I want to say Happy Birthday to Dr. King. Martin Luther King was a man of great character and still serves as a good example and I believe that everyone could profit if they took some time to learn a little about him. The Reverend fought for equality among men and envisioned a world where the petty little differences that set us apart--things like skin color--would no longer matter. He died fighting for this ideal twenty-one days before my first birthday on 4APR1968. I can vaguely remember him being on television from that time. I have slightly better memories of Richard Nixon running for President. Those (along with even better ones of the first moon landing by the crew of the Apollo 11 mission a little over a year later) are my oldest memories.
If you all expect this to be the part where I get all predictable like most writer--positing maudlin "what-if's" about the great men in our history taken from us by the hate-filled and fearful, and then going on to drop names like JFK, John Lennon, and Jesus--before trying to make some vague philosophical point about how great a people we would be if we could only stop rolling around in our own shit--prepare for disappointment. We are born shit-rollers--violent and petty and spiteful--and because of this the dreamers in our midst will always do so at their own peril. It wouldn't (couldn't) work any other way.
It's what makes being a dreamer worthwhile.
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