy is wearing.