Published October 15, 2018

The AMC series “Mad Men” ended with Don Draper meditating on a gentle California slope near the Pacific Ocean, the idea for an iconic Coca-Cola commercial coming to him while surrounded by hippies in November 1970. Some of them, along with the location, inspired casting and setting for McCann Erickson’s “Buy the World a Coke.”

In the real world roughly around the time of Draper’s transcendental ad-man moment, I dreamed an entire commercial, or as it probably should be termed, a full-music-video PSA. I’m not sure what made me think of it all these years later, but I thought I’d write about it. Who knows? Maybe there’s still time for me to share a Clio Award, and maybe even a Coke.

The Hillside Singers, who sang the Coca-Cola jingle that later became “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” did not provide the soundtrack for my dream, although it’s possible they were part of the inspiration. Their work may have been out in the public consciousness by the time of my dream. I can’t remember exactly when I had it.

My dream featured the 1970 song “United We Stand” by The Brotherhood of Man. In it, the black-and-white world of history merged with the psychedelic colors of the early ’70s in what might be described as my subconscious’ desire for peace and unity during a turbulent time.

Imagine, then, Abraham Lincoln and others from his time emerging from beyond a hilltop to join what were then modern-day people in a pastoral, communal setting as this plays:

I remember waking up and thinking, “That should be a commercial!” Obviously, I was not in a position to make it happen. The idea followed me for months, maybe years, even coming back to me during basketball practice in what eventually became my high school gym.

Now, I must concede that there’s a pretty good chance someone had already made the song into a similar commercial, and that the author of my dreams was so taken by it, it proved to be a much-needed respite from the nightmares that plagued most of my childhood. But I can find no evidence of that, nor of a United Airlines commercial along the same lines (although a post-9/11 ad featured a similar theme, albeit with a different song).

(Our minds do play tricks on us. Years ago, a friend of mine excitedly told me about a song he had written. It was indeed catchy, and it could have made for a hit record had it not already been written (with different lyrics). When I began singing “My baby is American made” to him, he was crushed, instantly recognizing what had happened.)

Around the time of my dream, I was aware of girlfriends mourning boyfriends and mothers mourning sons in church as the Vietnam War raged. The assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were still relatively recent news, as were the Kent State killings and countless manifestations of harsh divisions that rocked the country and the world. Thinking about that, and the dream I had, made me reflect on the lines we draw, the ways in which we divide, the boundaries we create on our planet that aren’t visible from high above.

Nearly two decades ago, I saw a bumper sticker that read: GOD is NOT a Republican … or a Democrat. It was tempting to grab my Sharpie and add: or an American. Yes, how we frame a call for unity can unwittingly reveal ways in which we subconsciously divide, showing our point of view to be less inclusive than we might realize.

It’s interesting to me to recall Lincoln being in my dream. A couple of years ago, a local college student wrote that America was more divided politically than ever before, which prompted me to wonder if they still teach about the Civil War. And while I don’t want to over-analyze my dream all these years later, I think it was a call for looking at the big picture, across generations, even as we try to learn from the sins of the past. Also, it occurs to me that the “modern-day” people of my dream are a few generations removed from being the fresh-faced, energized activists I recall them being.

I understand the desire for unity, for what people from decade to decade have always called “a return to …(fill in the blank).” Calls for civility and unity often come at the expense of inclusion, though, and are a thinly veiled plea to get back to comforting the comfortable rather than the afflicted or marginalized. And now, reflecting on that, I’m back in the early ’70s, this time recalling a quote from Pope Paul VI on Jan. 1, 1972.

If you want peace, work for justice.”

That, from his Message for the Celebration of the Day of Peace, should inform any plea for calm in times of strife. Without real justice, there is no real peace.

There’s no natural ending for this piece. I just wanted to let you know about that time I dreamed up an entire commercial. Can you picture it?

Image By Robert J. Beyers II/via Shutterstock