He was 36 when he told his wife, mother to his three young girls, that he wanted something bigger. The American dream was playing in everyone’s mind, including his. The Korean War had ended just twenty years before and Korea was not yet a first world nation. Despite his astute mind his family could not afford him a college education and without a college education opportunities were small and the social climb was impossible.  America gave him hope and the promise of fulfilling a different destiny. My mom sold her wedding band to buy the plane tickets and with all their belongings packed into bags they left all they knew for possibility. We quickly moved from low-income housing to an apartment to our very own home, my parents both working blue-collar jobs until the day they retired. If you were to ask my 36 year dad if his American dream was to work as a welder for thirty years I’m sure his arrogance and ambition would shrug that thought away as an impossibility. But if you ask my 84 year old father if his American dream came true I’d imagine he’d say look at what my four children have borne, my dreams were replaced by theirs and each of their successes is mine and each of my eleven grandchildren’s successes are mine. If that isn’t a dream come true I don’t know what is.