Rainbows and Dreams Come to Terre Haute

“Follow the fellow who follows a dream.”

The New York Times’ Bob Herbert did a nice job on the Kennedy brothers in his column last week, using this theme:

“But I always found ‘Finian’s Rainbow’ to be a more appropriate touchstone for the family, especially the song ‘Look to the Rainbow,’ with the moving lyric, ‘Follow the fellow who follows a dream.’”

An added bonus is this Terre Haute sighting in the column:

“The Kennedy message was always to aim higher, and they always — or almost always — appealed to our best instincts. So there was Bobby speaking to a group of women at a breakfast in Terre Haute, Ind., during the 1968 campaign. As David Halberstam recalled, Bobby told the audience: ‘The poor are hidden in our society. No one sees them anymore. They are a small minority in a rich country. Yet I am stunned by a lack of awareness of the rest of us toward them.’”

And who were the women at that breakfast and what are they remembering today? Hopefully, it’s something about rainbows and dreams.

--Terre Haute Tribune Star, September 2, 2009