Let's start at the very beginning!

Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music teaches us to "start at the very beginning," and that's precisely how this 9th Circuit opinion here starts:

Once upon a time, in a place now known as Montana, dinosaurs roamed the land. On a fateful day, some 66 million years ago, two such creatures, a 22-foot-long theropod and a 28-foot-long ceratopsian, engaged in mortal combat. While history has not recorded the circumstances surrounding this encounter, the remnants of these Cretaceous species, interlocked in combat, became entombed under a pile of sandstone. That was then . . . this is now.

[See in The Recorder, Nothing Like a Fight Over Dinosaur Bones to Put Things in Perspective: How often does a judge get to decide an issue of first impression from the Mesozoic Era? which begins: "This is possibly the best-ever start to a judicial opinion. Honestly, I don’t see how it could be improved"]