Walter Rego was an entrepreneur of extended foresight and diminished tenacity.

He was quite capable of coming up with brilliant ideas but not quite so capable of bringing them to fruition.

One of his more dazzling ideas was to build a short wall along our northern border at Portal, North Dakota.

His plan was to install an elaborate and inviting entrance gate (lots of blinking lights and duty free shops) and charge an admission fee to get into the country.

Walter’s intention was to build a string of souvenir shops, restaurants and hotels along the 420 miles of roadway from the Canadian border to the Mount Rushmore National Monument. He figured Canadian tourists would come flooding across the border, eat hot dogs and apple pies, and take home souvenir packages of rocks (there is a big pile of them at the bottom of the sculpture -— Walter figured the guy that carved the heads just forgot to clean up after he had finished).

However, the only thing Walter was able to build was a pile of paperwork, held together with red tape.

All would-be entrepreneurs have their reasons for striking out on their own in search of fame and fortune.

Walter’s reason was because he made a much better boss than employee — and a much better boss without employees.

Walter’s biggest success, to date, was his six-week diet and fitness program aptly named the “Eat, Fit, and Diet” plan. Walter figured that 103 percent of all New Year’s resolutions are summarily abandoned within the first couple months of the year. In January, gym memberships surge, healthy eating cook books fly off the shelf, and fast-food sales drop.

Sometime around mid-February, the gyms are empty, cookbooks are collecting dust, and everyone is back to eating bacon double cheeseburgers with fries and a chocolate shake.

Since the “resolution season” was so short, this was a marketing plan that went well with Walter’s lack of drive and resolve.

One of Walter’s least successful ideas was his Spring Break shuttle service. The idea was for Walter to buy a luxury limo party bus and transport college co-eds from the Center of the Universe to the bronze tans and white sands of Panama City, Florida.

Funding for this project was a little thin, and the only “luxury conversion van” he could afford was nothing more than a used delivery van with shag carpet and bean bag chairs.

However, the real undoing of Walter’s plan was when he posted an advertisement for his shuttle service on Craigslist with a picture of his windowless van.

The end results were that no co-eds wanted a ride to Florida, Craigslist took down his advertisement, and the FBI investigated him for all manner of crimes having to do with transporting females across state lines in a windowless van.

Success comes to different people in different ways.

Some people are driven to change the world and some people are driven to make a great peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Some people are defined by the lives they have touched and others by the lives they have left unbothered.

Walter Rego has never viewed success as a ratio of triumphs against failures. For Walter, success is being able to come up with the next great (or maybe not-so-great) idea.

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.