Last week, I wrote an article about a bitterly cold early morning walk around the lake on which Ginger and I live. Our walk is both our time together and also a time for each of us to think. Additionally, if we benefited from our circumnavigating the lake when the temperature was in the mid-teens, today’s journey around the lake was even colder and had an even greater impact. It had snowed several inches, which blanketed much of the area including the frozen lake, and it was eight degrees.

When we had gotten to the undeveloped portion of the lake, Ginger was anxious for me to remove her leash. She loves running free and looks like a deer bounding over the fields. I, on the other hand, seemed pensive and contemplative. It was an odd feeling. Amid my malaise, I found myself recalling a poem I memorized while in high school by Robert Frost. I was able to recall much of the poem even after six decades.

Frost, in the second stanza, was on target about his horse.

Ginger thought that it was odd also that I stopped to think and ponder.

My mind seemed to dart in all sorts of different directions. I thought about my family in Myanmar, COVID-19, the impeachment, white supremacy, and how close America came to being a banana republic three weeks ago on January 6th. Trump is repugnant and despicable, but what’s with Republication senators who want to forget the past and move on. Surely, they know George Santayana’s warning, “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”

Donald the Dumb is dumb, but Republication senators opted to be more concerned about their reelections than our country. That is bewildering. They are chickens, or they are cowards. Shakespeare wrote, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” Therefore, those senators are cowardly chickens, and they know it. They are blatantly lying, and they know that no one believes them.

Their total disconnect with reality was the lynchpin that moved my mind to my most important dream. To paraphrase Bobby Kennedy’s one-liner, I dreamt a dream that never was and said why not. While Bobby’s “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not” is more lyrical, it is still my dream.

I have for much of my life lived near water. My early life was spent in South Jersey and the shore. As an adult, I have lived near rivers. In my twilight years, I have lived nearly two decades on a lake. My backdoor is couple dozen yards to the lake and my dock. Ginger loves to go kayaking with me.

Continuing my aquatic motif, my dream is about starting a utopian-esque community and on a lake. I want to bring all my family members together from various countries throughout the world. Some of them live in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and America, but they all are family. Our community would be a model for all peoples so that they could function in harmony and for the betterment of all.

My utopian experiment might motivate others to be more inclusive about who makes up their family. It will be like other utopian experiments in the past like the Amanas, New Harmony, Zoar, and Oneida. This is a photo from the Internet, but it is quite similar to my dream of my lake. The lake in my dreams is a half mile wide and about five miles long. The first phase will have twenty-four homes along a part of the lakefront, and I have the names of the twenty-four families that will be living on the lake with Ginger and me.

This is the deal. I will promise each family that they will be given their own new home, which will be furnished with appliances, furniture, carpets, etc. In addition, each family will be given a car, a boat, and a kayak. A large family would be given more than a car, boat, or kayak.

Additionally, every member will receive further education in whatever field of academia in which that person is interested. They will also have financial support. Essentially, each nuclear family unit will be given everything they need. All their costs of living will be covered and free of any charge.

My dream looks like this.

This gift of has only one caveat. Each member of my family needs to address what Bobby Kennedy said, “The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.” While dreaming dreams is critical, realizing one’s dreams needs more than merely dreaming. Beyond dreaming, action must be taken. Without effort, one is merely daydreaming.

I recalled Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality. He grasped that at one level, no one will live forever. Nonetheless, your helping others, on their yellow brick road of life, will give you immortality. Additionally, I have a song, which will be our family’s song. It is Andrea Bocelli’s My Way.

There is only one item…a critical one. My dream won’t be realized unless I come up with megabucks. To be honest with you, I had another dream. I wanted to raise $500,000 for 1250 laptops for the two schools where my granddaughters attended in Myanmar. And I failed obtaining anything more than a couple thousand dollars. While I don’t enjoy failing, I still didn’t achieve that dream.

So, what was my reaction to my failure? I picked myself up and continued my dreaming dreams that never were. If I want to achieve a dream, I must risk failure. If I don’t risk failure, failure is assured. Therefore, this is my request. It is doubtful that you have ten or twenty million dollars. I don’t. Actually, I not asking for any money.

This is my deal. While I need a great deal of money for the land, lake, homes, education, etc., what I want from you is to look over my webpage. You will get a fairly good idea of what makes me tick. I want to be immortal, at least immortal to my extended family. If you help me achieve my immortality, you will, in the process, achieve yours. I need you email or call your friends and have them call their friends. That group you started needs to contact people with big bucks. Send them the link to this essay. Tell them to contact me so that we can talk about my dream.

If you do and I can get the money for my dream, you and that person will be a part of my extended family. That means that you have a home on the lake like the rest of my family. Dreaming is ultimately a positive contagion or virus.

In addition, you and your contact with the big bucks will follow Bobby Kennedy’s mantra, “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” In that way of dreaming dreams, you will also follow Bobby’s other saying, “The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

One final issue, Gilgamesh wanted immortality. While he didn’t live forever, we all remember him, which means he has been immoral for over four millennia. I’d settle for being remembered immortality. What about you? Helping me will provide immortality for both of us.