I graduated from a military school in 1958. The yearbook reminded me that “Moser is never on top in any field.” True. I wasn’t. But, back then, I didn’t care.
I did graduate though— thanks to the generosity of my history teacher who allowed me to re-take my failed final exam (and who, I am certain, graded that second exam with compassion for a boy who couldn’t care less about history…or math, or English, or chemistry, or anything else academic).
My folks gave me a record player for my graduation present. It wasn’t very sophisticated, but it played the music I enjoyed listening to, which was not the music my classmates listened to. While they listened to Harvey and the Moonglows, the Platters, and Elvis Presley, I was off in my own world listening to Nat King Cole, Rachmaninoff, and Broadway musicals like Oklahoma, and South Pacific.
In South Pacific, a character named Bloody Mary, a large Polynesian woman, belts out a tune in which she tells her beautiful brown daughter that “if you don’t have a dream, how you gon’ have a dream come true.”
And it is this matter of having dreams that I address this morning.