Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Favorite Profile from Holding On/ American Dream




When reflecting on which profile meant the most to me, there is one that jumps out the most to me. Miles Mahan was a man that seemed to make the best situation out of anything that happened to him. One day, he stumbled upon a hula girl on the side of the road and decided to make a museum out of it. In his profile, he states "Well, I built it myself. Built it from scratch. Found the hula girl in '55, you know. It was down on the side of the road. Put it up here. I wouldn't have a chance in the world if it wasn't for the hula girl." The reason this profile speaks to me the most is because I found myself worrying about the little things. This man had nothing in the world but this hula girl and he was able to make something out of it. This is a man that could have had all the fears in the world and yet e was one of the happiest profiles that Isay wrote about.

I feel that this book highlights many aspect of the American Dream. It shows that a dream is different for each person. Mahan wanted to build a museum from a hula girl and Robert Shields wanted to keep a minute by minute diary of his life. While the two dreams are vastly different, one is not more of a dream then the other. The individual person dictates what the dream is not a society and I feel that this is an important aspect of the book. I also feel that the book highlights some of the growing pains that people have to go through in order to obtain the American Dream. Donald Bean had an American Dream of building a dinosaur museum unlike any other. While the museum is not as popular as he had hoped, he has still achieved his dream. With this dream, however, came a great cost. His wife had to come out of retirement and return to work in order to pay the bills of the house and the museum.

No matter how big or small your American dream may be, it is up to you to achieve it.

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