“Read it, kid. It’s right there in the fine print.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Look.” Will pointed to the words. “See, it says, ‘You can be anything you want to be. You can grow up to be president. You can be a professional baseball player. You can be a teacher. If you have a dream, just do it.’”

“I can be any of these things if I just want to?” the kid asked.

“Well,” said Will. “If you have a dream, you have to do whatever it takes to get it.”

“So, all I have to do is try hard and I can be president or any other thing and then I’ll get it? And that’s it?”

Will smiled and scratched his head. “You might have to rub elbows with the right people along the way.”

“Rub elbows?”

“You should get to know certain people,” explained Will. “Get close to people with titles and people with the power to help you get what you want.”

The kid looked confused. Will took another approach. “You see the river there? What if you want to go across because your dream is on the other side, but you’re not a good swimmer? I have my boat right here and I can take you across. I’d be helping you get your dream. You see what I mean?”

The kid stared across the river. “What if I don’t need your help and I go a mile down the river and walk across the bridge to get to the other side by myself?”

Will laughed. “You could do that, but by the time you get to the other side, you might lose your dream. Others will already be ahead of you because people helped them get across the river faster than you.”

“But you just told me I can be anything I want and all I have to do is go and do it,” said the kid.

Will tried another approach. “Listen, kid. You have your parents to help you now. When you get older, it helps if you know someone who’s in the business you want to get in to help you then. You understand?”

The kid turned his eyes toward the raging river. “What if I try to swim across the river? It would be a struggle, but when I get to the other side, I’d be happy because I got my dream all by myself with nobody’s help.”

Will grabbed the kid’s arm. ‘But what if you don’t make it? You could drown, you know.”

The kid looked up at Will. “But what if you take me in your boat and the boat flips over and we both drown? And even if you get me to the other side and I become the president or a baseball player or a teacher, I didn’t do it. It was you who got me there.”

“Kid, I’d just be doing you a favor,” said Will.

“But what if there’s three other people standing there who swam across the river and there’s only one president or one baseball player or one teacher they want to take and they take me just because I rubbed my elbows with you? Don’t the other three deserve it more than me?”

“You played the game and they didn’t,” said Will. “You had someone help you get your dream. You win and they lose.”

The kid lowered his eyes in disappointment, thinking about what Will had said.

“My dad always said whatever I do in my life I should be fair and earn it by myself. I don’t want to be any of those things if I have to cheat to get it.”

“Life is unfair, kid,” said Will. “Getting someone to help you is not cheating. It’s giving you a better chance over everyone else.”

The kid scowled at Will. Suddenly, he ran up to the river and jumped in. Will screamed. “No!” and ran for his boat that was tied to the river bank. As he pulled up his oars, he looked across the water. The kid wasn’t even halfway and Will saw that the boy was struggling to stay afloat.

Will paddled as fast as he could, but the strong current pulled him farther away from the kid. He steered the boat to calmer water and paddled to the other side. He pulled the boat up onto the bank, then he ran to see where the kid had been struggling in the middle of the river.

“Kid! Kid! Where are you?” Will shouted toward the fast water.

“I’m right here.”

Will turned around. The boy stood behind him dripping wet.

“You could have drowned, kid,” said Will. “Why did you do that?”

“I wouldn’t know if I could do it unless I tried,” he said with a wide smile.

“You’re very brave, kid,” said Will, “but taking a risk like that was dangerous. You should have let me help you cross the river.”

“I saw where you went,” the kid said. “You gave up crossing the river where I did because it was too hard for you.”

He turned and stared out across the rolling water. “I understand now.”

“Understand what, kid?” asked Will.

“How to get my dream.”

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.