This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a spring break trip to Miramar Beach, Florida with the distinguished gentleman of Delta Tau Delta. Throughout the entire trip, elements of the American Dream presented themselves, in some ways only a true American Dreamer like me could possibly pick up on.
Before we embarked on the 14 hour drive from Norman – me and three other buddies drove down together – we had to load up on anything we might need for the whole 6 day trip. As 19 year old college students, we obviously had questionable priorities, but looking back we fared okay for what we brought. For some reason, we decided to disembark at midnight, and that proved to be both the best and worst decision we made on spring break. We were dead tired when we pulled out of the Couch parking lot. Because we were making the trip in my marvelous and reliable 2014 Ford ™ F-150, I had the privilege of taking the first driving shift.
This is where the first element of the American Dream appeared; we were literally flying (I think the truck got airtime at least twice) down the highway blasting classic rock (callback to Joe Walsh). I couldn’t help but smile as I thought about the time we were about to have in Florida. The idea that us college students get a week off of school with pretty much the expressed purpose of hanging out, or even chilling perchance, is so uniquely American in my eyes, even though I’m almost positive spring break is not an exclusively American holiday.
As we took turns driving, each driver would play their own music over the radio. It was interesting to see the diverse nature of all of our music, especially in light of the fact that we are all very similar and belong to the same fraternity. We arrived in Florida 14 hours after we left Norman, and immediately hit the beach. Here is where I noticed the second element of the American Dream over spring break; the culture on the beach is intoxicating. Miramar Beach was a popular destination for fraternities and sororities this year. However, on the beach, it was as if everybody had signed a peace treaty for the entirety of break. There were no problems among fraternities at all, and as a matter of fact, we played a variety of different games with other fraternities. Once we got to Florida, all of our troubles seemed to go away, at least for the duration of the break.
The best part about all of spring break was the fact that it was rinse and repeat for 6 whole days. We got to experience the best elements of the American Dream over and over and over again. That in and of itself exemplifies the American Dream.