TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1955)

More Than a Dream (Continued jrom page 37) seven-year-old daughter, Connie, popped out, waved a noisy goodbye to her friends, rushed up, threw her arms around her mother and planted a big hello kiss on Brooks' cheek. In the same perpetual motion, Connie hopped on her waiting bicycle, parked behind the gate — and with a shout of "I'll race you to the bam!" — she was off across the pasture. With the gate closed. Brooks drove over "their" bridge (Eve had always dreamed of having a farm with a bridge), past the lambs in pasture, the caretaker's cottage, through the small fruit orchard, and up to the two white painted cottages nestled against the side of the hill. There the nurse waited, holding their two-year-old son Duncan by the hand and their oneyear-old Douglas in her free arm. Though, as "Miss Brooks," Eve had been in make-believe classrooms all year, she never minded coming home to this small classroom of her own. With her four children happily waiting for her, and surrounded by the colorful beauty of their farm. Eve knew that a long-held dream had become a reality. "We have all had dreams," she says, "dreams of travel, of having a place of our own, and of happy families. But I've learned — and, I might add, I've learned from Brooks — that, if you want your dreams to come true, you have to be specific about them. You have to have a clear picture of your dream. This tells you what first steps to take to make it a reality. You have to plan your dreams to make them come true." Urooks adds: "Take our trip to Europe, for example. For two years, we dreamed of that visit, but something always interfered. People consider Europe such a far step, a trip you have to prepare for, and something always seems to come up. You put off and put off, until it's too late. So Eve and I decided that, if we were going to Europe, we'd make a reservation and a down payment— then we'd have to go!" "And then," says Eve, "we had a baby! Our adopted son, Duncan, arrived. Yes, we could have dropped the trip. But we had everything ready. So we said, 'All right, we'll have Duncan for a month before we leave, then we'll go on as planned. We won't miss too much of him, for — since he's so small — he'll spend most of the next six weeks sleeping on his face!' " "Your dreams don't bear fruit," continues Brooks, "until you make specific plans about them. The first thing we did was figure the approximate date Eve would finish work on her TV series, how long it would take us to pack, how long to get to New York — not leaving us time to ponder — and how long to get the children established with our friends, the Amsters, in Connecticut. "In the meantime, we talked to friends who'd been to Europe, asking them where we should visit. From this 'don't miss' list, we made up an itinerary with the miles between stops, when and where we'd pick up our car, where we'd stay, and how long. We almost knew the maitre d's names for every restaurant we didn't want to miss! "We gave the hst to the girls so they could follow us on the map and know where we were at all times. That way, they could write us cards. We sent cards back to them. Eve wrote while I drove. We would buy cards in Paris, write them on our way to Geneva, mail them in Italy. Our French cards were mailed in Italy, and our Italian cards in Germany. In the six weeks we were gone, we never did match card and country. 69