I am going to tell you a story about myself I have NEVER shared with anyone in the world (at least not sober). When I was about ten years old–around 1964–the family was sitting at the dinner table–there would have been about seven or eight of us–and as usual, we were talking.

The Miss America pageant was playing on the black and white tv in the living room. It was near the finale, when they ask each finalist a question. The correct answer was, and perhaps still is, “World Peace.” One by one, Bert Parks would ask the question, and each contestant would, off the top of her head, answer. Sometimes this would be the make or break deal for the contestants.

I was sitting at the end of the table, two brothers flanking me, my two sisters near my mom, helping her serve up the food, my dad and oldest brother at their usual places at the other end of the table. We had the TV loud enough so that we could hear the contestants. After one young lady, teetering on her high heels and draped in her strapless gown, bumbled through her response, we all rolled out eyes, and I said to the entire table, “When I become Miss America…”

I had intended to tell everyone how I would have answered the question but I couldn’t finish my sentence because the table–my entire family–burst into laughter. Robert, my nemesis as he was closest to me in age, poked me and said, “Oh, yeah, when YOU become Miss America,” and he couldn’t finish, he was laughing so hard.

I was mortified. I checked that dream off my list.

In Windows of Light, Lori Watanabe Saginaw and her sister wrote the preface to a book about their aunt written by her aunt’s good friend, Marnie Mueller. The book, The Showgirl and the Writer is a memoir about the friendship between Marnie Mueller (the writer) and her Japanese American girlfriend, Mary Watanabe (the showgirl.)

Postwar in America did not take to Japanese in any form. But Lori’s aunt had a dream. To be a dancer and performer. She followed her dream. She changed her name from Watanabe to Mon Toy, and passed as Chinese.

I wonder how many people laughed when they heard what she wanted. I wonder how many, because she was Japanese, told her, “You can’t.”

She chased her dream. She performed as a showgirl in New York City.

The beauty of the preface that Lori and her sister Wendy wrote is that it brings the story down to a very personal level.

It is truly a tribute to an amazing woman and to chasing your dreams.

Read more about dreams in Windows of Light.

You can order Windows of Light through Amazon.com (click here), request it from your local bookstore, or contact one of us authors.

You can order The Showgirl and the Writer on Amazon.com (click here) or ask at your local bookstore.

PS: I didn’t want to be Miss America, but I wanted my voice to be heard. Didn’t everyone imagine themselves on that stage, answering important questions where the right answer was, “World Peace”?

In another blog post I wrote about wanting a pony. I was amazed when I discovered not everyone wants a pony. I thought everyone wanted a pony!!