Thank you for the countless joy-filled hours, extending into days and weeks and months, which you have given me, given me without ask of recompense…that which I most desirously dream of: freedom. When my eyes are skimming over lines along the page, racing over the hills, valleys, mountains, and endless tracts of letters, the words of great books, planted in the fertile fields of my imagination, I am free. Free as I ever was or will ever be. As free as you, free to be me, free to go anywhere, to do anything. Free. Free to follow along in the footsteps of every human footfall from Lucy’s first immemorial intrepid steps on that African plain to humanity’s collective one giant leap with Neil Armstrong. Free in memory to vicariously struggle with prisoners of the past who also dared to dream. Free in imagination to now dare to dream with all those who still have hope that our future leads to that shining city on a hill. Free to believe, because, with the cover of every book I open, I open those glimmering golden doors and set my foot inside…the outside, the other side, that resides within us all. But, ultimately, free to believe because of you—you who put those books in my hand. Thank you!