I always day dreamed of places I wanted to visit and people I wanted to be. Anything, anybody other than me – stuck here in the Midwest. I didn’t want to be rich or famous, just different from who I was. So I devised a set of characters that I could become.
I was a ski bum that still wore the red knitted hat that my Aunt Emma gave me one Christmas. I would dream of skiing down the steepest, most treacherous mountainous slopes staying a heartbeat ahead of the quickly descending avalanche behind me in a race to see if I could reach the bottom first.
Or, I would dream of being a prospector, panning for gold deep in the woods near a slowly meandering, bubbling stream in a heavily forested area somewhere out west. I would keep warm wearing my favorite heavily knitted sweater while enjoying the solitude of place.
Then I would dream about being a cowboy. Not just a regular old cowboy but rather the classic cinematic image of the cowboy character: I’d become Hopalong Cassidy, or Gene Autry, or the Lone Ranger and best of all the king of the cowboys, Roy Rogers. I would dream of leading the posse through the rugged countryside chasing down the bad guys who robbed the local bank leaving the poor towns folk destitute. But, I had one problem! I hated horses!
The most fun I had was dreaming of being a railroad engineer driving the “iron horse” across the country. I grew up playing with model trains while wearing my engineer hat. We lived near a train switching yard. I enjoyed listening to the rumbling engines that were mammoth and awesome, carrying goods and passengers across the wonderful country. I loved to listen to the engines as they began to roll. They lumbered slowly, almost painfully, building up speed while dragging the loaded cars behind.
Ultimately, the person that I liked to play the most was not in the drawing. That person studied hard and wound up teaching for more than 35 years, sharing knowledge acquired and skills learned with thousands of students.
