If you’ve ever seen an ESPN Films commercial, you’ve heard Dahkil Hausif ask, “What if I told you?” to tease a documentary. If I were to go back to the 1990’s Ryan and tell him about my past two months, that sort of setup would come in handy.
“What if I told you that you’d get to live these day dreams, and someone else would pay for you to experience them?”
“What if I told you that you don’t have to chase these dreams and work your way up a ladder to see them come true?”
Origin of the Dream
I’ve been enamored with motoring and automobile design almost my entire life. At only two years old, I found my way into my dad’s work van and drove it into the back wall of our garage. I drove a manual transmission from a dead stop to highway speeds before my tenth birthday. (I still have the rearview mirror from that Datsun 510 wagon.)
The driveway of my childhood home ended on US-50, the primary artery into Ocean City, MD. On summer weekends, more than 200,000 vehicles passed the bay windows of our breakfast nook. My parents can vouch that I sat there for extended periods of time, watching the traffic—looking at the cars, hoping to see certain models.
Fueling the Dream
On the little table in our porch bathroom, I hoarded a stack of handy-me-down Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines from my Grandpa Boberg. I devoured the “Spy Reports” section and the photos & captions of the test drive reports—looking through the issues over and over again. In high school, I worked at a library and grabbed the fresh issues of Car & Driver and Road & Track during my lunch breaks.
Designing the Dream
Up in my attic bedroom, John Miller called Orioles games on my radio, as I drew over 200 concept vehicles—mostly Baja trucks, rally cars, and special-use vehicles. I entertained the dream of designing cars for a living until I saw the price tag on a college that taught that program.
Altering the Dream
So, I switched my focus from art to writing. I had written poetry and a few articles for my dad’s weekly religion column in our county newspaper. Word smithing came easily enough to let me to know that I would enjoy the process of earning a college degree in writing. In the distance was the possibility to write for a car magazine one day.
Walking Away From the Dream
I didn’t know that I’d be the only male in my degree program (which only held one male professor at the time) to walk across that graduation stage my senior year. Writing for the yearbook, editors dumbed down my sports captions for a college with more gals than guys. As a realist, I abandoned my dream of working for a car magazine—attending auto shows, seeing cars before public availability, putting a car through its paces, and making photogenic road trips.
Winning the Dream
Then last November, I saw a tweet from MINI USA asking current MINI owners to submit an idea to test the pending 2014 Cooper in a promotional way. I grabbed a four-year-old photo of my MINI in a local parking garage and jotted something about why my car was so good in that confined space. I don’t think I realized that I would get only one entry, when I hit the “Submit” button.
I had almost forgotten my MINI USA entry, when I got a phone call from an unknown number on a Saturday. On the other end of the line was John Riddle from BSSP, the ad agency working with MINI USA on the Final Test Test Drive promotion. He needed me to check my email to complete some forms—because my entry had been chosen as one of 20 finalists from the 871 submissions.
Long story short, MINI USA chose ten of those 20 ideas to turn into official videos, and my parking garage race idea was one of those ten.
Living the Dream
I was whisked away to an adventure that would in no small way make the heart of those dreams come true. While my friends were enamored with the idea of me being in what is basically a commercial, I saw myself behind the wheel of a secret car. I had permission to rip through an unconventional test drive in a place far from my daily commute. I got to talk about my car and my driving adventures on camera. I got to create a narrative about a car I didn’t own.
Eight weeks later, I got to represent my video and MINI USA at the New York International Auto Show. As a member of the the public, I could’ve paid to see the cars I saw; but I couldn’t have bought credentials for a closed media day. That MINI USA lanyard around my neck let me mingle with automotive journalists, watch manufacturers’ product reveals, and see concept cars at an arm’s length.
Realizing the Dream
Sovereignty gave me a less-competitive career away from urban life where I could chase a bunch of outdoor adventures. God has allowed my life to surpass the goals I had for it twenty years ago. And as a cherry on top, he let me win a couple experiences that fulfilled integral aspects of my childhood dreams—not so much to cross them off an arbitrary list but to free me to dream new dreams.
H
Okay, I like it. I like the whole thing. I might even love the whole thing. But I have a comment, maybe an argument; I have never seen the day that you needed freedom to dream a dream.
Ryan George
H, you make a good point. But I cleared some space on the shelf that had been occupied by, “I wonder what would’ve been of my life if . . .” Much of that curiosity has been cured. I think you’ll understand it better when I finish the third part in this three-part series later this week.