This is Home, Part 48 - Jean's driving lesson

This is part 48 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004. The end of the second paragraph refers to a trip back to Missouri that my mother took with my brother, in October of 1997. Charley, who appears several paragraphs further on, was an old farmhand who had been with them on the farm for a long time.



Jean's driving lesson

When Jean got old enough, Uncle Doc took her out in the car to teach her how to drive, just as he had taught me. They were gone quite awhile and Mom and I were wondering where they were.

Finally, we saw Jean walking over the rise in the same pasture we saw when we were back there, David.

Mom was saying, "I wonder what happened. Where is Uncle Doc? Why do you suppose she is walking and by herself?"

Uncle Doc didn't come, so we were really worried. When we asked her, she said that he was looking at the car down close to where the mailbox used to be. The car was in the ditch.

When Uncle Doc came back he said he was going to get someone to take him to Jacksonville so he could make arrangements to have the garage there tow the car in for repair.

He said Jean had driven through Darksville at sixty miles per hour looking the other way instead of at the road. She didn't listen to him.

The Darksville-Huntsville road was also graveled and gravel can slide.

One time when I was driving, I scared Charley to pieces. I was driving on the road to Jacksonville. Charley wanted me to slow down. The bridge that rumbled was coming up and it was only wide enough to accommodate one car at a time. Besides, there was a curve just past it. There were thick trees on each side of the road and any car coming toward us could not be seen before crossing the bridge.

I told him that I wasn't going too fast to stop and anyway there wasn't another car there. About that time another car came around the curve and onto the bridge. Charley yelled and leaned to the side.

I managed to stop just short of the bridge and a little toward the side of it. I slowed down after that and I always took the bridge slowly.

Country roads are made for one car at a time. If you meet another one, you both have to move toward the ditch on your side in order to pass each other.

This is Home, Part 43 - Psychic ability

This is part 43 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Psychic ability

Some members of Mom's family have had psychic ability to one extent or another. It doesn't work on everything.

Mom, herself, was psychic. She and Aunt Gertrude had made a pact when younger and unmarried that whichever one died first would try to come back to tell the other if there was a Heaven and the things they believed were true. A few months after Aunt Gertie died, this happened.

One morning, Mom was standing in front of the dresser with the partly marble top that belongs to Stephen now. She said she was combing her hair and thinking about what she was going to fix for breakfast when Aunt Gertie appeared, behind her in the mirror. Aunt Gertie was smiling.

Mom said she was so shocked, she just stood there and stared at her. When she finally turned around, Aunt Gertie was gone.

Aunt Gertie died in Colorado from pneumonia, when I was a new baby.

Mom's sister Edith also had psychic ability. She could make a table move. Daddy and Uncle Doc asked her to come one time when a horse had got wrapped in a barbed wire fence. He was cut and bleeding a lot while still fighting to get away. Aunt Edith placed her hands on the horse and the bleeding stopped. He let himself be cut out of the fence.

Other members of the family with psychic ability that I know of so far are Jean, Stephen, David and me. But that came much later than the sale of the farm.

These psychic incidents are only for family. Mom used to say, "Don't tell anyone that." So, I'm trusting you not to tell.

There is another incident. When Uncle Elliott died on the way home, no one could find him. It sounded to me as though he had been missing for days, maybe a week. Finally, in desperation, a psychic in Macon was consulted. She described where he had fallen. Thanks to her, they found him. Mom didn't want this repeated, either.

This is Home, Part 38 - Hickory school and Uncle Doc's hand, Uncle Doc, Assessor

This is part 38 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Hickory school and Uncle Doc's hand

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Uncle Doc drove us to Hickory School each day. He picked up any children that were walking and also gave them a ride back.

He came and played with the students for a short time after school sometimes. I don't remember what we were playing, but we had to choose people for each side. Everyone called him Uncle Doc and wanted him on their side.

One time when he was getting ready to go home, he was taking the Hill children in the car with us and he said, "Now, be careful, I'm going to close the door. Keep your hands out of the way." He was leaning over and looking in with his hand on the door opening. Then he closed the door on his thumb.

His thumb was cut along the middle lengthwise. It was broken and bleeding a lot,

The teacher -- I think it was Miss Hazel -- wrapped his thumb in his red or blue handkerchief that he wore around his neck when he worked in the field, and drove really fast to Jacksonville to a doctor.

He always had a deep line where it was cut and the nail had a caved-in line after that. His thumb was thinner, also.

When the weather was bad, Charley took us to school and picked us up in the buggy. Mom used to come running out with hot wrapped bricks that she put under our feet.

When it had snowed and we went to school, I always admired the outside of the turn to go down the hill below the barn. Snow always drifted there and it looked like layers of whipped cream.

Mom used to make extremely good chocolate pudding with real whipped cream and send it in our lunch. The whipped cream had layers and tasted cool and faintly sweet. Her chocolate pudding was really good. So is Sharon's chocolate pie.

I remember a spring day when it was too muddy to drive and Uncle Doc came walking after me. He couldn't take the jolting from riding a horse.

Anyway, this particular day was nice except for the mud. Walking was fun and different. When we almost reached the road going to the house, we went through the large gate into the pasture and walked through there. Just about where the large gate was when we were there, David. However, the fence used to run along the side of the road. It was straight.

When we got home, Mom, Daddy and Charley were working in the garden behind the barn. Uncle Doc went back to helping. Someone had made a raised bed for onions to be set out. They had rows dug in the garden and they were dropping seed in them and covering it. It was interesting and fun. This was the garden where sage grew along the fence every year.

Uncle Doc nagged the county until they finally put gravel on the road to our mailbox. From the mailbox on through the neighborhood we had dirt roads.

In the spring, cars made deep ruts in the road due to trying to drive in mud. At other times of the year, also. When it dried out, if something wasn't done, cars would follow the deep ruts and scrape on the underneath side of the car.

Daddy, Uncle Doc and Charley made a drag with very thick, heavy, rough boards. They bolted them together in a rectangular shape with the same type of boards on the top. Then they put a huge rock or two on it and Daddy or Charley dragged the roads themselves with the horses. The graveled roads and up past our house.

Uncle Doc, Assessor

When Uncle Doc taught school, he had a pupil who later became the Randolph County Assessor for years. His name was Walter Wright. His secretary was Frances, who became my boss' wife. They had three children when I worked for James Stone -- real estate office. A couple of the children were twins and really fast at snatching things off the desks when Frances brought them to the office.

Anyway, Walter Wright contacted Uncle Doc and asked him if he would assess some farm property for him. Uncle Doc did this every year for maybe four or five years, maybe longer.

Farm families are different. If you are there at mealtime, they expect you to eat. Uncle Doc wound up eating with a lot of different people. Sometimes, he took lunch with him if he didn't know the people.

I think he enjoyed the work, although sometimes he looked pretty tired when he got home. He worked at this job for maybe a couple of months each year. Maybe three. I'm guessing. I remember him being gone in the summer and early fall.

This is Home, Part 28 - Electricity, mail, Mom shopped, the lunch counter, crops, gardens and pesticides, no irrigation, the plane in the pasture

This is part 28 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Electricity

President Roosevelt's rural electrification program worked. Somewhere around my Freshman year, we got electricity, as did our neighbors. The white light was lovely compared to the yellow lamp light.

Mail

The men had moved the mailbox up by the garage. The carrier came by in his Model A. I used to run out and get the mail and he started holding out Edgar's letter to me and saying, "He sent you a letter today."

Sometimes, when it was cold and bad, the mail carrier would come into the house, sit by the fire awhile, and have a cup of coffee and talk.

Edgar and I used air mail stamps on our letters. They were five cents. A regular stamp was three cents.

Mom shopped

Sometimes, Uncle Doc would take mom to town while we were at school. When we got home, we would find new skirts and blouses on our beds. Sometimes, we would have sweater sets instead. Socks, too, with either.

I liked -- and still like -- wool skirts because they fit well and feel good. Of course, they had to be dry cleaned.

The lunch counter

When I was in college, I had a friend, Nancy, who worked at a pharmacy. They had a lunch counter she worked behind. I used to eat there everyday. I could get a grilled pimento cheese sandwich or a ham salad for fifteen cents and a Coke for five cents. No tax. Sometimes, I would have the chicken salad sandwich for 20 cents plus a Coke for five cents.

Things were a lot cheaper then, but income was less.

Crops, gardens and pesticides

Crops and gardens were never sprayed with anything on either farm. No other farmer in our area sprayed crops, either. The noise of a plane close to the ground and a cloud of what looks like dust is not something one could hide.

The soil on the big farm was very acid. Sometimes -- years apart -- Daddy would lime the fields to improve the soil. I can only remember this happening three times, but it could have happened when I was gone.

Actually, I think the acid soil was responsible for the beautiful color of the flowers and how well everything grew.

Daddy planted more grass in the yard for several years, then waited a few years. He had a sort of sack-like thing with a strap over the opposite shoulder that he put seed in and threw it out by hand as he walked around the yard. The yard was planted with bluegrass and some other grass. I keep thinking rye, but the description in the dictionary doesn't sound anything like the grass we had. The grass was very tender, cool blades that were single. It actually felt soft. The yard was covered with grass. So were the pastures.

No irrigation

There was also no irrigation. Water was provided by the frequent rains.

We had a changeable, capricious weather pattern. There was a saying back there: "If you don't like the weather, wait a while and it will change."

The plane in the pasture

One summer day, a small private plane landed on the rise in the pasture. This was the pasture between the house and the mailbox. The side David and I saw.

The men must have seen it come down, because by the time the pilot walked to the house, they were all coming into the yard. They got the container or containers of gasoline the pilot needed and he invited all of us to come see his plane. So we all walked over in the pasture with him and admired the plane.

See, one never knows what interesting thing will happen on a farm! I must have been in late grade school or early high school at that time.

This is Home, Part 23 - General Lee, the clay statue of the surrender, Spencer switches sides, Victor Rice, surprise cousin

This is part 23 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



General Lee

I was fascinated by General Lee. The famous Southern General Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. I asked Uncle Doc one time if he had been the right age to go, which side would he have fought on. He said he thought General Lee was an honorable, upstanding man and he admired him. He also said that Missouri had good people fighting on both sides. He said he would have fought on the side of the North. He said all the states were part of a union, and without the states staying together they could be defeated by a foreign power.

The clay statue of the surrender

I admired General Lee so much that I made the scene where General Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia to General Grant. I drew in the background inside of a box -- the courthouse, trees, etc. Then I made General Lee riding up on Traveler, his horse, out of clay. General Lee was very detailed -- his beard, his face, his horse, his uniform, his gun, and his hand holding the reins. In those days, we didn't know about the kind of clay my children and grandchildren used. This was made of clay -- a type of soil.

I think there may have been a dog or two in the scene, also.

The art teacher thought it was really good. There was some sort of contest she wanted to enter it in. She thought it had an excellent chance of winning, she said, if she could just get it there. She said the roads were really bad and her car was sliding around a lot -- that it might break on the way. She left it up to me what to do. I decided to let her take it. I couldn't keep it forever.

Next time I saw her, she told me she was sorry, but General Lee didn't make it. The roads were too bad.

Spencer switches sides

Katie Jane (my double cousin) told me a funny -- as in odd -- thing when David and I were back there in 1997. She said our grandfather, Spencer P. Rice, was in the Southern Army, but that near the end of the war, he joined the Northern Army. He wanted to protect his family and keep his home from being destroyed. His crops and animals, also.

Victor Rice, surprise cousin

Maybe the Civil War was why Victor Rice and I didn't know each other when we both rode the bus from below Darksville to Huntsville High School. I had people asking me if he was my brother.

Finally, he came over to me and said, "Is your name Maudie Rice? I keep getting asked if you are my little sister." We decided to ask our families that night. We found out we were cousins. This is all I was told by Mom. We didn't really become friends, although we continued to ride the same bus together for two years, until he graduated. We always smiled and spoke. Martha (my friend) thought Victor was cute. He was tall with brown hair and blue eyes. Actually, all the older Rices I saw had blue eyes. Uncle Doc would correct me. He said he had green eyes. Dr. Rice may have had brown. If so, he was the only one.

This is Home, Part 16 - Cemetery clean-up, the gravy yard, the cemetery on the farm, mowing the yard and the pasture

This is part 16 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Cemetery clean-up

Albert had been their friend since they were in school together and maybe before.

There was a graveyard named the Barnhart Cemetery a mile or so past the school. Daddy, Uncle Doc and Albert used to get together every year to mow the grass, trim and remove anything that shouldn't be there. They also straightened the tombstones. David and I visited it when we went back home in 1997.

Grandpa and Grandma Rice and Aunt Joann were buried there. However, I think they were moved from the big farm between Jacksonville and Darksville. Their tombstones were beautiful and looked new. I think they were made of granite.

We had a cemetery on the farm and everyone was moved when the farm was sold in 1952. I remember Daddy and Uncle Doc saying some of the people being moved had to have new caskets and tombstones. Some of the people were moved to Huntsville Cemetery. I think Grandpa and Grandma already had relatives buried at both cemeteries. I guess Daddy and Uncle Doc wanted them close to the farm.

However, Daddy, Uncle Doc and Albert are gone, so there is no one to take care of the Barnhart Cemetery. When David and I were there, some of the tombstones that were very tall and in three pieces had fallen down. Grandma's, Grandpa's and Joann's won't because they have a single large tombstone each.

Barnhart Cemetery is quite small.

The gravy yard

That reminds me, I used to call a graveyard a gravy yard when I was small. Mom, Daddy and Uncle Doc used to keep correcting me and pronouncing it for me. I remember saying, "See -- that is what you are saying." I got so irritated one time that I said "Spell it." Then I remembered that I couldn't spell. It would be a few years before I started to school.

The cemetery on the farm

I remember walking over with Mom to the cemetery on the farm. It had a nice fence around it and a metal gate. Outside the fence it had cedar trees. It was on a high rolling hill like the house, barns and other buildings.

Mowing the yard and the pasture

Once, Daddy mowed the front yard of the house with a mower he used in the pasture. It was made of iron, was pulled by two horses, and had a blade that was very long (probably four to five feet) that was on one side. Daddy pulled a lever to fold the blade up when not in use. He couldn't mow the sides and back of the yard that way because of the trees and bushes. They bought a push lawnmower and later a gasoline one. I tried to mow with the push one but didn't get very far. Charley usually did it. We had a large yard.

Daddy mowed the pasture to keep the weeds down so the cows and sheep and horses could get to the grass. Besides, I think he liked the way it looked.

This is Home, Part 9 - Missouri spring, spring rains, a Rainy Day, lightning makes a call, tornados, when the wind is green

This is part 9 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.

In the section on tornados, she refers to one that hit Moberly. The actual date for the tornado strike was July 4, 1995 (which matches what she said, a year or two before 1997, on the 4th of July).



Missouri spring

The whole year was interesting back home because there was always something to look forward to with each season. In spring everything was new and growing. The grass, the flowers, the baby animals. The spring showers really did make the grass and flowers grow, just like the song says. The lilacs bloomed and the next month the roses. The bridal wreath bloomed. It looked like a big snowball with all the white blossoms all over the branches and the fact that the branches all drooped.

Mom had made two flower beds -- one large rectangular one and one large round one. They were near to the honeysuckle on the end of the little porch, but nearer the three cedar trees. They could be seen from the road. She planted different kinds of flowers so they always looked beautiful.

Mom had a knack with flowers and with everything else she tried. She had different kinds of house plants inside. My favorite was the Boston fern.

I loved the old washing machine that she had taken everything off of and painted red. It was made of wood. She planted different kinds of moss in it. Some of the flowers were double. It set in the front yard near the well and between two cement walks.

You haven't lived until you have experienced a Missouri thunderstorm. The crack of the thunder is so loud it sounds like a tree trunk is being split in two right beside you.

I used to be afraid of it when I was little. The North bedroom felt very far away from the kitchen where Mom was working. I ran and jumped in Charley's bed and pulled the covers over my head.

But afterwards, there was a wonderful smell of freshness outside and a beautiful rainbow. Mom said the rainbow showed that God remembered his promise to never again destroy the Earth with water.

She looked forward to the birds coming back again. The wren, the blue bird, the robin, and the cardinal. She thought they made things cheerful. They didn't really stay around the yard much. Sometimes, one would sit on the fence in the back yard for a few minutes.

The wren seemed to get busy building her nest. We would see her fly by with something in her bill for the nest.

Anyway, we had the woods just above the Missouri henhouse.

Mom used to take us to the woods sometimes. We had picnics there and Mom used to make sounds like the different birds. They would answer and fly to a nearby tree. She could even sound like the whippoorwills and bob-o-links. They would also answer and fly to a tree near us.

One time when we were there, we watched a beaver (maybe two) build a dam across a little body of water. About the size of an ordinary ditch, only wider (Stephen said it sounded like a ravine).

Sometimes we found wildflowers. Mom knew the name of each flower.

Across the road in the hogs' upper pasture just inside the fence were berries to pick at the proper time. What I really found interesting there was the mimosa, or shame briar as it was called. It had long leaves similar to a fern. If you ran a finger along the middle of the leaf, the sides of it folded together.

I loved the dandelions when they came out. When I was small, I was sure I would find an elf sitting on one someday. After all, they are the color of gold.

I looked for four leaf clovers, too.

I also used to try to dig to China. I was just sure I would find their upside down feet on the other side of the world.

Spring rains

Often, spring rains caused the East Fork to flood and we couldn't go to school. Jean and I were just delighted if we woke up and found it had been raining all night. We knew we probably were staying home. Unfortunately, the teacher made us make up any work that we missed.

A Rainy Day

Charley used to tease me in grade school and it made me so mad. He used to say, "Well, tomorrow is Thursday," then he would grin, "unless it rains. Then it is a rainy day."

I used to argue, "You can't do that -- what happens to Thursday?" but he just grinned and repeated that it would be a rainy day if it rained. This wasn't only Thursday; it could be any day.

One time when high school got out for the year, it immediately started raining and rained steadily for a week. Martha Riley (my best friend) and I had really been looking forward to all the things we would have fun doing. Instead, we were stuck in the house writing each other complaining letters.

If Daddy had put any of the crops out when there was a rain like this, he worried that it would be ruined or washed away. If he hadn't put the crop out yet, he worried that it was getting late in the season.

Lightning makes a call

The fiercest storms at home are in the spring. I don't know if the following happened in the spring or not, but it sounds like it.

I used to like to explore upstairs in the house. I found interesting things. One time I showed Mom an old fashioned telephone I found. She said there used to be a party phone line through the neighborhood.

She said when Daddy came home from work in the evening, he used to call a neighbor and all the other neighbors would answer also, and everyone would laugh and talk to each other.

Then they had a really bad storm. The lightning ran in on the phone lines and tore our phone off the wall and slammed it across the room. After that, Daddy didn't get his phone and lines fixed and no one else wanted a phone either. If anyone wanted to make a call, they went to the switchboard at Darksville.

When I was pretty small, Daddy had someone add several lightning rods to the house.

Tornados

In all the time we lived on the farms, there were no tornados. But the grade school gave instructions each year about what to do in case of one. They said stay away from trees, lie in a ditch if there is no water (fat chance!) or lie flat on the ground face down. Always protect the head. If home, get in the middle of the house in a doorway or in a cellar or basement, if there is one.

Charley said he had seen a tornado. He said it drove a piece of straw into a tree.

A tornado finally struck the area. The second farm that Mom sold in November 1966 when she moved out here was three miles east of Moberly where I went to college. About a year or two before David and I went back in 1997, a tornado came in from the east, demolished Mom's used-to-be farm house and tore up a lot of the town of Moberly. This was on the 4th of July.

When the wind is green

We had a very strong wind one time. I haven't seen anything like it since. I looked at the horizon out front and there was a pale green color all along just above it. I pointed it out to Mom and asked why the sky was that color. Mom said it was wind.

Then she said "Help me open the doors and windows." We propped the doors open and raised the windows.

We weren't quite through when the wind started blowing through the house. Mom said to stay out of it and against the wall. It was over in a short time.

At this time, I was probably close to high school age.

This is Home, Part 8 - The big, big turtle, taking a bath, Charley: tricks and treats, Charley and the doll, cars and tractors, cattle, crops and food

This is part 8 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



The big, big turtle

I liked to play tricks on Charley because of the way he reacted. He usually laughed. Daddy and Uncle Doc wouldn't have thought it was funny. Anyway, Daddy and Charley were cleaning out the stalls in the barn one time, and thanks to me, every time they got to the door with a shovel of manure and straw, I had closed the door. After the second or third time, Daddy said in a no-nonsense tone not to do it again. So I looked around for something else to do. I went out of the barn lot into the pasture beside it, where the pond was. I saw a huge turtle walking toward the gate from the direction of the pond. To this day, I have not seen a turtle that large. I looked around and found a stick. I poked it toward its head, trying to make the turtle tuck its head, legs and tail into its shell.

It wouldn't do it. It snapped at the stick and actually grabbed it. So I took it for a walk. When it let go, I repeated the procedure. I did it several times, then I took a good look at him. It had a face that reminded me of a snake, and taller and stronger legs than I thought possible. The shell was up quite a way from the ground and this turtle seemed to be moving pretty fast.

I was mad at Daddy and Charley, and Uncle Doc wasn't around, so there wasn't anyone to tell. I have often wondered where it went, and hoped it was far away and not in the pond across the road that the little lambs ran around in the spring and where Charley usually took a bath.

Charley was the only one of us who knew how to swim. There was a trough over in the pasture that could be used, I suppose. Just like the cowboys in the stories.

Taking a bath

When we were small children, we could take a bath in the rinse tubs, but when we got larger, it meant getting a pan of warm water and soap, setting it on the stove in the bedroom, and standing there washing from head to toe with a washcloth. One of the nurses in the hospital called that type of washing a spit bath.

We washed our hair in a wash pan. That is a pan one washes one's hands in.

Charley: Tricks and treats

I played other tricks on Charley. I used to climb up in Daddy, Uncle Doc, and Charley's lap and listen to them talk. Then I would go to sleep and whoever was holding me would carry me to the bedroom and leave me lying on the bed. Mom came in and covered me up.

Anyway, I decided to play a trick on Charley. I pretended to be asleep. He carried me in and left. I got very quietly off the bed and sneaked down right behind him. He was telling Mom, "Poor little Maudie, dead to the world. I put her on the bed." About that time, I said from behind him, "No, I'm not." He practically jumped out of his skin.

Charley used to bring me arrowheads from different places he worked on our farm. I wasn't really interested then, but now I wish I had kept them. I still have one. It looks as though they made it out of rock. Actually carved it out of rock. It has flat places on it and ridges.

He also described snakes he had killed. One of the hay fields has flat land surrounded by trees and brush. He told me one time about being chased by a blue racer in the hay field. He killed it. Sometimes, he found a rattlesnake in that field. If he killed one close to the house, unfortunately he showed it to me.

Charley bought my first wrist watch for me. It had a leather strap and lasted for years. He also bought Jean something when he bought a gift for me. One time, he went to a carnival and bought me a large red and white cow. It stood about fourteen or fifteen inches from the floor. He bought Jean a big sitting dog -- black and white with a red collar.

He also used to play ball with us. I got dragged into it -- too much action for me.

Charley and the doll

Charley gave me a little doll that his mother had given him when he was little. It had a stuffed body (straw, maybe) and white unbreakable arms and legs. I didn't know what material. It also had a white china head that looked like a cat. It had green eyes and painted ears. It was wearing a red and white striped dress and had black shoes painted on its feet.

I kept it for years, but I only have the head left. I have it in a safe place and always think of Charley when I see it. He felt like family. I miss hem, too.

This was either before school or during grade school.

Cars and tractors

Charley liked cars. He kept trading for a different one. Hood ornaments were a big thing then. So his cars had chrome or chrome-looking ornaments. Ours didn't.

Speaking of cars, I remember when Uncle Doc had to get out of the car to insert a crank in the front of it and crank it to make it start. It must have been the Model T or Model A, or something like that.

Daddy never learned to drive. He did all his farming with horses. In 1948, the Rice Bros. of Randolph County won a De Kalb corn growing contest with 141.48 bushels per acre. They received a plaque with this information on it. The plaque also had a little gold colored ear of corn with wings. There was also a certificate that I took off the wall so it wouldn't fade, and now I can't find it. It is here somewhere, though.

Practically everyone else was using tractors. Daddy and Uncle Doc bought a new tractor -- green and yellow -- only to find out that Uncle Doc couldn't take the jolting. He had nephritis the whole time I knew him and before. It is a kidney disease that causes chronically inflamed kidneys. Charley could drive the tractor, but it was also difficult to start. It was a brand that was and is well known. It was an Allis-Chalmers or a John Deere.

Anyway, they sold it later and bought a smaller one that hugged the ground more. It was a Ford.

Tractors can be hazardous to operate where the land has hills and hollows. Someone Daddy and Uncle Doc knew died when his tractor turned over and fell on him.

This was not that unusual. There were quite a few accidents reported in the paper.

Cattle, crops and food

Daddy and Uncle Doc raised black Angus cattle and sheep for sale. There were also a few hogs and maybe a couple of horses or so.

They raised crops of corn, Timothy hay, soy beans, wheat, winter wheat, oats, and alfalfa. There may have been others. They sold what wasn't needed as food for the animals.

Late each fall when the weather was cold, three of the hogs were butchered for meat. Coarse salt was rubbed into the outside of the meat to preserve it. It was cut into large parts first -- parts such as hams and bacon.

I remember when pieces of meat were fed into a meat grinder to make sausage. Salt, pepper and sage were added. Then the whole thing was mixed in a large galvanized tub. The grinder was fastened onto the side of the tub.

Mom usually cooked liver the first night. Uncle Doc liked it, but Jean and I hated it. Mom started cooking sausage, too, so we would eat some of the meat. There were huge crocks -- bucket shaped -- containing lard. Some meat was packed into large containers.

Daddy and Uncle Doc never smoked the meat. They preserved it with salt, instead. However, during one winter our whole family was sick in bed with the flu. A neighbor, Roscoe Wright, who lived two or three houses above us, came down and butchered, sugar cured and smoked the hogs for us. Every day, he fed all the animals for us, milked the cows, and did anything else that needed doing. I don't know what we would have done without him.

This is Home, Part 7 - Plowing with Japie, Little Tony, Grandpa, Buster and Rowdy, Tony

This is part 7 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Plowing with Japie

The garden near the ice house was the one where I "helped" Daddy plow sometimes when I was little. Daddy had a single plow and was walking behind it with the reins (long ones) fastened around behind his neck. He would have to remove a hand from the plow to pull the reins and try to keep Japie (Jap-ee) off the rows of garden plants. Japie came to us with that name. Daddy always asked the names of horses he bought so they would hopefully respond. I think he had Japie for a long time. I keep thinking she was around thirty. I might be wrong, maybe she was only in her late twenties. She was old, didn't hold her head up very high, and didn't really care where she slowly walked. Daddy was back there yelling "Gee!" (go) and then "Haw!" (stop).

When I asked if I could ride, he put me on her, put the ordinary reins in my hands and said to pull on the opposite rein to keep her off the garden.

I didn't have a lot of luck, but I helped some. After awhile I told him I was hungry, so we both went in for a peanut butter and cracker snack. Then back to the garden.

Little Tony

Daddy bought me a little Shetland pony when I was little, probably around seven. There was a bright red buggy with him and a little saddle. His name was Tony, so we called him Little Tony, because Daddy already had a saddle horse named Tony. Little Tony was so beautiful. He was white with black spots. He had tiny little feet, and white eyelashes. He was also really stubborn. I did better with him when someone was there.

One time I rode him when no one was around. He took me up the road and refused to turn when I tried to turn him. He only turned his head. Daddy, Uncle Doc and Charley came home for dinner (lunch) and Charley came running up the road after me. I was almost to the neighbor's house when Charley came and turned him around. I was really worried by then. I was wondering if I would break anything or if the pony would walk on me if I just slid off.

Grandpa

Grandpa must have noticed. He was staying with us for awhile. He was the only grandparent I ever knew. He was Henry Albert, Mom's father. Her mother died when Mom was eleven and Aunt Opal was a young baby. Mom said her mother had to stay in bed for a long time. Her mother died with kidney failure. Mom's older sister had married and moved to Colorado, so Mom took care of her two younger sisters, Edith and Opal. Mom said when she went to school, she had to carry Opal along, because there was no one to watch her. Mom had a hard time. She washed clothes, fixed meals, took care of the house and helped raise her sisters. Aunt Opal always called Mom her "sister mother."

Grandpa had a mustache and was a very kind man. He used to sit on the back porch and talk to us.

Buster and Rowdy

When the pups got larger, Daddy or someone gave part of them away, but Jean kept one and I kept one. We couldn't think of good names. We showed them to Grandpa. He came up with names. Jean's dog was Rowdy (it looked like a police dog) and mine was Buster. Buster looked like Old Yeller in the movies.

Grandpa died when I was in the sixth grade. He didn't survive an operation at Kirksville to restore kidney function.

My Aunt Joann died in her forties from kidney failure, also. She was Daddy and Uncle Doc's sister. She died before I was born. She had not married and lived at home with her parents and brothers. There was another sister, Mollie, who married a Dean and moved to Jacksonville. Mollie also died before I was born.

Tony

Oh, well, back to Tony, the saddle horse. Daddy went walking over in the pasture every night after the milk cows. I wanted to go, too. I was little and it was fun. However, my legs ached every night, and Mom was up rubbing them a good part of the night.

Then Daddy bought Tony, a saddle horse. No more leg aches. Every night we went riding on Tony. He had such a nice gait -- about as easy as a rocking chair. Tony had definite ideas, though. When Daddy put him in the barn and gave him food and water, he tried to kick the barn door down. Daddy turned him loose in the pasture next to the barn lot. That's the pasture where we had cute little colts every spring.

Anyway, it had two or three other horses in it. Tony went over, backed up and kicked them. Daddy had to move the other horses out into the big pasture. There was only a well there with a big wooden trough, while the pasture where Tony was going to be staying in solitary splendor had a nice big pond.

We went along for quite a few weeks riding Tony after the cows.

Then one day, Daddy got a different horse for us to ride. It was not a saddle horse and didn't have the nice gait. I kept asking for Tony, and saying he rode nice and this one didn't.

After about three nights, Daddy and Uncle Doc got in the car to go somewhere. I asked them where they were going. Daddy said, "Down the road a piece." I wanted to go, too, but they wouldn't let me and drove off.

That night when we went after the cows, Tony was back. I was delighted. I found out later that Daddy had sold Tony to the man who frequently bought livestock from us. I think Tony was going to be auctioned off. Anyway, Daddy had gone and bought him back. He had to pay more than he had received when he sold him. Wasn't that nice of him to get him back? I had a really special Daddy.

Years later, after we moved to the farm by the highway, Tony came to the fence one time. Stephen and David wanted to feed him and we didn't have anything with us, so we pulled out some grass and they gave it to him. He died on the farm when he got old. He lived longer than both Daddy and Uncle Doc.

Dream - The house with the narrow bridge, running from the Air Force, who thinks I'm an alien, then aliens are in my backyard and then in the kitchen

On Tuesday, June 8, 2010, around 10:00 AM-1:00 PM, I dreamed it was night, and I was driving along, though I think sometimes I was also walking. I was going to the far east side of the Phoenix area, deep into Mesa or Chandler probably, through a residential area on a major road. I think that someone else was with me, maybe in a different car. I believe I went through this area more than once in the dream.

Going back and forth, I eventually centered on and went to a house that had a long narrow raised bridge to the mailbox at the sidewalk, just a footpath. I walked up to the house with my mother and one or two other people. We walked around the house and in the doorways. I think it had two or three of them, at different places. The light was pretty dim. There were a few lights around the house, but they seemed almost decorative, and didn't put out much light. We went around the back to go in. I don't think people were there at first, but they came and invited us in. It was a large house with a large front yard, and sometimes looked a bit medieval from the front. It was fairly elaborate though, like something that might be owned by a wealthy person.

Someone may have commented on the narrow bridge to the mailbox out at the sidewalk, perhaps even me. In any case, it somehow got into the discussion. It was a rural style mailbox, on a post. The yard was several feet under the bridge, maybe as much as six feet or more in some areas, but the ground was irregular and rocky, with some water in some places I think, and partly covered by either an extremely low grass or a low moss. I guess I volunteered to go check the mail, to use the bridge going out to it. I guess I was just trying to show that I could do it, but I was a little uncertain about it, actually. I managed to walk out to the mailbox, with some hesitations along the way, but it seemed much narrower going back and I ended up hugging the bridge, not even sure I could proceed. The owner of the house kept encouraging me, and I did eventually make it back, though it was a long process. I may have done this more than once, I'm not sure.

I came back later, in the daytime, to have my legs and feet examined, to see if they were alright because of a past problem. The dog had scratched them earlier, but my legs and feet had looked alright. Now I found they had long massive open splits, gouges. The doctor, who both evidently lived at the house and had offices there, looked at my mother first. My father was also there, I think, and my brother, accompanying us. I tried to get the doctor's attention and show him my legs and feet and explain about the dog, but he looked briefly at them and nodded and said that can happen, and went back to working on my mother. I wandered back out. It was a square building, not overly large, and looked different than it had in the dark. In fact, at night sometimes it had seemed fairly large, though still square in shape. The yard even looked normal now, smaller and more of a normal size, and flat with normal grass, and it had a hedge separating it from its neighbor. We finally left.

Later, I went back to the house with the narrow bridge. It was getting late in the day. I thought it would be the doctor's house, but it had somebody else, a doctor who substitutes for him. I was there for a while. Supper was being fixed and I was offered to stay and have some, but I declined and said I had to leave. I went out, heading for the back, past a room where a couple of men, friends of theirs, were watching TV, and maybe playing cards. They also offered to have me stay, but I went on. They got up then, and started to leave the room, going the way I had come. It was time to have supper.

I continued making my way to the back. It was getting more complicated than before. There were more rooms and it was spread out more, and people were coming and going, through big glass doors, two or three layers of them, with small entryways in between. A woman asked if she could help and took me off to the side, to other rooms to take and exit from them eventually I guess. Some other people came in and passed through I guess, coming from the back. It seemed almost like some kind of business now, maybe part of a shopping center or large store, like a home improvement store. I wasn't sure this was the right way to go, where she had taken me. It might have been better trying to exit the other way. Some doors seemed to lead in that direction, to the back, from the relatively small room I was in, but there seemed to be other rooms in the way, and I wasn't sure I could get to the exit from them. I evidently got out eventually, but I'm not sure how.


Also, somewhere in the dream, I was gliding low over the parking lot of what was apparently a shopping center. I had driven in at night and parked there, going to the right around a long narrow feature. It seemed to be low concrete walls with a gap in the middle with a deep trench, with landscaping below, and some very small narrow arched bridges/footpaths over it. After parking I went up in the air and glided over things, going vaguely in the direction of the shopping center or whatever it was. It was late at night and I think closed. I expected it to be. There were lots of cars in the parking lots though. I may have been just exploring, or going by the shopping center to somewhere else, maybe trying to get home or to someplace I could stay for the night, when I got distracted by it.

I passed by a raised area with a military installation, Air Force I think. It had a big hill on one side that people had to go up, trainees at least, to an office at the top, where they were approved to reenter the base. Instead of going up the steep, paved, one lane road, I glided along it for a bit, then glided over the low concrete wall and went beside it, up the hillside, filled with rock outcroppings and brush, gliding low over it. A soldier with a mounted machine gun was looking out a window in a concrete wall, watching things, guarding the place. He reported what I was doing, and seemed uncertain about what to do. They radioed back to keep watch on me I think, and report on what I was doing, while they sent other people to try and capture me. I got in anyway, in the main building, staying mostly behind some shelves.

While there, I heard them talking about me and asking if they had found me. The soldier that had come in was saying that they had lost sight of me, but believed that I had gotten in the building. The officers seemed to believe I was an alien, from outer space, and had to be captured or killed.

Meanwhile, other soldiers were looking at me funny. They didn't recognize me. I hoped they would assume I was one of the new recruits. I tried to assume that role, and act like I was one. I eventually had to go to the other side of the shelves, where the officers were talking. I tried to be clumsy at things, and not know what I was doing, trying to act the part of an ignorant recruit. They had paused when I came around the shelves, and looked at me, then resumed talking. When I was making mistakes they stopped again, and one of the officers finally tried to correct me, saying, "Soldier, I know you are new..." or something like that, and then giving me advice. They got suspicious of me at some point though, and I had to escape.

I went back again later, gliding up the hill again. They responded faster, though, and I don't think I got back inside, instead going down the other side of the hill and then over things, in a kind of convoluted path, trying to elude them, and finally going back into the parking lot of the shopping center, which looked a little different. It had more cars, too, I think. It was full of them. Some of the details of the lot were different, too. It still had the long narrow trench with its low concrete walls and landscaping, though it didn't look exactly the same. It all looked pretty familiar for the most part though, and I was saying to myself, I remember this and this and this...

The soldiers were quite a ways behind me, back closer to the shopping center or whatever it was, but they were coming my way. I could hear them on their radios, like my mind was tuned into them. Sometimes they saw me and sometimes they didn't. I needed to get to my car, find where I parked it and get away. It was somewhere on the other side of the trench. The parking lot sloped uphill here, away from the shopping center. I needed to get over the trench, glide over it like before, or around it. I think I was getting past the trench but soldiers were starting to appear at different spots around the parking lot, maybe as close as 40 or 50 feet. I might not be able to go directly to my car. I didn't want them to know where it was, or get in the way when I tried to leave. I started to move in more of a curved zigzag, trying to draw them away and also escape from them.


Then, later, I was at home, in the kitchen and dining room area, wandering back and forth, talking to my mother, who was in the dining room standing near the kitchen table I think, working on papers. Looking out back, through the window in the door to the backyard, while standing in the kitchen, I saw an alien in the backyard. It went behind a bunch of things there, mainly a jumbled stack of pale boxes, not very wide, but with some other things around it and mixed in too. It was like a demon sheep, like the political ad featuring a human in a sheep costume. It was behind the things peering out, dark eyes looking at me, talking to me with a strange, high, Mickey Mouse-like voice, sometimes barely audible. It seemed to want to be friendly, and to some extent I tried to be, but it was also frightening, terrifying, especially when I looked at it, and its eyes.

I was in the kitchen talking to my mother about it, who was in the dining room I think. I kept coming back to the window in the door and looking out. Sometimes I could see it and sometimes I couldn't. It seemed to be playing hide and seek with me, peering out now and then, sometimes coming back to the things in the middle of the yard that it was hiding behind, like it repeatedly left and then came back. I wasn't sure if it was just one or if there were several of them out there.

Then the alien was in the kitchen, behind a pile of boxes made of thin cardboard, that hadn't been there before. I told my mother about it and she came in the kitchen and looked. The alien was singing a song, faintly, a popular song. I thought it liked me and was trying to be friendly, but at the same time it was shy and a little scared of me. I tried to look behind the boxes and see it, or them, but though I had initially seen it peering out briefly earlier, it seemed to move around behind them or inside the pile, like the pile was partially hollow, and I couldn't find it. The singing was trailing off and as I looked I came to feel that it or they were gone. I straightened up and told my mother I thought that they were gone.

Then we were warned by a man who was an alien in disguise, to stop calling aliens. He came to the carport door and then into the house. He was tall and skinny and angular and a little stooped I think, and very ominous and threatening, or at least he was trying to be. I wasn't sure how much he could really do, or what connection he had with the earlier aliens, though he seemed to have a connection of some kind, maybe only peripheral. I wasn't sure, too, how the earlier aliens felt about it, or about him, and how much influence he had over them. It might be that they themselves would be scared off by him, though I wasn't sure about that. I wasn't sure how safe it would be for us to continue with it, though, or how wise it would be to do so.

Dream - The little town that was made for me, house painting, and the dinosaur figure in the back yard

On Wednesday, June 2, 2010, around 2:15-3:45 AM, I dreamed I had been driving back and forth in a small white car out in the country. Some other people had been doing it too, in another car, maybe two. Earlier it seems there had been something about a large circular swimming pool that I visited and walked around a bit, that was full of people. It was something that had appeared in some dreams years ago. Now I had been driving, and heading for the portion where the road went gradually uphill. The area was a crisscross of small roads, a lot of them dirt. The ground was pale and a little sandy. I got to a crossroads and stopped. The other car had come, from the right I think. It was late and I was tired. I think my mother was in the other car, along with someone else, maybe my brother. They, along with another couple of people I think, had been making a surprise for me. They had constructed a toy housing development with roads and even railways. The houses were made in great detail out of wood and painted. The roads and railways ran for miles, going up the slope, and also to the right. The houses were probably two or three feet across. I thanked them for it and they took me on a tour. They had a lot more to do with it, to finish it, but had worked fast.

Walking up the slope in the broad cleared area beside it, we went all the way to the top of the slope, miles, to where the little roads and rails met with another coming in from the right and at steep angle, and then continued in their respective directions for a few inches and stopped. They were going to extend them as they worked in the next few days, going over the hill and down the other side, maybe continuing until close to the next town, and put more of them in also. I worried some about cars coming by before it was finished and not understanding it, and maybe about police or town officials seeing it and interfering, but I don't think I said anything about it.

We went back down the slope to near where we started, then were going back up looking at things in more detail. I saw in the darkness in the dark dry trees and dark dense brush to the left of us, that we were walking nearby, huge spiders with thin curved legs, the legs maybe as big as an inch and a half long in some cases. I kept telling them about it. My brother didn't pay any attention and kept talking, but my mother sometimes turned and pooh-poohed it to me.

We continued up the slope and after a while we turned right and walked along another cleared area, with the houses laid out to the right on the higher ground here, overlooking a sharper section of slope that gradually leveled out as it approached the area where we had parked. The dense trees and brush were to the left of us, and ahead of us too as we reached the limits of the cleared area again. I saw the spiders again, in the darkness, in the brush and trees, slightly different looking here but even slightly larger. I nervously said something about them again, but again the others didn't care, though they may have turned toward me briefly as I talked about it. They mostly talked about the project, telling me about it, and discussing it with each other. It seems then that we went back down at least partly, and spent the night somehow, sleeping outside or in our cars maybe.

Then it was later, maybe the next day or maybe a few days later. A lot more of the complicated little wooden houses had been built and painted, not always in the same colors. I walked along on the lower ground looking at them up on the higher ground, my brother and mother I think pointing them out to me. It was impressive, but the occasional ones in different colors stood out and clashed, and I thought that a uniform color scheme would probably have been best, though I didn't say so. The houses themselves had two or more colors painted on them. That was alright, it was just where the houses didn't match other houses that it looked wrong, but mostly in where the long projections of the roofs stuck out.

Down below, in the gentle slope bordering the road that went uphill, leading to the road that crossed it where we had earlier parked, where a row of real houses were, mixed in with the little ones, we went to a house two or three houses along, which was somehow my grandmother's house in Arizona, though somewhat different looking here. A lot of people were working there, painting both the house and the little houses, which they were making in the yard and basically all over the place. Some of the people seemed to be from the radiator shop, and my sisters seemed to be there, looking much younger, maybe even in their teens, plus friends of theirs and maybe some other people. I think my grandmother was also there. They were getting paint all over everything, including the yard, which I think had cars parked in it, and very tall dry grass, looking almost like wheat in some areas. A low inexpensive picket fence, the posts joined by woven wires, separated the front yard from the one to the right. It was late afternoon now. People sometimes went in and out of the house, and some were painting it and even up on ladders and things up by or on the roof. All were working swiftly and industriously. They didn't seem to care how much paint they got on the grass or fence or whatever was in the way, and sometimes seemed to revel in it. A lot of paint was being wasted that way. My youngest sister was laughing and taking joy in it, and the painting itself. She was working with someone else, a man, one of her friends maybe. She went along from the front of the house and out into the yard. I followed at a distance, frowning some, floating low over the tall grass, which was mostly covered now in splatters and strings of paint, with some areas having a heavy, goopy deposit covering a foot and a half or more. Some was on the grass of the next yard, too.

I went along near the fence toward the pale dirt road that ran in front, then I went back toward the house. It was getting darker now. Going down the short section of the side yard, still floating, I managed, with some effort, to get high enough that I could go over the taller fence there, maybe six feet, that separated the back yard from the front. I think it was chain link with metal slats through it. I went along the edge of the roof and then higher, up into the air. It was almost dark now.

I saw in the back yard the old dinosaur figure I had made long ago. It a was fairly simple version of T.rex, standing and facing toward the house, maybe six feet high or taller, looking ferocious. I had later made a more natural looking version, about the same size, and devoted almost all my attention to it, instead of working more on this one. This was all in the dream, though in real life I did make one T.rex around four feet high.

A huge, very thin wall ran by the dinosaur, to the left, touching it, sometimes leaning against it. The wall was probably around the thickness of cardboard, and was black. It was very tall, maybe fifteen or more feet, and went across the yard at a slight angle, supported by wires or ropes that ran to something in the alley, perhaps a telephone pole, and to the house. The thin wall reached the house at about where the corner of the utility room stuck out from it. The wall moved a little in the slight breeze. I looked down at it from where I was in the air.

Near the house a large dog was chained, looking out at the dinosaur and the wall, sometimes angrily barking and growling at them, evidently when the wind caused the wall to shift some and when it sometimes made a slight noise when doing so. It may have also sometimes barked or growled at me, but though it sometimes looked up at me a little, it didn't seem to mind me much, and knew who I was. In real life I was probably hearing the two small dogs fighting with each other in the kitchen.


The dream seems to have had a lot happen earlier that I don't remember.

Dream - The road with the big spiral downward, the mysterious building at the bottom and a magical time talking with my mother about what it might be, then at home I am attacked by a rag doll man

While sitting in a chair in the living room, listening to the radio, I fell asleep, probably starting either about a half hour before midnight, Thursday, March 3, 2011, or a half hour after midnight, and ending about 2:30 AM Friday, March 4, 2011. The records I made of it are unclear, giving the time as 12:30 PM-2:30 AM, where either the PM is incorrect or the time associated with it is. Both days and both dates were included, making it seem like it really did start before midnight, though I can't be sure.

The radio, on while I slept, occasionally waking up, was tuned to Coast to Coast AM. The show had a woman science writer from National Geographic on until midnight, talking about the mind, and then after midnight a man talking about Enochian magic.

While asleep, I had a very interesting dream.

I dreamed it was night, at least most of the time, and I was in Arizona, driving, heading for Nevada. Someone was talking about something, from off above somewhere and far away, though I could hear him clearly. It seemed to be about something important, particularly later, about how the world was put together and about magic and how to use it. I got almost to the border, near Hoover Dam, and started going around in the spiral, a much longer spiral than in real life. The road went around and around, getting lower at the same time. Surrounded by trees now, I went around and around in the darkness. The night was cool and the air felt a little moist. At the center of the spiral was a complex of pale buildings in among the trees, kind of a gateway to somewhere it seemed, that people stopped at before going on. It seemed a friendly place, even a fun place, but at the same time it had a mysterious aspect, that something else was going on there too, that it had another purpose, and that some other people were going to come soon that had something to do with that. My brother was there I think, and my mother, and I sometimes talked to them, particularly my mother.

I went back then, with my mother, partway back around the circles, and we were looking back among the trees and talking conspiratorially, about who might be there, and some about the others, where they might be and what they might be doing, and about the mysterious people who were going to come to the building. Then, somehow, I was driving away by myself, going out around the spirals. It's possible she went off into the trees, but I'm not sure now. As I got toward the outer edge the spirals were expanding out and flattening out, and it felt like I was freeing up into an expanding free space, with a sense of freeness, and it felt exhilarating and good, and I tried to recreate it a few times.

Then I was driving back toward home again, by myself. The voice above was still talking, saying things that were relevant to the situation, talking about the spirals and what they meant and other dimensions. It was getting lighter outside. I was trying to figure out where I had been, where it had been located. It seemed it had been somewhere around Hoover Dam, that was the only place I could figure it could be, though it didn't feel quite right, like it didn't really match what I would have expected there.

The land had quickly become more barren, as I got away from the Hoover Dam area, even going through some spirals still, beyond the important concentration of them. The barren ones weren't important, just more land. A few other cars were on the road now.

I got beyond that part, away from that area, and was going straight, across the barren land. The voice was talking again about the spirals and what they meant and other dimensions, and I started going around them again, wherever I was now I guess, but it seemed to be a re-creation of them, for conversation purposes. This time they went up instead of down, out of the straight road, and I saw an outside view of them, from above and the side and far away. Initially they seemed more like dusty spirals, I think, going up into the air, but as time went on that changed. I saw the car, tiny, not much more than a dot, going around a narrow ledge on the side of a flat-topped mountain of reddish rock, with sloping sides, and layers visible in the rock. I frowned, as I looked down at it. It seemed disturbing to have it represented like that.


Then I was home, in the living room, and people were trying to get in the front door, talking to each other, and the deadbolt lock turning. I think I may have tried to turn it back, maybe a few times, but I'm not sure, and if I did I soon abandoned the effort. Out back, the dogs were barking. I went into the bathroom and hid there with the door closed. I could hear them talking to each other, discussing what was there, trying to find something valuable, saying that they had missed the home owner, he was evidently out. It sounded like they wanted him to be home, to tell them where the valuables were.

Then they were gone, and I went to the kitchen, to feed the dogs I think. I was between the refrigerator and the counter, when I saw a man at the back door, outside. I could see him through the window in the door. He was talking to someone, while still mostly turned toward the window, someone to his left that seemed to be off a ways and who I couldn't see. He seemed to be unaware that I was there. It wasn't immediately obvious I suppose, since I wasn't directly before him, but around the corner of the counter. I wondered about him getting inside and then me having to fight him.

Then all of a sudden he was laying on his back on the counter, but it somehow didn't seem to be quite really him, kind of a representation of him, that he projected into the room. It wasn't even a full body, his head and shoulders and part of his body, but his shoulders and the part of his body that was there were much reduced, much narrower than a real body, and sometimes they seemed to be a rag doll with cloth sewed together, sometimes even his head seemed that way. I picked him up, what there was of him, and kept slamming him back on the counter, slamming his head into it, banging his head on the counter over and over, sometimes on the edge of the counter, while he talked to me, sometimes threatening or insolent, and sometimes talking about when his partner would come in, and then I would have trouble. Sometimes when I was banging his head it clearly seemed to be at least partly a rag doll, particularly from the chin and lower, sewed out of white cloth, his head flopping on the thin cloth neck as I banged it.

One time toward the end, I woke up briefly and raised my head up from where I had been, bent way over in the chair, my arms wrapped around me. I was not feeling good, and was somewhat scared because of the dream, and I could see red blotches, even some that were long, in front of my eyes. I wondered if they were real, or I was seeing the blood on the floor from where my ankle had bled months ago, but I could see a place further on that had the dark dried blood. I turned my head and the red blotches seemed to stay there, but I was also keeping my eyes fixed on the same area as I turned my head. I turned toward the light by the couch and the redness seemed to follow, but it was harder to see it in that direction, because of all the things that were there adding to the confusion. Later I looked back where I had been looking before, and most of the redness was gone.

Dream - I find an old car I had forgotten about, with plants growing in it, and a woman superhero dressed in white comes, who I know

On Friday, February 25, 2011, around 10:30 AM-12:20 PM, I dreamed that I went out behind the radiator shop. It was night. The shop seemed to be someplace I was living, and there were some other people inside, some family members. Before I went there I was someplace else, to the south.

Out behind the shop, out closer to the alley, pointed mostly to the south, was an old car I had forgotten I had. It was evidently a Cadillac Eldorado, from the mid 1970s, though it was more rounded, less a chiseled look. The paint was old and faded. Sometimes it seemed purplish, and at other times much lighter. The sheet metal was a little battered, a little wavy. The light outside was kind of dim and gray. Some lights were on in the building, and some lights reached out here, way in the back.

I was glad I still had the car, and was glad I found it. I opened up the hood and looked around inside. I had some food and other things hidden under layers of thin cardboard in the front, in large open spaces behind the headlights and to some extent the grill. There were also pieces of a blanket-like cardboard that went along the sides, flexible and a little wrinkled, and some kind of thin strange plants with broccoli-like ends.

Some little kids came out from somewhere, neighborhood kids evidently, and happily wanted to watch what I was doing. I fiddled with the layers of cardboard over the food and things, putting them back and acting like I was rearranging and straightening things, then started trimming the cardboard and plants some with huge scissors. The kids were excited to watch, but also disappointed that I was trimming things, and wanted them left as they were. I finally stopped, deciding to go ahead and leave it. The cardboard blanket had been getting loose and out of place, but it wasn't really all that important, and the plants weren't either, might as well let them stay. They seemed to be part of the car's character. After a while the kids left.

A woman came from somewhere, that I knew. She was a superhero in a mostly white costume. She looked something like Dinah on the TV soap opera "Guiding Light." She was a bit larger than life. We talked softly, and she lay down inside the hood. I undid the front of her costume, while she talked. Her left breast was damaged and scarred and uneven and flattened quite a bit, just an uneven shapeless mounding on that side, that covered most of her ribs, though the central part of it looked about as it should, and was approximately where it should be. Her right breast was normal. I massaged her some while she softly talked, looking more up than at me. Then I laid down on her for a little while, hugging her while she hugged me. I was still leaning over the front of the car, and it was almost like she had no legs. Sometimes we looked toward the building, wondering about the people there. We didn't really want them to find out, and supper was being fixed and someone would probably come out for me soon. I finally got up, and she sat up, partly pulling her clothes around her, though they remained undone for now and one side or the other seemed to always be exposed. She got up after a little bit, swinging her legs up over the passenger side fender.

I started to move back along the car some, trimming some things with the huge scissors, while we talked. I trimmed some things in the interior, and moved back toward the trunk. There were a couple of openings inside the trunk, back by the back window, with clusters of thin dark grass coming through them, and I started to trim it. I was talking to her and clipping it, when I abruptly paused, pulling back, staring at it. Eyes were looking back at me, huge eyes. They were her eyes, two or three times the size of normal eyes. Her head and body had grown to match, and she was stretched out through the car, her eyes looking through and up against the holes in the sheet metal, and I was clipping her eyelashes and eyebrows. I looked at it in horror. I was glad I hadn't hurt her eyes. As she talked, I started to awkwardly apologize, saying I seemed to have cut her eyelashes a bit. She passed it off quickly, seeming a bit amused, and continued talking. A couple of people started to come out from the shop, small in height, women or children probably, to come and tell me it was time for supper, time to go.


Earlier, it seems I had been somewhere concerned with things that were somewhat similar. I may have been at the house for a while, but it seems I was also somewhere else to the south most of the time, perhaps outside a shopping center or even in a partly undeveloped area, sometimes talking to people. I think my brother might have been there, and I think a couple of other cars that I had, also old cars, but in better shape than the one behind the shop. There also seemed to be something about superpowers, or perhaps people with them, but I'm not sure now what. I remembered a little more immediately after awakening, but it soon faded, and I'm writing now at 4:42 PM 2/25/2011, a few hours after the dream.

Dream - My mother, the old food, the monkey, the sandwich cookies, and the lake with people around it

On Saturday, January 29, 2011, around 4:15-5:30 AM, I dreamed I was driving the 1970 Cadillac, doing pick up and delivery for the radiator shop on Scottsdale Rd. It was a little after noon now, maybe a little after one. The temperature was pleasant, perhaps a little cool, and the light wasn't very bright, like it was a little cloudy. I had had to make a few pick up and delivery runs that day, but it wasn't too busy, enough to get a reasonable amount of work.

I stopped at the house, after going further, into the Tempe area, maybe past the river bottom, and then coming back. I wanted to get something to eat, some lunch. My mother wasn't there, she was out somewhere. I got some food out of the refrigerator, and put it on a plate and was eating it. I went in the living room to eat and watch a soap opera, Guiding Light I think, something with Kim Zimmer in it anyway, the actress who played Reva, though it may have been another soap. She had resumed an old role on one on another network, but I don't think it was that. It was supposed to be a regular one hour show, plus they were doing a special thing of an additional one and a half hours of the show, showing deeper insights into the characters and situations, but not adding to the storyline, so that the next day would pick up where the regular show left off. I didn't have enough time to watch all of it, but hoped I could see part of it. Even staying for the regular show was a little long, because Chuey, the man in charge at the shop while I was gone, didn't know where I was, and we might get something else that needed picking up.

While I was eating, my mother came back, and we talked for a while. She seemed to be in her forties. She was chewing something after a while, and then I noticed that the side of a bookcase, about four feet high, had a splatter on the side of it, kind of gray-violet, with the splatter pointing at an angle away from her. She was grinning, occasionally talking to me. I was looking from it to her and back again. I finally asked her if she did it. She was grinning, and I don't think she ever said directly that she did, but she said something about her getting something to eat. I think she finally agreed that she did it, without actually saying much.

I was tired, and wanted to take a small nap, though I really didn't have time for that either. I hadn't seen all the extra part of the show either, just a little bit, and would miss the rest or at least part of it. I was concerned about being away from the shop for so long, and wondered if I should call Chuey, but I didn't want him to know where I was, I didn't want to admit that I was at home.

I went into my bedroom and lay down. My mother came in after a while, and I got up and talked to her. She was still chewing something, evidently she was still eating, or snacking. She spit again. It was kind of involuntary, accidental, it just squirted out of her mouth. though I don't think I actually saw it happening. It got on the floor a few feet inside the room, I had been concerned that it might get on a bookcase or other furniture there, or even on me. She said she had been looking through the refrigerator and started cleaning it out some. She found some food that had been there a long time, and said I should see it, or maybe said that I shouldn't. I looked at her grinning and chewing, and I got the impression that she was actually eating it, or part of it. I pictured in my mind, something like a large rectangular glass pan with some kind of gelatin dish, or jelly dish, though it wasn't only that, something else was on the bottom, some kind of cake or maybe brownies, that and some other smaller things. She was getting rid of it but still eating it, even though it had been in there a long time. I was surprised and somewhat dismayed. She seemed to be enjoying it, though.


I was still tired, and wanted to get some more sleep. I tried to go back to bed, but didn't get to stay there very long it seemed. I was still concerned about the time, too. Then other people started showing up, including the girls, my sisters, who were still children, and my brother. It seemed to be in the early 1970s I guess, maybe even earlier. My father also came home. It somehow seemed to be the next morning. A lot of other people had come, too. We seemed to have somehow merged with another, larger family, and a lot of little kids were around. There were also some people, another family, who just seemed to be staying with us. A few of the kids, including one or more of my sisters, came down the hallway to my bedroom and talked to me briefly. I tiredly got up and talked to them. There weren't many, generally one or two at a time, but my sleep, or my attempting to sleep, was interrupted.

Then a small animal, a tiny one, jumped off the narrow bookcase by the door, jumped off onto the floor, screeching a little. It was a tiny monkey. It jumped on things in the hall a bit. Then I finally started walking down the hall, softly talking to it, including asking if it wanted some food, while it occasionally screeched a little, and went down the hallway, too. I saw that someone had already gotten it some, and had put it on the floor near the other end of the hallway. It was a line of soft sticky-looking meatball-like things with gravy, lined up at an angle, directly on the floor, with some other stuff in front of it, maybe on a little dish, though it didn't seem to be shaped like it was, just a jumble of stuff in a rounded triangle against the line of meatball things. The monkey went to it and picked up one of the meatball things and started eating. I didn't really like it to have its food directly on the floor that way, but I thought, oh well, it'll get it all eaten up anyway, and went on into the kitchen.

The house was a little different now, bigger. The kitchen was larger, and the dining area was much larger, and now seemed to extend all the way behind the kitchen and behind the bathrooms, and I had the impression that we had an extra bedroom or two. My mother was at the kitchen table, which was now in the extended dining area behind the kitchen, even further back, actually behind the bathrooms, though when I initially came in from the hallway it was still where it normally was, beside the kitchen. A lot of kids were around.

My mother had the stuff she had taken out of the refrigerator on the table, and was eating it a little as she worked. Some of the kids were snacking on it, too. She was evidently going to serve it as a means of getting rid of it. I guessed that even though it was pretty old it must still be alright. The table was still where it normally was at this point. She was talking, and the kids were also saying things.

She had a very large cellophane package of cookies, sandwich cookies with one side vanilla and the other side chocolate, not a major brand. It was probably four or five pounds, and was partly eaten. She was going to put it somewhere, I think in a different package, to try to seal it up and preserve it. She went toward the cupboards to get something I think, then the table was in the new position in the now expanded kitchen/dining room. She got another package of the cookies, again partly eaten, from somewhere, maybe the refrigerator, and was looking around for something to seal it with or to put it in. I was saying please, please, don't put it in the refrigerator, remembering how things ended up there, damp and soft. She paused and looked distracted and uncertain, and a little flustered. I suggested I think that she just dump them in a plastic bag and then seal that.


I went out back then. It seemed to be afternoon again, somehow. It was raining. The house, where we were living, was located somewhere else now. It seemed we had recently moved there, and it felt like it was the mid to late 1960s. The house now had a long metal overhang out back, and the water was hitting it and running off the metal in a small stream. The surface of the roof was wavy, at least on top, though it had panels underneath. It didn't seem to fit together very well, and the seams were crooked. Ahead, there was a slope, though it had paths winding back and forth, and bushes. Other houses were around to the sides and below. We seemed to be in a big basin, with sharply slanting sides heading down to a lake. Some other people came out, kids in their teens I think, and we talked a bit.

I was still concerned about the time, and getting back to the shop, even though a whole day had passed now. I guessed I would have to brush my teeth too, though I was still tired and it seemed like a lot of effort. I could feel with my tongue that I was getting a film on them, though. I was concerned about the rain some too, but then it didn't seem to be coming down as hard as it initially seemed, then it was stopping. It felt like it was a place we had only stayed at for a week or so, and then had to move on, that it was, in the dream, another place we had been. I seemed to be looking back at it from a perspective of much later in the future.


My brother came out, smiling, and we started walking down the paths, going to the right because it led that direction. We got to a main aisle that led straight down toward the lake. A lot of people were out now, including a lot of children. The main aisle had an odd surface, a kind of grayish brown dirt that was very smooth and even, and spongy feeling. I had been concerned about it after the rain, and I felt that I was leaving footprints behind, with small ridges of muck sticking up around them, but it didn't feel bad to walk on. I stepped briefly on a small section that felt that it had a broad board, maybe a foot and a half wide, just under the surface. It was very stiff and hard there.

We continued on, going downward toward the lake, talking. My brother seemed very happy. The area was crowded with people and especially kids, to both sides, though not many were on the broad path, and those on it were mostly to the sides. On both sides small aisles met the path, like for rows of seating in a movie theater, and they did seem to have some kind of low seats in them, maybe like folding lawn chairs, with the seats almost on the ground. They were crowded with people, on them and around them, a lot a of them talking. Some of the little kids had pails and toy shovels, and were digging. All around us, in the distance, houses were on the slopes, vegetation around them. Some of the houses weren't too far away, but the area we were walking down now had mostly the broad path with narrow aisles going off it. Eventually we turned around and went back toward the house. We needed to get back for something. Maybe lunch was supposed to be ready by then, or maybe my brother thought that it should be.


After I woke up, I lay in bed for a long time thinking about the dream. Oddly, sometimes I heard and felt little shifts in my mattress, near my head, sometimes feeling it. It was kind of a deep abrupt sound, like cloth moving under a weight and stress. It was alarming at first, as I wasn't sure what was happening, and even when I realized what it was, it bothered me because I didn't know why it was happening, and why it was suddenly happening now.

I eventually drifted back to the dream at least a couple of times, without actually going back to sleep. In one of them, I was out front, with several other people from the house, and we had a very large broad wheelbarrow that was filled to the brim with the odd dirt from the broad aisle. I don't know where we actually got the dirt from, it may have even come from a place out front, or perhaps we got it for a place out front somewhere. It was a surprise to me, though. My brother might have been out there too, I'm not sure. Most of the people were kids, some in their teens. We were talking about it, among other things. We were near the bedrooms, with a line of tall bushes separating us from the main portion of the yard, which was still largely gravel. Like the dirt in the aisle, this dirt too was flattened and very smooth, and was very slightly rounded and curving down slightly at the edges, to the inner surface of the wheelbarrow bin. It filled it, the middle of it going a little higher than the top of it I think.

I had gone around behind it and was holding onto the handles. I now picked it up and started to slowly wheel it toward the other side of the house, intending to put it somewhere else, where it wasn't setting out in the yard. It was evidently something my mother had done, getting the special dirt and then leaving it out there, for some thing she had in mind. It was a little awkward wheeling it through the dirt and small rocks, though the area had narrow places where the rocks had been swept to the sides, leaving little irregular lanes maybe ten or twelve inches wide, almost like ruts, though they were mostly level. I stopped a time or two along the way and rested. The kids continued to talk, sometimes to me and sometimes to each other, and sometimes just making comments in general.

Later, I had another continuation of the dream, where a person like the woman in the movie "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" showed up, dressed like her even, with a short wide skirt that barely went beyond her hips. She came inside and was talking to some of the people there. She talked rapidly, and was apparently one of the people staying there now, even apparently a relative.

My mother died on November 8, 2010. The part of the dream about my mother finding food in the refrigerator that had been there a long time and needed to be thrown out, but then eating it, apparently refers to the food she had that I saved there, a little tub of partly eaten mashed potatoes from a fast food place, and the paper plate with her fish sandwich from Burger King, with a few french fries and onion rings. She has a few other things in there too. It may be her way of saying that it's time to throw them out, that it's okay. I had finally thrown out a few things, long ago now, and though I thought about what remained frequently, I couldn't quite bring myself to throw any more out yet. Maybe it's time now. I had been intending to throw some out soon, maybe even today. (It didn't happen, though. I kept the food in there.)

Dream - At a mall, a tiny toy Superman fights a toy super-villain

On Monday, June 15, 2009, at approximately 5:00-7:35 AM, I dreamed I was driving, maybe around locally, more or less, then was in something like a mall, which had a hotel as part of it. My brother and mother and some other family members were there too. We were all much younger, though perhaps not all to the same degree. After some discussion, we separated, and went different directions in the mall. The mall split off in several directions from where we were, near one end, with a branch going off at an angle from the end, and some short branches on the other side at or near the end, most sticking out at right angles, though one at the end had a slight angle to it.

I went down the main aisle of the mall, looking at things as I went. I think I was concerned with getting some food. I made my way to the end, or at least one end, then went back, though along a different branch, one almost parallel to the first, but a little higher and somewhat shorter.

I made my way to the end of the branch, to a large carpeted room. It had some low tables and padded furniture, like a waiting room, and a tall counter was along one side, the one the opening from the mall was by. Some people were behind the counter, perhaps some food vendors and other people. The room also had some association with the hotel, which was behind it and also ran along behind and attached to the mall.

I left the carpeted room, though, and went to the other end of the mall, then went back to it. Near the room, I came across a tiny toy Superman, about six inches high, and picked it up and carried it in. Some other toy figures were standing on the carpet, some together in little curved lines. They were all very lifelike. Some people stood around watching, some behind the counter and some out toward the edges of the room, and there may have been a few in front of the counter or in the room.

Something happened, some device got turned on, and gravity got real heavy for some reason. It was something turned on by an enemy of the toys, another toy, a super-villain. The toy figures were pressed into the carpet, bending over, huddled together, the increased gravity trying to pull them down. As time went on, they became more dragged down, many of them laying on the carpet, pressed deeply into it. The air seemed to be different too, to darken, and a lot of the surrounding area seemed to fade out into a grayness, or to simply disappear entirely from sight. The toy figures were groaning, sometimes calling out to each other or for help. They hoped that someone, maybe the toy Superman, could do something, could save them, but there was some worry about whether he could handle it, whether he would be affected too much by it himself. A toy figure was kidnapped, too, though I'm not sure when it happened.

Superman managed to leap over to the other end of the room, which narrowed to a short hallway leading to the door. Beyond the door was a big open area with an elaborate fountain. A voice was talking about how easy it was to have so-and-so do it, to have them apply the stuff and do the work so you could concentrate on what you needed to do (probably an ad playing on the radio, which was on in real life).

A tall giant figure in a bulky padded gargoyle costume was tending the fountain, adding figures and statuary to it. Apparently it also acted as a central figure in it and could emerge suddenly from the water in a frightening display of power. It was actually life-size or a little larger, but was giant compared to the toy figures, which were around six inches tall. It might have had the toy Lois figure, and someone else, maybe Jimmy, though Jimmy also seemed to be in the area and taking pictures.

Superman came and got into a large robot-like figure made of solid cardboard with a huge rounded chest, splitting it open in a straight vertical line to get inside and then joining the sides back together again. Then, wearing the giant cardboard robot suit, he confronted the gargoyle. It was thought that Luther took Lois, and that the gargoyle was somehow connected with it or knew about it. I was worried that Superman would fight it when it didn't really seem to be part of it, just peaceably puttering with its fountain.

Superman, in his cardboard suit, had come up behind the gargoyle, which turned to face him. They stood there and talked for a while, in low tones, Superman questioning the gargoyle and the gargoyle responding. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Superman seemed satisfied with the gargoyle's answer, though, and went back to where he had gotten the cardboard suit, and split it open again and flew out of it. Then Jimmy was worried that he hadn't gotten the pictures, that something was wrong with his camera, so Superman got back in the cardboard so Jimmy could take the pictures, then got out again and flew around, looking for the kidnappers.

My brother and I went somewhere, then, and got some cheesecakes, with my mother and sisters and perhaps other family members helping. My mother and sisters were much younger, perhaps how they were in the mid 1960s, and my sisters were still children, though it's possible they had been children earlier in the dream, too. My brother got two cheesecakes that were fresh and I got two that were frozen, and there were another two that were picked up somewhere else, maybe a store associated with a service station. The cheesecakes were all large, and they were going to be eaten at a party that was supposed to happen shortly.

We all went to a house, taking the cheesecakes with us. Other people were also there. Most of the people, the family members and others, seemed to be very busy, walking around and doing things and talking to each other. A lot of them were in the large living room, or that area, though some went back and forth to other areas of the house, such as the kitchen or dining room, and some seemed to stay mostly in those areas.

The frozen cheesecakes were set out now, and were being eaten some already. The fresh ones weren't put in the refrigerator or freezer, but were also left out, waiting until Lois and the other person were rescued.

After talking with my brother some, discussing things, I left, and I think he did too, and also some other family members. My brother and I were leaving in separate cars, and going to different places. My mother and my sisters were going to go together, I think, in a station wagon, that was either the 1964 Chevrolet or the 1973 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. I think it might have been the 1964 Chevrolet. The party wasn't going to happen until later, in the evening, which was still a little ways off, so there was still some time to do things, and it seems most of us had things to do, though part of it may have had something to do with the party, with getting things for it. My mother wanted to get supper for my father, though, at least as part of what she needed to do. She had gotten pretty concerned about it, that it was getting late and she had to hurry. I was under the impression that the place she was going to was several miles to the south and west, at the south side of Phoenix, and it seemed to be somewhere we had lived long ago, perhaps even the house in Missouri in 1966. Quite a few people were still going to be here, though, getting things set up and ready for the party.

I think I may have wanted to get something, though I'm not sure whether it was for the party or not. I felt uneasy about leaving the cheesecakes out, even before I left, and kept looking back toward the room as we were leaving, and when talking some to my brother just outside it. We didn't actually have an exact time for the party, because we didn't know when the people would be rescued, and it might not be as soon as we thought.

I drove away, in the white 1965 El Camino I think, but I continued to worry about the cheesecakes, wondering if I should go back and put them in the refrigerator. I went several miles away, to the northwest, perhaps over into Phoenix, to a large service station with covered bays, with an associated large convenience store/restaurant. I sat there outside it, in the car, still worrying.

Overhead, Superman was still flying around, still searching, looking through things with his super-vision, but he hadn't found anything yet. I sat there, in the car, watching him. It was a little after sundown now, and it was starting to get dark. A feeling of depression was settling in over me, a feeling of resignation, of defeat. It was possible he might rescue the people soon, but it didn't really look like it. If he did do it soon, it had better be fast.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen with the party. It seemed likely that some kind of party or get-together was going to happen, it had been planned and set up, and lots of people invited, but it was going to take a lot of the joy out of it, to not have the people rescued. I had already considered the possibility that the rescue might be delayed some, and had pictured the people at the party talking to each other and discussing it, and then the rescue occurring sometime while the party was going on, maybe late in the party. It now looked like it might be after the party entirely, maybe days later. We might have to have a small second party when it happened.

I should go back soon, I thought, and tell them what was happening, and what was likely to happen. It was something they should know, and would want to know.

I started to drive back, still sometimes watching Superman fly around, the times when he was visible. When he wasn't, there was just the trip back, and the increasingly darkening sky.

Dream - The large hooting animals on the small island, and the juvenile versions of them in the big building

On Monday, August 17, 2009, around 3:30-6:30 AM, I dreamed I was out in the north Atlantic Ocean, coming back, possibly around Nova Scotia or New England. There was a very small island, maybe only 20 or 30 feet across and 10 or 12 feet deep, black and rocky looking, humped up a bit, in an irregular way. Waves were splashing against it and sending spray high into the air, and water was washing over it.

Some strange sea mammals were there, packed close together on the small island. They were extremely large, and pale colored, a very pale pinkish orange. When standing on four legs, with their heads raised, they were probably around eight to ten feet long, and the legs might have been six or so feet long. Their bodies were large, long leathery cylinders hanging in an oval shape; their legs were also leathery cylinders, and very long, expanded and drooping slightly around the ankles, with some wrinkles at the knees. I think their necks were probably skinny cylinders, though I don't remember for sure anymore, and I think their heads were basically cylindrical too, though I'm also not sure about that. The island was crowded with them. Their bodies moved around, twisting to the side and back, and leaning forward some and then back, frequently standing on their back legs but sometimes dropping forward to briefly stand on all fours.

I was on what seemed to be a fairly big boat, apparently a research vessel. The person who had been my lab partner in school, and who later worked with me in Nevada, was with me. I asked him what they were. He acted like he was familiar with them, and said they were elephant seals, I think. In real life, elephant seals look nothing like that, but in the dream it didn't register. I was a little doubtful, though. A plane or helicopter was on the other side of them, coming in low and close, trying to film them, and they were making an odd sound and rearing up, trying to get it. I don't remember the actual sound anymore, it was a kind of loud hooting sound I think, like something birds might make.

I stopped there for a little while, and got out and was writing what they were on the side of one of them. Whatever I was using was maybe a foot long and tapered to a point on one end, and had some weight to it, like it had some metal in it. It not only wrote it in pale brown, it impressed it into the skin, making indentations that formed a groove. The groove would stay there in some form for years, maybe for the rest of the animal's life, long after the color faded or wore off.

It seemed very important to me that the name be there, that what they were should not be forgotten. The animals were just now starting to come into the public consciousness, though the government had known about them for a while. I could foresee an extended period of time when the public would be interested in them, perhaps for decades, but that this would eventually fade, until they were largely forgotten. The animals were long-lived, though, perhaps as much as 80 or 90 years or more, and if some people should come here a long time from now, and find the animals here, a mystery to them, they could still know what the animals were by seeing by what I had written, and the name of the animals would not be lost.

After writing the name, I also wrote something in smaller letters under it, something more specific, at least two words, perhaps the scientific name. I also did at least part of it again on the hip and upper leg, writing in a downward direction with smaller letters. The animal seemed to tolerate what I was doing, but was milling around a bit. The island was packed, so it was difficult to move too far. It was starting to get a little concerned, though, and had a kind of "why is this happening" expression, so I left and went back to the boat.

I don't remember why we were there. I think we may have gone out on some kind of military thing, that something had happened up north, some kind of situation, and had to be checked out. Then, on the way back, we went by the small island and the animals. It seems that the ship was scheduled to go by there, when it could, as part of a regular check on them, but I was on the ship because of what had happened up north.

After we got back to land, I went into a large multistory building. My lab partner probably went with me, though I'm not sure now. Some other people were there. It's possible some members of my family, such as my father or brother and maybe even my mother, might also have been there or came there or I was going to see them later or go with them later. I'm pretty sure some members of my family were there either when I came or came with me or came after I did.

There was a very big room in the front, very wide, like a lobby, it basically ran across the whole front of the building. In the center at the back was a small counter, with one or two people behind it. A little to the right of center at the back was a rectangular indentation, perhaps six feet high or a little less and maybe eight feet wide and perhaps 15-18 inches deep, covered with ceramic tile. It also had a ridge at the front at the bottom a few inches high. Inside it were several of the creatures I had seen on the island, but much smaller. I was told these were juveniles. They were standing up on their hind legs and facing outward, making higher pitched hooting sounds, faster and more insistent than the adult animals.

Several feet to the right of them was a door that led to the inside, and a ways to the right of that, at the edge of the room, was a heavy red curtain in an angled wall, that also led to the back, by a different route. I think it also led to some stairs, but I think the door did also, to different stairs, as well as to what lay behind the lobby. There may have been some kind of theater back there, as well as other things. Some food was available to the left in the lobby, as well as little places selling things, not actual full rooms, just counters and wire racks, though some may have been small rooms that lacked a front wall. The place seemed to be a government place though, one that was at least partly secret, that had offices and things, back in there and on the upper stories.

I went through the door to the right of the creatures for a little while, though I didn't go very far. I came back out and the people I was with or going to be with were urging me to leave, we had to leave now. I started to go toward the doors and maybe got halfway there, but the insistent high hooting from the creatures kept worrying me. I went back and looked at them, wondering if they should be released, if it was time to release them. It wasn't up to me, though, and I wasn't sure what I could do about it. I finally reluctantly turned and left them, and went toward the glass doors that were the exit.


I wrote the dream down the night after it happened, and forgot some details in the intervening time, though even right after I woke up I didn't really remember much more in terms of activity. I know the dream was much longer, particularly in the beginning, and there may possibly have been something about Nevada, maybe staying at some place there, but I'm not sure.