Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/201/RUBYV20.ZIP/RUBY20-1

Text File | 1993-02-19 | 4KB | 72 lines

Copyright 1993(c)

                            DREAM ON
                      A Ruby Begonia Column
                         By Del Freeman


     Ruby is an inveterate buyer of lottery tickets. She still
believes there is a portion of unearned, great, good fortune
destinted to be hers. It's a little like that Santa thing, with
which she did finally come to terms.
     "If alcohol is the opiate for the masses, then lottery is the
adrenaline high." Either Ruby saw that on a bumper sticker, or she
decided it ought to be.
     Still, where else could you buy a dream for a dollar? Dreams
are surely worth more than that, so you're getting a bargain.
Perhaps the best many of us ever feel is when we have bought a
dream for free - when we have fooled ourselves into thinking
pleasant thoughts, if only for a moment. When we have seen a
breathtaking sight, heard a melodiously captivating song, felt the
warm sensation of giving or receiving the milk of human kindness -
don't those feelings leave one with the best aftertaste - those
that are serrendipitously experienced, almost without warning?
     (Ruby will never forget the first time she rode on the back
of a shovelhead with a hard tail frame and a suicide clutch. And
a hard tail. Ruby forgets his name, but it was certainly a dream,
and she does remember the bike.)
     And dreams can be both expensive and dangerous. (Ruby could
have fallen off and hurt herself, and she'd probably have already
been too numb to notice.)
     Some people give up everything for a dream. Of course, they
are often dreamers, but dreamers are not necessarily bad. Dreamers
AND doers are decidedly best, but those are less plentiful. It is,
perhaps, not so costly to dream, as to dream and do.
     And that cost can be multifaceted. One can lose every penny
in pursuit of a dream; one can lose one's stuff in pursuit of a
dream, important stuff like land, home, job, life; one can lose the
very inspiration to rise, much less to shine.
     [Ruby still has infrequent inspiration, but she's lost several
different accumulations of stuff over the period of years. She has
learned two priceless lessons from this: 1) Generally, it is really
inconvenient to lose her stuff; and 2) She will inevitably acquire
more stuff.]
     Sometimes, one's dreams must be scaled down. A bit of reality
is used to accomplish this [I will NOT be the next Madonna; This
turkey wattle will NOT osmotically disappear from beneath my chin;
I will probably NOT vacation in Cozumel in time to have hair that
*isn't* blue or wear anything smaller than a mu-mu; and even the
vision of the blue-haired old lady in the pscyadellic print mu-mu
is fading fast.]
     When that happens, one must re-form the dreams. [I didn't WANT
to be Madonna; I could exercise this turkey wattle into a tight
turkey wattle; Ah, you've seen one ocean, you've seen 'em all.]
     While we can buy into a dream, we can rarely buy it in its
entirety. One, that we can buy for the price of a stamp, is Ed
McMahon's. [Ruby always dresses nicely and combs her hair on the
give-away day, just in case. Ruby has seen those commercials of
people surprised at their front door, and she doesn't think even
being a millionnaire would make up for being preserved on film for
posterity in what is her natural state of beauty.]
     Another dream we can buy is a lottery ticket.
     As the man said, that dollar can buy the dreams of a
millionnaire for a day. All day Saturday, he said, he plans the
ways he will spend the money. He is a millionnaire for that one
day. And it costs him a dollar.
     He reckons this not a gamble, but a worthwhile investment.
Like what he might spend to go to a move or out to eat - a pleasure
bought and paid for. He buys a tremendous amount of pleasure for
his dollar.
     I think he's getting a bargain. Ruby thinks he's getting a
steal.
                               END