This essay is about my Magnificent Seven.

This is an older old version of the Magnificent Seven.

While this older version of the Magnificent Seven rallied together to assist a small town, they, in many ways, are prototypes of my dream team. Six individuals, along with myself, compose my Magnificent Seven. My dream team is driven to help their part of the world as did any one of the older versions of the Magnificent Seven of a half century ago.

While my Magnificent Seven are working to change their own corner of the world, they are very different from each other at many levels. My dream team varies ethnically, racially, professionally, and nationally from each other. In addition, some are young, middle-age, and others older. Half of them, I know personally, and, the others, I have never met. And yet, my dream is to have them return with me to Myanmar (Burma) during my winter break from teaching in 2019…a year from now.

Allow me to introduce each of my dream team.

Rod Stewart

1. Rod Stewart. He has a great deal going for him along with being one of my favorite singers. There are two things that drive Stewart: writing/singing and helping others. While that drives him, I have benefited along with millions of others because of his music, which often expresses concern for others. I have written about his song, ForeverYoung. That song resonates within me. Go to Rod Stewart, which is an index page about some of the songs that are meaningful to me at a personal level. While I haven’t been able to contact him yet, when I do, I will talk to him about setting up several concerts in Yangon and Taunggyi, where my granddaughters live.

Clarence Page

2. Clarence Page. He is a syndicated columnist and is a senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board. In addition to being an excellent writer, he grasps the need for social change. As a result, he has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice. Several years ago, I wanted to find a column that he had written a couple of weeks before. I just went to the Tribune’s website. It was then that I noticed that he prefaced his column with a video. Since that moment, every essay that I have written for three or four years begins with a video. I learned from Page about the value of communicating more directly when he blended the video with my essay.

Jacob Soboroff

3. Jacob Soboroff. He is a correspondent for NBC and MSNBC. I have watched him reporting on MSNBC for a couple of years. While he was an excellent reporter, I was moved by his work related to the emotional trouble that Trump caused the Central American asylum seekers, especially by separating the children from their parents. Politically, Soboroff and I are virtual clones of each other. He is obviously concerned with those in need wherever it occurs. While we are in Myanmar, perhaps, I will be able to interview the Lady, Aung San Suu Kyi, and he could cover the event for NBC.

4. Sundas Jabeen, aka Sandy or Noble Sandy. Sandy is my web administrator who was born in Pakistan and works in snowy Stockholm, Sweden. I was looking for a new web administrator to do my website and went online to a site that posted potential web administrators. Sandy got the job, because she was noble. Okay, she said that I was also noble. Aside from our nobility issue, I wrote an article recently about my Himalayan Salt Lamp. When she was a youngster in Pakistan, her father took her to visit the cave where Himalayan salt was created many millions of years ago. When my dream team goes to Myanmar during my next winter break from teaching in 2019, she is going to go to Myanmar, and we will stop off to visit her family and the salt mine.

5. Marc Ramos. Ramos helped to start TruBlue, which is a company located in Northwest Indiana designed to assist homeowners that are facing various repair needs in their homes. Actually, he has helped me on a long series of needs that I have had around my home. While I am glad that I called him the first time to help me resolve a number of problems, which he did, what impressed me about him was his motivation to go beyond fixing a repair issue. He was more driven to help the person. We have spent hours discussing what drives both of us and the various needs that we each have. As with all of the other Magnificent Seven dream team, his level on concern for all people is apparent.

Dr. Marchand

6. Dr. Marchand. Five years ago, when I returned from my first trip to Myanmar, I had an appointment with my cardiologist, Dr. Marchand, within a week of returning home. He checked me out and said that my heart was fine. Then he asked me whether I had any questions. I did but not about my heart. I wanted to know why I was so excited and wound-up. He responded, "You have seen the light." Something had occurred while I spent a month in Myanmar that truly drove me. He was correct. I discovered my family. A year ago, during winter break, I returned to Myanmar and within a week of returning home, I had another routine appointment with him. The first thing that he wanted to know was whether I had gotten to interview the Lady, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and how my family was. One other caveat about that last appointment. He said that he was retiring soon and to let him know when I would be making my third trip to Myanmar. I have done a video telling him about my winter break in 2019. He is considering returning with me.

Those six individuals along with myself make up my dream team, the Magnificent Seven. A year from now, I don’t know how many of my dream team will be able to fly to Myanmar during my winter break. They all have other tasks, commitments, and obligations. Having said the obvious, I hope most of them will be able to return with me along with 1250 laptops for the two schools where my three granddaughters attend. I follow my mentor, Bobby Kennedy, to the letter. He reminds me that, “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” Of all of my mentors, Bobby is the role model that I attempt to emulate. I am a dreamer. I absolutely believe that many of my dream team will return me. My granddaughters’ classmates are my extended family. The combined student body is 1250 children.

If my granddaughters and their classmates do well in their adult lives, it will be based upon learning. The only means of catching up to other students in the world educationally will be due to laptops and connecting to the Internet.

What I am asking you, my readers, is to join with my Magnificent Seven. While they deal with visiting my granddaughters and their classmates in Taunggyi, you can also. Both my trips changed me. Now, this trip will help change the lives of my extended family by helping them educationally. You can be a part of this. Go to We Are Family and read the introduction. At the end of the introduction, you will find these three requests.