We all had a dream to be famous when we were kids. But reality taught us that dreams like that are not worthwhile, that we should do something we are able to accomplish.  

Former NDA president Bob Pauly reminds us we’re never too old to dream.

Recently Pauly used Facetime to share his pursuit of his dream with NDA’s  journalism class.

After leaving here a little over a year ago, Pauly had a job in the technical education system working with high school students. Now he is in the search mode to figure out what he wants to do.

This break gives him the opportunity to slow down, and gives him a little bit of time to do something that he is really into, like playing the guitar.

“I started playing guitar when I was in high school. At the time the school was still called Premontre. You can learn a skill in three weeks, he said. “A priest named David taught me how to play guitar.”

Pauly thought his job-search mode was  a good time for him to work on a song he wrote in the early 1990s.

It was a song that almost became a big hit, but did not.  The Charlie Daniels Band considered recording it but never did.

“I have never stopped believing in this song and its potential commercial success,” Pauly said.

So he picked up his dream again. “We should live in the present, be happy wherever we are. I’m an old dreamer.”

“There are many different directions; we go on one or the other. The world we live in has many distractions and overriding feelings. It’s the time to wake up, to get life in order,” he said. “And that’s the purpose of the song.”

To record “The Train” music video, Pauly rented a lumberjack train in Laona, Wisconsin, and asked his son to record and edit it.

His friends helped him by playing instruments in the music video, and his son Andrew posted it on Youtube.

In order to get the song out there, he is trying to get as many views of it as possible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4_ws9n27o0.

Pauly admits his ultimate dream is to win a Nashville music award.  He envisions big-name singers like Eric Church recording the song and making it a hit.

“I have an active child’s spirit in my old body, and I am trying new and crazy things,” he told the class.

Pauly believes that it’s never too late to dream.