“If you build it, he will come.” Ranked #39 out of the top one hundred American movie quotes, these seven words contain significant meaning not only for that movie but also for other endeavors in life.
Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams was instructed by a supernatural voice to make a baseball diamond out of a couple of acres on his Iowa farm. The crazy thing was that he did just that, and, even crazier, Shoeless Joe Jackson and a horde of others appeared each night to play baseball.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But hasn’t every great invention and movement begun with a far-fetched dream? For instance, I love visiting the Erie Canal that basically allowed the East to meet the Midwest. The dream came originally from Thomas Jefferson but could not be realized because cement that could form underwater had not been invented at his time. Most of us old-timer remember learning the Erie Canal song: “Get up there mule here comes a lock; we’ll make Rome about six o’clock.” This man-made wonder stretched from Albany to Buffalo, New York.
Thomas Marsh and I are currently building our “field of dreams.” With Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech resonating in our ears, we have a dream to connect blacks and whites like you and me. Our grassroots mission is gaining traction with appearances at different venues. Our dream is to start the conversation so that “they [sic] will come.”
So far, “they” have been the wonderful people who have bought our book, visited our website, seen our Brad Galli video on TV20 and Channel 7, met us a Pure Detroit retailers, spoken with us at Janet Jones’ Bookseller, and discussed with us at the Bloomfield Township Public Library thanks to Brooke Hoskins, Assistant Department Head, and read about us in Scott Burnstein’s article in the Oakland Press. Cookie and I never know from where they will come. We only know that if we continue to build it, they WILL come.
I was pleasantly surprised if not shocked when I greeted Dan Brooks and Louie Palatolo at the Bloomfield Hills appearance. Both men live quite a distance from the library but felt compelled to make the long drive because we “built it.” I hadn’t seen nor talked to either one of these gentlemen in many years. Miraculous! Neither one of these men had the nickname “Shoeless”, but their appearance showed the power of faith in our field of dreams.
