Rather Finds 'The American Dream' Alive and Well

BY BILL DUNN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE

This collection of stories about 35 people who exemplify the American Dream was inspired by the television and radio series proposed two years ago by "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Dan Rather.
He calls is The American Dream: Stories from the Heart of Our Nation (William Morrow, $25), but a better title might have been American Dreams. The series ran for more than a year, featuring a cross-section of truly remarkable characters who together demonstrated that there is no more a single American dream than there is a typical American.
The expanded profiles in this book are strikingly diverse in the spirit of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage and Colman McCarthy's Disturbers of the Peace.
They are farmers, teachers, cops, church workers, authors and rags-to-riches millionaires. There's a maid, an astronaut, a nun, an inventor, an actor, a stockbroker, a pitching coach and a politician or two.
All but one profiled are new to this book -- the kind of everyday folks we might see taking a bow during a presidential address as examples of courage, valor or some special brand of community service.
Some overcame their own rock-bottom surroundings to achieve their dreams; others had to leave the relative comforts of home to immerse themselves in rock-bottom social ills.
Some were in awe at the freedom they found in America, while others were stunned at how cavalier their elected governmental officials could be in denying such a basic freedom as planting a protest sign in your own yard.
Some worked hard to achieve financial success and others, in search of true happiness, walked away from money and status before they could find it.
Some traveled unexpected roads; others had to go back down some old ones.
Some of the dreams took decades to come true; others were realized with surprising speed.
"The American dream affords us opportunity and the freedom to seize it," Rather writes. "It also created, in my experience, some of the most generous people anywhere in the world. So we kept a sharp eye out for Americans who had not only achieved their dreams but were making the dreams of their fellow citizens possible as well."
A few subjects may be familiar: astronaut Eileen Collins, author Jacquelyn Mitchard and Chicago Cubs pitching coach Oscar Carlos Acosta, for example. But most are ordinary people, local heroes at best, or heroes to their own families or circle of friends.
They include such people as Sister Sylvia Schmidt, a Catholic nun who works on behalf of the homeless in Tulsa, Okla.; Rubylinda Zickafoose, the child of Florida migrant workers who now teaches elementary school and is working on her Ph.D.; Bill and Karen McDonald, a Phoenix couple who eclipsed emotional, geographic and bureaucratic hurdles to adopt a Vietnamese child.
As much as Americans tend to take their freedoms for granted, it will come as no surprise that many of the book's most moving accounts about this thing we call the American Dream come from those who fled to this country from a more oppressive one.
Nosrat Solhjoo Scott, for example, who was persecuted in Iran for her Bahai'i belief that all religions are essentially good, is now a force in the Interfaith Council that has brought together people of many faiths in culturally diverse South Florida. When she came to America, she simply could not comprehend how she was so free to discuss the same ideas that might have incited people in Iran to come to kill her with their shovels.
"E pluribus unum isn't just something Nosrat has read on the back of a quarter," writes Rather. "It's her conviction and her way of life."
In the chapter that deals with the pursuit of happiness, Rather toys with the concept of happiness, asking what it is. What did the nation's founders have in mind when they penned that phrase, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," in the Declaration of Independence?
In that same chapter, we meet Stacy and Mark Green who left California's Orange County, one of the richest communities in the country, to find their happiness in rural Oregon. In California, the couple had it all, or so it would seem. But along with financial security and a nice home, they had the stress of Mark's long hours at work, as well as time spent inching along the freeway. It all added up to time away from the children.
On top of that was the Greens' growing discomfort with trendy values. They began to worry about the moral compass they were providing their kids.
So they quit their jobs, pulled up stakes and moved away. "I hadn't done anything really courageous in a long time," says Mark. Even though the money isn't as good, they are both earning a living. But the best part is that they now have time with their children and with each other, the kind of time that wasn't there before. They have had time to become much more involved in their community.
To some degree, all of the dream-chasers in this inspirational collection have found a measure of happiness. Although each has walked a different path, all represent freedom in action. And that, perhaps, is the common thread. Happiness can be defined so many different ways in America. We each, in truth, may define our own.