Under the baobab: We’re all together in the land of dreams

As we all wake from the nightmares of a pandemic, an attempt to undermine democracy, and a looming economic crisis, it is good to recall at our core, America is the land of dreams, rooted in the rich soil of possibility and opportunity.

Planted and nourished by the hopes and imagination of all our people, our dreams are not identical. They are wide reaching and diverse. In Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King dreamt that one day America’s children would walk together and be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. Today thousands of migrants on the Southern border dream of being allowed to work and build a home in these amber waves of grain, as did their Italian, Irish, Dutch predecessors a century before. Today’s black and brown skinned refugees fled lands that offered no opportunity to dream or respite to fuel their hope.

For a hot moment (or at least a warm one) we are visiting the city of dreams, Los Angeles. We are here to cheer our Penn State football team in the Rose Bowl. The young warriors began their sojourn with a trip to Disneyland. Jo’s student, Chop Robinson, and almost 20 teammates shared the NIL alumni autograph session put together by Kerry Small of Success with Honor and Brad Dillman of Lions Legacy. On Sunday, New Year’s Day, the PSU rally at LA LIVE Mall brought together the rest of the team, Coach Franklin, alumni, cheer squad, Blue Band and all here who bleed blue.

As you read this column these young people, our young people, are on the field in Pasadena pursuing their own dreams of glory. Some will go on to play in the NFL, most will return to Penn State to play again next year. All will go on to pursue other dreams.

Los Angeles is the most populated city in the USA, where the stars are not only in the sky, but on movie screens, on billboards and etched on the sidewalks. Millions have come here from Chicago, Oshkosh and Happy Valley seeking to be seen and celebrated, to carve their names in the American narrative. They see the stars and imagine their names among them. Some have been successful. Most have settled for the warm weather and have learned other pursuits.

Today, we watch as hundreds of gleaming eyed people, mostly young, dash about these cold stones, dreaming that one day their names will be there. But unlike the firmament above us, which contains an infinite number of stars, the Hollywood Walk of Fame contains a finite number of stones. I have been there.

This writer has pursued the LaLa Land dream. I was a screenwriting 1991 Hendler Fellow at The American Film Institute. I came out for pilot season. I auditioned, waited tables, even did farm day labor to pay the rent. I got as far as getting an agent and was a guest star on several TV shows, “Matlock,” “Jake and the Fatman,” and a regular on “Homefront.” I did a national Scope commercial. I was honored by a best actor award from the Hollywood/Beverly Hills NAACP. Then I discovered the Babylon side of LA. My journey through sunshine and surf was interrupted by riots, mayhem and depression. I crawled home to lick my wounds.

We continue to dream. We love our young people and teach them to dream. We show them through our faith that the fabric of our collective community is built on our dreams and the effort to fulfill them. Yeats wrote:

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”