The American Dream is alive and well. Oh, I know, the gap between the rich and poor is widening and the famed American middle class is shrinking or fading (some say collapsing) into the poor class. So what? I have never felt the future brighter, opportunities more abundant or the American Dream closer to reality than it is right now.

I’ll admit, I tend to gauge the rest of society on how I personally feel at the moment, but that’s nothing unusual. Almost everyone does. Look around. I can’t remember ever seeing more jobs available in the newspaper. The farm economy is booming. I just heard that southeast Iowa actually is suffering from a labor shortage.

Here in the Midwest, we may be sheltered from the storm. But if I was in Detroit and struggling to support a family, and there were no jobs, I think I’d be relocating to South Dakota where unemployment is 2 percent and burger flippers are making $14 an hour. We are a mobile society. We still have the good ol’ ability to pick ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps (Nikes) and improve ourselves.