Ti Ti and I Are Dreamers

Ti Ti and I Are Dreamers
Dreaming About Canada

A couple of months ago, I was like a raging bull charging around my house, getting things spruced up for Ti Ti. She was going to visit me for the Christmas holiday. You can imagine how excited I was. It would be the greatest gift that I had ever received, seeing Ti Ti again. My house is a very neat and clean place, but I had ideas to make it more appealing. I wallpapered my kitchen with flagstone wallpaper.

That wasn’t enough. I wallpapered one of my bathrooms. This is a picture, halfway through the process.

This is a video showing just how precise and exacting Ti Ti’s grandfather is. I had 15 feet of trim above the wainscotting wallpaper to get exactly level.

These photos are the completed task.

I was excited. In a couple of weeks, Ginger and I will have Ti Ti as our guest. Talk about a Christmas that would be remembered. Then, Trump extended his ban on visitors coming from 19 foreign countries, because he didn’t want terrorists coming to America.

Thus, Ti Ti and I had a dream that was dashed again. In the midst of dealing with the new America in which I live, I get this email from Ti Ti.

Dear PaPa Al,

I had a dream this morning that has been sitting in my head all day.

In the dream, I had returned from Laos to Myanmar — and you and Ginger were there too. We were all gathered around a big dinner table with my whole family, everyone talking and laughing like the peaceful days we all miss.

When I saw you, I walked over to you right away. I told you how much I had been missing you and asked how you were. You looked at me with that warm, gentle way of yours, and you patted my head softly. Then you told me the kindest things — that you loved me, that you were proud of me, and that I had been doing my best. It felt so real that I could almost feel your hand on my head.

It was such a beautiful dream, full of comfort and hope. But when I woke up, it left me with a mix of warmth and sadness… because I wished it had been real.

Love you, PaPa Al.

Love,
Ti Ti

How many times do you think that I have read and reread Ti Ti’s email without fighting back my tears? To be honest, I can’t even think about Ti Ti and her family without tearing up. All this pain is due to Trump, who suffers from a litany of psych issues like narcissism and dementia. In the grand scheme of things, Ti Ti and I are so infinitesimal that no one in the entire world knows about our situation, except for a few dozen people.

Then it hit me. What would George Orwell tell me about my hurt and rage? It came to me as if Orwell said, “Hey, Campbell. Your reason for being is to write. So, write about your angst, anger, love, and grief.”

The first thing that flashed in my mind was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. It was first published in 1845; however, the concept floated around in Poe’s mind in 1843, a century before my birth. The following are the first two stanzas of The Raven.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “
“'Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

This day is a bleak December day as I write this article, and there came a tapping like the raven “rapping, rapping at my chamber door.” However, the rapping was in my brain. There I sat and could appreciate how Poe must have thought as he wrote about his feelings. While “I pondered, weak and weary,” it came to me.

I’m not going to sit around and waste my twilight years. I have done two dances with death, and they woke me up to the sobering reality that my clock is ticking. And each year older I get, the ticking, or rapping to use Poe’s term, gets louder and louder. The rapping raises the question, what am I going to do regarding Ti Ti and the rest of your family? I don’t want to be lying on my deathbed in some hospital somewhere and wishing that I had done something. That would cause me excruciating pain, which would be far worse than dying. Believe me.

This is my dream and my response to Ti Ti’s dream. I get that Trump won’t move an inch on the banning of people who are citizens of those 19 countries, which include Myanmar. However, I would be eager to move to Canada. I have traveled in the eastern parts of Canada, especially New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia, before.

This time in my life, I would like to move to a town like Fort Frances, Ontario, which shares its border with International Falls, MN. Trump won’t budge an inch, but I would jump at moving from Crown Point, IN, to Fort Frances, which is a 681-mile drive. I am serious about moving to Canada. And why, might you ask? Trump isn’t going to change his mindset related to countries in the third world, “who are a burden on the public or a security threat and incompatible with Western civilization.” Western civilization, for Trump, is a politically correct term for non-whites.

I will do all that I can to assist my family. They have helped me, and I want to help them. Moving to Canada from Crown Point and my family from Myanmar would necessitate filling out all the paperwork for the Canadian government for Ti Ti and the rest of my family in Myanmar to immigrate to Canada. I’d give up my citizenship as an American and become a Canadian in a nanosecond if I could assist my family by living together in Canada. My mind drifted back to Ti Ti’s dream. “We were all gathered around a big dinner table with my whole family, everyone talking and laughing like the peaceful days we all miss.

Your obvious next question for me is, so, what is stopping you if you are so driven? And my response is a short one-word reply: money. I didn’t stop teaching until I was almost 80. Between teaching, my pension from the Presbyterian Church, and Social Security, I was able, for a decade, to w/t funds to my family from my bank. However, during that time, I needed to take out a home equity loan to make up for my shortage of money over the years.

This essay isn’t just an unimportant pipedream or fantasy of mine. This week, I will do a video and a letter, along with links to this article and others, for the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney.

However, what I need is help with financing my dream so that my family and I will be able to eat together in peace and security in Canada. If the essay resonates with you, allow me to share with you my mantra: “It is in giving that we get.”

I’m in my twilight years; I don’t possess another lifetime to save money for a home, clothing for my family, and furnishings for our new home in Canada. I want them to know how much I care about them. When we sit down as a family in Canada, who will be happier, my family or me? As we sit around the table, we can laugh about who is happier. If you can help, email me at campbell@wolverton-mountain.com.

An addendum.

The Man in the Arena is a part of a very long speech by Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. No one in the entire world recalls any part of his speech, except for this single paragraph called Man in the Arena.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This video is of Trump and Carney meeting with the press after their meeting in October 7, 2025.