The American Dream looks different for everyone. Mine began at 12, working as a welder in my father’s small–town machine shop in Ohio. In good times, he had five employees and treated them like family. In tough times, I was the team. What he never lacked was a strong work ethic, a firm handshake, and a belief that if you treated people right, everything else would follow.
My father may not have known it at the time, but he was living out the original American ideal. In the summer of 1776, 56 men made a decision that had no precedent and no guarantee of success. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on a single conviction: that individuals should be free to build their own lives, on their own terms.
