Crash and burn or fields of gold?

Robert H. Goddard wrote: It’s difficult to say what’s impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.



Growing up on Ryan Avenue in Billings, Montana sent the signal to a passerby that anyone living there did so by reason of no choice. The homes were badly aged, backyards nothing more than roofless places to store unwanted materials, be it wood from fallen homes or tractor parts and pieces that were supposed to be used on machinery assumed still useable.



I have no clue as to how much energy I've wasted in the canals of impossibility. The only thing I’m left with are the memories of a kid with an oddly shaped head of hair holding onto a fist full of wanna-be’s. Not dreams but unspoken visions that constantly talked to me by way of challenge and or guilt…do it or walk quickly to the next page keeping a firm grip on the reputation of being a quitter.



Big Red was my escape…a should’ve been burned up rusted out Schwinn the father figure welded together because his brick and ditch jumping sons were inspired to be greater than the greatest, farther in fury and guts than local hero Butte, Montana’s Evil Kenevil; a man who knew impossibility by its first name—he shook fate by the hand and gladly accepted the role of being a high flying tornado jumping eagle catcher.



Me? Once free from the air during an unexpected crash into an undiscovered tree, the thought of setting impossibility aside ignited other journeys that included tipping the giant dog house over on its side so I could leap into the top like an Apollo mission. I’d sit inside for hours talking to NASA and they would respond, “Astronaut Arroe, you are cleared to take a moon walk.”



“I’m a little nervous NASA…it might be me but I think there are pigeons waiting to eat me on the outside of this Apollo mission.”



“Negative…our Kodak cameras aren’t picking up any movement. Please do all you can to grab a moon rock and then come back home.”



Stop right there. A moon rock in my backyard was a horse apple. My imagination was broadcasting to the world that this vivid real as real trip to the moon was all about grabbing a chunk of yuck. I had to face the impossible and make it tomorrow’s reality.



Such bravery got me nowhere. Jumping nearly broken bikes, picking fights, leaping from dog houses designed to lift my feet to the moon did nothing by way of creating a career. I was completely under the spell of, “Get me the hell out of here.” Living in such an ugly house is what fed my heart pounding desire to put the ditches in front of me and do all I could to reach the other corners of the world.



As impossible as it felt as a kid to dump the dump…the keys to the front door were finally presented when Wolfman Jack blazed through two incredibly tiny speakers purposefully shoved under my barely soft feathered pillow to do nothing more than keep me from having to think in the dark. If there, the mind is too active, a crowd of one suddenly becomes a rush of everything impossible making way for Evil Kenevil to leap from behind the curtain exclaiming, “I’m from Montana and we are the king of the world!”



Thanks to the public library system, I created a 100% broadcasting outlet in my bedroom; an honest to God radio station that could be heard three blocks to the left of Ryan Ave. Not only did I land on the moon…the horse apples began to talk.



It’s difficult to say what’s impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.



Where’s your fire? Who cooled it? Yet we’ve never learned that a fire never dies, ashes smolder in ways that turn once beautiful forests into rippled chapters from hell. Who you are and what you became are rarely the same, so we spend our middle aged years reaching back to a young face that wasn’t supposed to crack and when you stare into his or her eyes the lines echo, “We lost, sold out, elected to travel an easier way to a moon that never existed.”



A midlife crisis is nothing more than taking something difficult and impossible and making sure the dream of yesterday is still the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.



Sadly, most midlife crashes are taking place fresh out of college. The very thought of achieving what you set out to accomplish is the impossibility. People rarely think of the enormous amount of money spent on education because we’re hell bent on the idea of paying off the loan...then we fall in love and becoming something no longer seems important.



Duke may have won the NCAA basketball crown for a fourth time but how many of their students have attained success with their degrees? Was becoming the manager of a McDonald’s part of the deal? Is it the ditch Big Red needs to jump before the aggressor is given that uncontrollable urge to splurge in a loudly displayed cheer gifted with hundreds if not thousands of invisible high fives?



It’s difficult to say what’s impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.

Somewhere in your backyard is a doghouse begging to be tipped over because your fingertips need to locate moon rocks.



arroecollins@clearchannel.com