This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This is as good day to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. for all he did for race relations in America.

To be sure, not everything since King lived has been marked by progress and contentment.

But, his actions – as well as words – are worth nothing today on a holiday named for him.

From the Birmingham jail, here is one thing he wrote that is worth remembering:

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having non-violent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

I, for one, have an impossible dream in my mind, if I can use the phrase “I have a dream phrase” from King.

It is that Donald Trump and his ilk would read King’s words, today and everyday, and live according to King’s precepts.

If they did – too much to hope for, I recognize – we’d all be better off.