Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in his commandments!
His offspring will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness endures forever. (Psalm 112:1-3)

I have big calves; not baby cows, but you know: the lower back portion of the legs. I think the technical term is Gastrocnemius. Men point that out to me often and they ask how I got them. Did I work on them in the weight room kinda questions. Well, the answer is they came to me from my dad. He has huge defined calves and my brother's are pretty big too. Sure I worked out in the weight room and it doesn't hurt that the sports I play, tennis and hockey, rely on leg muscles a great deal, but mostly I inherited them.

I inherited a great many things from my dad, and my mom for that matter; my calves are one of the coolest, especially around summer time when the shorts come out of the closet. But I don't think that is limited to just physical traits. I think I have a proclivity towards character traits passed down from my parents as well. What does this have to do with National Treasure: Book of Secrets? What MovedMe while watching the movie, on my birthday no less, is that Ben Gates inherited a great deal of who he is from the generations of Gates (and their wives) before him.

Both this movie and the first one, National Treasure, are the story of Benjamin Gates, played by Nicolas Cage. He has a very good understanding of who his forefathers were. The stories and artifacts were passed down from father to son throughout the ages. All of the knowledge and artifacts led to the discovery of a huge amount of treasure in the first one. In the second one, Ben and his crew must find another mythically huge treasure, but this time to clear the name of a Gates ancestor who is accused of being one of the conspirators that murdered Abraham Lincoln.

This movie goes deeper into the generational traits passed down from father to son, from one Gates generation to another. The first trait that hit me was Ben's inability to work with his love interest Abigail Chase. When we left them in the first movie, I had assumed they had gotten married because they were living in a huge house together. Next thing we find out they were just living together and now are separated. We find out later it is the pure Gates faith that Gates men know what is going to happen that drove Abigail away. She comments in England that he doesn't need her, he doesn't ever ask her questions, it seems like he orders her around.

We know this is a trait passed down from father to son because Ben's father, Patrick (played by Jon Voight), had the same problem with Ben's mother Emily (played by Helen Mirren). She, just like Abigail, is a very capable treasure hunter but Patrick always went on his adventures alone. Emily at first thought it was really cool, but then felt abandoned and left to raise their son rather than be a part of the adventures that Patrick had. Fast forward some 30-odd years and Ben and Abigail are having the same kinds of problems.

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