Never Stop Dreaming, Just Add a Dose of Reality

A blue, Match Box series 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud has been parked on my desk for quite some time. It serves as a tiny reminder never to quit dreaming, but to set attainable goals.
The exuberance of youth, and the love of that prestigious line of motor cars, convinced me that one could be parked in my driveway by the time I was 25, after making my first $1 million.
The dream never died. At the nearly golden age of 59, I keep hoping that “someday” one will be parked in the driveway. Once in a while, I look at them on eBay Motors, and grab a pencil. Then, just as quickly, I realize the dream is still only that, a hope for the future. There are things to do and bills to pay that are immediate.
Reality is unrelenting and unforgiving. While I have had some wonderful vehicles over the years, and never lacked reliable transportation, employment in the weekly newspaper business somehow placed attaining a Rolls Royce “motor car” just beyond the horizon.
To borrow President Abraham Lincoln’s line of thought from the Gettysburg Address, “We are now engaged in a great (Presidential) war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Many potential voters in this important upcoming election are quite like that little desktop Rolls Royce and me. We long for leaders, who offer everything we could possible want, need or hope to attain.
We want plentiful, cheap food. We believe oceans of inexpensive oil are our divine right, ours, and ours alone. There is a belief that taxes should be halved, or less. We believe government should pay for everything from day care to burial plots. And we expect to pay less for all that service.
It is a long-held notion that those we elect are, or ought to be, saint like beings. They ought to have no vices, no dirty secrets, no stain or blemish of humanity if they desire our vote to entrust them with the keys to The White House for four years.
On our way to the Atlantic City beach recently to watch the fabulous air show, my son and I walked through the lobby of Caesars Hotel and Casino. One of the grand statues we passed in the majestic courtyard was a gigantic likeness of Augustus Caesar, maybe 25 or 30 feet tall. I had to think that. Although the mighty Roman ruler is but a name from ancient history, is that not how we perceive our politicians, especially the ones far away?
Aren’t they, in our mind’s eye, carved from white marble, standing wondrous tall like impeccable giants, who, regardless of what they do or did, want to be recalled in all their haughty grandeur?
Secretly, I would like to bet every politician who passes that statue of mighty Caesar longs to have a similar likeness chiseled so they might be remembered in the centuries to come.
Granted, there is little we ordinary folks can do other than go to the polls on election day, and pull the lever or push the button next to the candidate of our choice. We possess that one, all-important vote, but without money or power we scarce can convince the person in the Oval Office to enact one piece of legislation by placing pen to paper. The office, one of the most powerful in the world, will be the working place of just another human being. Like us, they will have personal concerns, health issues and other frailties like our own.
That person will not live forever, nor do they possess any special knowledge to foresee the future or to cure ills of the past. Yet, there seems to be a belief that, somehow, while operating in that antiseptic environment, surrounded by aides and advisors, that man or woman will inherit supernatural powers and insights.
If that were true, if the one inhabiting the Oval Office were so special and wonderful, why are we still seeking answers to fund health care, affordable housing and energy woes?
We still dream and hope that when we awake on Nov. 5, everything will magically become new and clean and right with a new last name on the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Like me gazing at the tiny Rolls Royce, to make anything change, whether on Main Street or in Washington, will take more than wishing. To put that Silver Cloud in the driveway will take long hours of hard work, shrewd investing, taking calculated risks and a firm belief and determination that it WILL happen. If I truly wanted it, and was willing to put everything else aside, no doubt there would be many bologna sandwiches on the way to that special reward. There would have to be sacrifices made, other wishes suppressed, and a laser-like focus on the goal.
Whether my countrymen are ready to go through such deprivation to make real changes happen remains unknown.
Once more, I lean on Mr. Lincoln for an ageless closing: “…That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”