How come every single time that I go out of town, I somehow manage to find a place to stay that has the noisiest neighbors within the nearest ten miles?
It doesn’t seem to matter if I stay in a hotel, a motel, an AirBnB or on a friend’s fold-away couch. Somehow noisy people always manage to find me. Somebody nearby always wants to feed a crying baby at 2:00 am, have a dance party, practice the trumpet from midnight to dawn, watch late-night TV at full volume — or have fabulous sex. Why me?
So here I am, up in Reno, Nevada, in a fleabag motel, with what appears to be Prom Night going on in the room next door. How am I ever going to manage to get to sleep tonight — let alone dream.
And speaking of dreaming, acclaimed author William Kent Krueger just won an award for best murder-mystery novel of 2018 at the convention I’m attending here. His book, “Sulfer Springs,” deals with the horrors that immigrants to our southern borders have to go through just to stay alive.
“This is the first book I’ve ever written that has generated hate mail,” said Krueger. Why am I not surprised. Coming to America used to be a good thing — but now apparently it is a crime.
All the parts of America today that are wonderful have been built on the backs of immigrants — be they Native Americans, African slaves, Asians, Aztecs, Pilgrims or whoever. All of our ancestors had dreams. They all were dreamers. They all came here to follow their dreams. We Americans are all descended from dreamers.
And who is to say that Latino dreams are worse or less important or different or more inferior than the dreams of our ancestors?
Had it been possible 2000 years ago, Jesus would have immigrated to America as well. Jesus was a dreamer too. “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus said. Who knows? He might have led us to El Paso or San Diego or Arizona if Jesus had been alive today. But Jesus never ever said anything about building a Border Wall to keep the Samaritans out. That is more like something Judas would do.
Jesus was a dreamer, our ancestors were dreamers and I am a dreamer too — that is if I can ever manage to fall asleep up here in Reno.
