I like people who get up and put legs under their dreams and give their dreams a chance to materialize, be realized, be fulfilled.

   I have a sister, Marie Teresa McMahon, who has told her family of six children and her 82-year-old husband that one day she was going to "walk" over the Brooklyn Bridge. Now to anyone who knows that the bridge is a third of a mile long, this is really not such a remarkable feat. It is just 1,595 feet of boards made into a suspension bridge hanging over the East River between New York and Brooklyn built in 1883.

   However for a Midwestern girl born in Milwaukee Wisconsin 80 years before, the Brooklyn Bridge was sort of an untouchable experience.

   We all have untouchable dreams that we have just not taken to heart to fulfill them. On her 80th birthday May 25th  2004 Marie announced to her family she was going to walk the bridge. Most saw little importance in it because it was no big thing. However a dream is a big thing, no matter how small it may be.

   Living in the nation's first state in Wilmington Delaware a distance of several hours from New York City, Marie decided to take the train and go to the Big Apple for this special adventure. She was surrounded by her brother me, her always there for important occasions and unnecessary but key experiences son of Steamboat Springs Colorado Thom, his wife Noreen, their children Ryan and Alyssa and her upstate New Yorker nephew Scott Kiphart to make the bridge walk on a fabulous day.

   Walking across the divided bridge above motorways below, we met joggers, walkers, lunch break trekkers, bicyclers, parents with strollers and toddlers, dogs and yes even cats on a leash—but no cars on this upper level—all with a good view of the East River, the Statue of Liberty, the remarkable NYC skyscape and boats heading to harbor and those going out to cross the ocean. Truly a day of rejoicing as Marie fulfilled her dream accompanied by loved ones—"A piece of cake," she smiled.

-Dr Herbert L Beierle