'Keeping the dream alive' is all about hope for the next generation, and the generation after that - our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren.

I'd really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and home-made ice-cream and leftover meat-loaf. My grandsons, I hope you learn humility by being humiliated. I hope you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your own bed, to mow the lawns, wash the car. I hope nobody gives you a brand new motor car when your 17. I hope you have a job by then. It will be good at least one time if you see a baby lamb born or see your old dog put to sleep.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something that you believe in. I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother - by the way it's alright to draw a line down the middle of the room. When he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and I hope you live in a town where you can do it safely.

I hope you learn to dig in dirt. I hope you learn to play marbles and read books and I hope when you learn those new-fangled computers you also learn to add up and subtract in your bright little mind. I hope your friends give you a hard time when you have your first girlfriend, and I hope when you talk back to your mother you'll learn the taste of soap. I hope you skin your knee climbing mountains and burn your hand on the iron. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and may you feel absolute happiness on your birthday.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a cricket ball through a neighbour's window and I hope she hugs and kisses you at Christmas time when you buy her a bottle of the worst perfume money can buy.

These things I wish for you, tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness.


The 'Keeping The Dream Alive Story' as it's known to pupils in the School of Irreverent Logic came really from I know not where. It came to me in dribs and drabs. After one day on radio I started to recall parts of it. A line had come from here, a line had come from there. I suspect it may have been put together in its pure form by Paul Harvey, respected American journalist, so Mr. Harvey if there is a bit of you in here, I hope I represent you properly. I assure you there is a lot of me. More importantly, there is a lot everybody and a lot of truth.