One Wish: Gabe Wallace ’70
Gabe Wallace ’70 is a distinguished professor emeritus of English at Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, Illinois, where he taught for 28 years. He holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Colorado Boulder. He was among the students who worked to heighten awareness of Black students’ experiences of racial insensitivity on campus by participating in the 1968 Old Sem Takeover.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of fighting sleep on Christmas Eve. Several days before that night, fascinating images would scroll across the movie screen of my mind, each one more breathtaking than the one before: Of me, for example, riding my brand new Schwinn bicycle with the light on the front fender and brightly colored ribbons streaming from the handlebars, my thumb pressing the lever that triggered the ching ching of the bicycle bell.
Invariably, I would fall asleep long before Santa arrived and, invariably, the gift waiting for me beneath the tree was much more modest than my imagined one. I never could comprehend the difference between the possibilities available to my family, living as we did in the low-income Pruitt-Igoe Housing project in St. Louis, and those available to the middle-class, white families that I had seen on movie posters and billboards.
Oddly, I was reminded of those childhood Christmas Eves recently as I pondered the reality that our country will confront in 2025. I hope it will be a reality where we have moved closer to the ideal of equal opportunity, inclusiveness, and international cooperation; where citizens control the choices they make about their lives; where affirmative action provides a bridge to total equality for racial and ethnic minorities; where corporations and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes; where no individual is above the law; and, of course, where Democracy remains sacred and strives to bestow its blessings on all who live here or who wish to come here.
My childhood Christmas Eve fantasies never materialized in the way that I envisioned, but as I look back on a life that, despite its setbacks and disappointments, has taken me from the inner city slums of St. Louis to a rewarding career as a college professor and a comfortable retirement, I rejoice in the fact that I am an American, and only in the America that I know is such a life conceivable. My wish for 2025 and beyond is that an even better America will be there for future generations.
Read all 11 Wishes for 2025 from Cornell visionaries.
