As everybody knows, this is the land of perseverance, the half-full glass, the positive outlook, the American dreamer, the cockeyed optimist. It's also where Adam Englund lives.

Three cheers for Adam Englund.

Last week he commandeered 40,000 square miles of ocean -- the nearby one, the Pacific -- upon which he wants to build an international airport.

How one lays claim to the ocean, if one hasn't so much as a used battleship at his back, is not exactly clear. But he has done so and claimed the right to the waters in a seven-mile width from three to 10 miles out, and from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.

He filed his claim with various federal agencies. Obviously, he went to the feds because when he tried to convince San Diego officials a couple of years that he could build an ocean-going airport for San Diego, he was rejected.

Englund did not take rejection well, which is also a very American neurosis. He had and has a dream (see "dreamer," first paragraph) that his company, OceanWorks Development, can do the job (see "cockeyed optimist"), and he is really pushing it (see "perseverance").

So this latest Englund "gambit," as doubters call it, goes San Diego one better: He wants to build the airport to serve all of Southern California.

Nothing could be grander. It's in the daring pioneer tradition of the United States: Westward ho, Mars or bust -- that sort of thing. This is magic, anyway you look at it. He needs a handful of permits, probably, and a way to get cement out there, and that's about it.

Englund has his critics. They line up stats and logic -- the enemies of imagination, the foes of flair -- and say it can't be done. After all, the critics saw how San Diego and the state, for example, failed over several years to find a site for a new airport they said was desperately needed. And that was on dry land.

Observer does not know if Englund has a leg to stand on in his claim to 40,000 square miles of ocean; we're no maritime authority, although we swim pretty well.

But if Englund says the open-ocean mileage is now his, legally, Observer accepts that and stands with him, four-square. And if he insists that his company can build such an airport, Observer -- who in the interest of full disclosure has never met Englund -- will watch his back.

Also, ever one to attach himself to shirttails, Observer has a couple of other ideas for Englund and OceanWorks.

An offshore stadium for the Chargers as part of the airport complex. There's plenty of room out there. The so-called "search" for a site for a new Charger stadium has not gone well on land, as near as anyone can tell. If Oceanside is a hot idea, why wouldn't Ocean be even better?

From a thousand angles, the possibilities have no horizon. Think of the trips to the stadium. Yachts, charters, planes, dolphins, kayaks, houseboats. At least one person, probably named Machado, could make it by surfboard. New meaning would be given to cheering fans doing "the wave."

Underwater, a giant aquarium. Environmentalists -- seaweed-huggers, as you know -- are going to have their say. Their complaints can be blunted if Englund will only listen to Observer and build a giant aquarium.

The beauty part is that most of the key ingredients are already there for the taking: water and its creatures. Englund need only come up with a hundred or so miles of glass about 1,000 fathoms deep (at a guess), make it into a circle, and presto Neptuno! The world's largest aquarium, natural as can be and where tourists and fish alike will be safe.

The only hitch Observer sees in the idea is that the oil lobby may scream: "You mean you're going to build an aquarium (and airport and stadium) right where decent oil derricks should grow? Are you mad?"

Observer recognizes that a long struggle lies ahead; America loves its dreamers but is wary of their dreams.

Push on, brother, is what Observer says. Englund -- and 10,000 like him down the years -- is the very sinew of the country, its marrow, its brain, its … other parts like that.

If his plan to own the ocean does not pan out, that will be a shame. But the lesson will remain. In this nation, among all others, there should always be an Englund.

Contact columnist John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.