i hope...

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.