The television set was first introduced into homes in the ’50s. Every day, someone on our block was getting their brand new TV delivered. I can still see the delivery men carrying the monster box into our house and setting up the new black and white TV in our living room. Day after day we watched Mickey Mouse and the Mouseketeers at four o’clock in the afternoon. And that’s when I learned to harbor beliefs in the power of dreams …...

I blame Walt Disney. And my parents as well. I grew up thinking that if you wished upon a star, anything you dreamed would come true. My parents never set me straight, but they were probably dreaming their own dreams. They didn’t know how to talk to a child, so I grew up, naive, willing to believe in fairy tales, in a dreamy world of fantasy where nothing bad would ever happen to me. Ever…