I remember watching the “Miss America” pageant in the 1950’s.  Bert Parks, the ever-smiling emcee, asked a finalist, “ Okay, now Miss Bobby Jo Mary Lou Peggy Ann Smith, what is your dream for the future?”

      The young girl stood very straight, shiny blonde hair skimming her shoulders, perfectly shaped lips and sparkling white teeth forming a luminous smile, and in a well-modulated but breathless voice answers, “Well, Mr. Parks, my dream is that there will be no more wars and no one will ever be hungry again.”

          Well, duh!  Doesn’t everyone want that?  Let’s get real here. I wanted Mr. Parks to ask what her immediate plans were.   What was her achievable dream?  What did she plan to do with her life that would make a difference in the world toward that larger dream? 

Or would she be like so many of my high school classmates, marry the first guy who came along, have a bunch of kids, and spend her life cleaning house and gossiping with her neighbors?  I knew that I wanted a husband and children some time in the future, but first I wanted a career. 

During the summer before my senior year of college, I made arrangements to meet with a former classmate I hadn’t seen since high school.  It was a hot, muggy day, so we planned to meet at a local air-conditioned truck stop.  I arrived first, eager to see my friend again.  I had always admired her in school.  She had phenomenal talent.  Whenever there was a need for a poster, an illustration, or a sign of some sort, she was the one who would produce the most strikingly beautiful one.  She talked of going to art school and pursuing a career in art.

          We had lost touch since graduation, and it was only by calling her mother that I was able to arrange the meeting.  I waited in a booth at the truck stop, nursing a cherry coke while I watched cars come and go on the highway.  Where was she?  Had she forgotten the time?  Or maybe I had the day wrong. 

          Just when I was ready to give up and leave, she came.  She walked towards me very slowly and said, “Hi, Sharon.  Boy, it’s good to see you!”

          As she struggled into the booth, I responded with, “It’s good to see you, too! “  However, what I really wanted to say was, “What in the world happened to you?”  She looked as if she was about eleven months pregnant, her face red, splotchy, bloated, and shiny with perspiration.   “You look surprised,” she said with a big grin, “Mom didn’t tell you I was expecting again, did she?”

          Again?  I didn’t even know she had any children.  “Ah, . . no, she didn’t.  You already have a baby?”  I was trying to get this idea to sit still in my mind.

          “Actually, this will be our third.  Bob wanted a family right away, so here I am!”  She patted her huge middle, grinning from ear to ear, apparently happy as a pig in mud to be in such a gross condition.

          From that point on, her part of the conversation centered around babies, diapers, formula, potty training, sleepless nights, and how thrilled she was to be out of the house today.  I tried to feign interest in these subjects, but found myself wondering where my friend had gone.  What happened to her dreams of going to art school?  How had the intelligent, talented, artistic young woman I remembered turned into this person who could only talk about the color of her baby’s latest poop job?  I wanted to end this visit, go back home and start reading my latest purchase, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  I wanted to cry.

          Since that awkward encounter, our only contact has been an annual exchange of Christmas letters.  She is living in the same house in the same town, and her last letter included all the minutiae of her great grandchildren.  Yes, Great grandchildren!  Her daughters and granddaughters all married very, very young also.  Over the years the most exciting thing she ever did was take a trip to the Black Hills.  So much for girlhood dreams. . . 

          How had her dream died?  Had Bob kidnapped and forced her into marriage and motherhood?  Did she apply to art school and get turned down?  Does she ever wonder if her life might have turned out differently?  Does she have regrets?  I think she’s happy, at least I sincerely hope she is, but that summer day I know that I was just thrilled not to be in her shoes.  I wanted a career!

          In the 1960’s there weren’t as many career opportunities for young women as there are today.  Choices were somewhat limited to nursing, secretarial work, and teaching. Today a young girl can dream of being a microbiologist, an astronaut, or the CEO of a large corporation.  There are no limits; and the key to any of today’s fulfilling careers begins with a good education.

          You’ve heard the time-honored saying, “The longest journey begins with a single step.”  Taking that very first step is also the most difficult.  We can fantasize about this beginning step for weeks, months or even years.  However, the longer we wait to take that first step on our personal journey, the steeper and more threatening that step becomes as life puts more obstacles in our way.  Apparently, my friend had stopped dreaming, or at least stopped dreaming about an art career.

           My dream was to teach. My mother tells anyone who will listen that I was ‘born to be a teacher.’  However, my family couldn’t afford college costs.  I knew this, so I kept my dreams in the back of my mind as I prepared myself for an office job.  I took typing, bookkeeping, and shorthand in high school.  Boring is not an adequate word for these subjects!  I envied my college-bound classmates taking Advanced Biology, Higher Algebra, Trigonometry, and Chemistry.

          At the end of my senior year, I was offered a scholarship to a small Lutheran junior college!  It’s difficult to describe the emotions that ran through me – excitement, thankfulness, and also a little trepidation.  Would I be able to make it?  What would I do after the two years?  But I didn’t really care.  I felt like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind:” I’ll think about that tomorrow.”  This was my beginning!  This was the first step towards my dream of being a teacher!

          After I graduated from Waldorf Junior College, my uncle said to my mother, “It looks as if Sharon’s serious about this college business.  Would it be okay if I loaned her the money to finish her schooling?”  My mother was overcome with thankful tears, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune!  My dream could continue!

          As fate would have it, I met my future husband shortly before I graduated from Augsburg College.  Yes, fate.  He was on leave from the Navy.  I don’t know about ‘love at first sight’, but I knew I wanted to be with this wonderful man forever.  Apparently he felt the same, because he asked me to marry him!  My answer was ‘yes’, but with the understanding that I would finish college first!  When his leave was over, he headed back to his ship in Newport, Rhode Island.  I returned to school wearing his Navy ring.  We hadn’t set a definite date for a wedding, so when I returned home after completing my degree, I was surprised when he called and said,  “I thought I should let you know that I’m just thirty minutes away.”  He had taken ten days leave, flown to Minneapolis, and then taken a bus.  At a rest stop in Mankato he called to say,  “I won’t go back without you.”

          So with my teaching certificate in one hand and our marriage license in the other, I was off to Rhode Island with my new husband.  My dream had changed a bit, but I knew I would still teach. 

          As my husband’s Naval career moved us every few years, I taught junior high science in Middletown, R.I., second and third grade at the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, fourth and fifth grade in Duluth, reading skills in California, and finally I was the Indian Education Director for twenty-one years at the Walker School.  My dream may have been detoured and fragmented, but it was realized with the full and loving support of my understanding husband.

          I like to think that over the years I have helped guide many children to realize their potential, to strive to be their best at whatever they do, to make the world a little better, and to never, ever stop dreaming.