This is Home, Part 42 - Edgar, Edgar and the flat, marriage and Edgar

This is part 42 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004. The "Charley" referred to in the beginning was Charles, a young man who was also dating my mother (and later married her). The Charley several paragraphs down was the old farmhand.



Edgar

When Edgar came home after Korea, he was really thin. He said the flour had bugs in it and he couldn't eat it. He was ordering milk, instead of Coke like he usually did. I remember sitting with him in a tiny eating place in Huntsville while the jukebox kept playing "Charley, My Boy" over and over. He said, "I just can't seem to get rid of that guy."

Another time when we had a date, there was ice and snow on the roads. It was afternoon when he came. He parked in the road by the mailbox so he wouldn't block the wagon road along the end of the front yard.

He reached out his hand to help me walk and get into the car when we got there. But, no, not me, I acted like an idiot and instead of letting him help me, I pulled away, then started walking down the embankment. My shoes shot out from under me and I slid down the embankment and part way under his car.

He rushed over, trying to keep from laughing (and not doing a very good job of it) and said, "Are you all right?"

This time I was happy for him to help me. I should have let him hold my hand like he usually did.

Edgar and the flat

Another time we sat in the car and talked until it was quite late. Finally, he kissed me goodnight at the porch door and left.

The next morning, Daddy, Uncle Doc and Charley came back laughing from feeding the cattle, and said they had seen Edgar since I had. He had a flat tire down where the mailbox used to be. He couldn't get the jack to work and he didn't want to wake anyone up because it was so late. So he had just stayed in his car.

They helped him change his tire.

Marriage and Edgar

Once, Edgar and I were talking about what we were going to do after we were married. I told him that I didn't want to move away from Mom, Daddy and Uncle Doc. I said they were getting old.

Edgar looked worried and said he didn't want to leave his folks. He said they were getting old, too, and they would need someone.

We decided to stay there and live close to everyone so we could help them.

Edgar got along with everyone, including Jean. He treated her like a little sister. He was a genuinely nice person. We didn't argue and our ideas were pretty close together. We had the same sense of humor.

I became good friends with his sister, Louise. We wrote to each other for years. He had two sisters and two brothers. I don't know if Louise or Howard was the oldest. Mildred was a few years older than Edgar. James was younger.

This is Home, Part 41 - Darksville Church, Easter Service

This is part 41 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Darksville Church

The name of the Darksville Church was Mount Shiloh Baptist Church. It was a missionary church and sent people overseas to preach.

Jean and I were going fairly regularly. Mom, too. Mom was a Methodist. There was a small Methodist church on the way to Jacksonville. Rev. Haney had services there sometimes during the summer months. I liked him because he didn't yell; he just talked.

Anyway, Jean joined the Darksville Church. When she went forward to acknowledge her belief in Jesus as the Son of God and that she wanted to be saved, they kept playing "Just As I Am" and waiting for me to go forward. I wasn't about to do that. Afterwards, several people told me they were praying for me.

Jean was baptized in Lee Webster's father's pond. I would never have done that -- for one thing I am afraid of bodies of water. I did not trust the minister not to drop me and I can't swim. Another thing, most of the skirts that I wore were wool -- they would have fit a doll after getting wet. None of them were washable.

Every time I went after that, they played "Just As I Am," over and over. Not only did everyone watch me, the people in our row moved back so I could get out easy.

I stubbornly stood there and did nothing. I don't like being pushed. Besides, I thought it had to be my feeling that made me go forward. How could I be "saved" if they pushed me into it? I stopped going after a few times of this.

I talked to Rev. Haney years later. He asked what I believed and I told him that I believed that Jesus was the Son of God who had come in order for people who believed in Him to be able to go to Heaven after they died. He said it is belief in Jesus as the Savior, the Son of God, that saves people -- not the church. He told me I was saved.

He also said I should be baptized and join a church so it would serve as a witness to others that I did believe. However, he said the church wasn't absolutely necessary. He was a Methodist.

Easter Service

Jean and I decided to go to church one Easter morning. I must have been in college at that time, because I was driving. The roads were very muddy and the East Fork may have been out, because we decided to take the road past Roscoe's, which would bring us farther north of Darksville than usual.

Anyway, there was a little church with a graveyard behind it just beyond Roscoe's. There must have been infrequent services at the church, because no one was there.

Just a little way past the church, I managed to get the car stuck with the front wheels in a muddy hole. I tried to make it jump out of it but it wasn't working.

Jean and I were all dressed up in new jackets, new Easter hats, new shoes and hose.

People always wore hats, dressy dresses, high heels and hose to church back then. If they wore coats or jackets, they also wore gloves. Our age group only wore hats on special occasions. I usually wore skirts and blouses. Sometimes I wore dresses when I had a date with Edgar.

I finally gave up with the car when it wasn't doing anything. I looked at my high heels and looked at the mud.

I don't actually remember walking in the mud, so maybe Roscoe rescued us.

Uncle Doc had to have a new clutch put in the car. I had burned it out.

I learned later that something such as parts of brush (twigs and sticks, etc.) need to be placed in front of the wheels to give them traction.

This is Home, Part 10 - Willow whistles and cat's cradles, the switch, my swing, helping Mom, Jean and I ride Tony, canning, Daddy and summer heat, churning the butter, ice cream, lettuce inspection

This is part 10 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Willow whistles and cat's cradles

In the spring, when Jean and I were small, Mom would cut a little branch off the willow tree and cut a piece about 3 or 4 inches off, cut a little hole in the top and cut a path in the inside (I think), also she slipped the bark off and made us each a whistle. Charley did it too, sometimes. They each could make us a cat's cradle with string and also make other things. I never could remember how to do any of it, although they tried to tell me. They could make a blade of grass sound like a whistle.

The switch

Mom also found other uses for little branches -- probably willow. Jean and I kept arguing and were driving her crazy. She cut off a branch and made a little switch which she laid on top of the warmer on the stove. She said if we kept going, she would switch us. She used it as a threat several times after that until Jean took it down and broke it in two. She didn't bother replacing it.

My swing

I was telling Daddy one time that I wished the swing under the mulberry tree would go really high. Sometime later, he and Charley came with two horses and a wagon to a tall tree at the edge of the woods with really high branches. I went along as they tied a rope over a straight branch and Daddy fitted on the board seat he had made for it. I had my swing and this one did go really high. I felt like I could see everything. Just like a poem I liked.

Summertime was a really nice time on the farm for me. Days that were not too hot, filtered sunlight and puffy white clouds of different shapes. I spent a lot of time laying on my stomach on the floor of the South room reading, after I got old enough to read. I had the Nancy Drew books, Kay Tracey books, and lots of westerns. Uncle Doc used to read them and discuss them with me. He bought me my first Wyatt Earp book, "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal."

Uncle Doc told me that when he was growing up there wasn't a lot of information that wasn't local. He said that the information received about happenings at other places was reported by people going through.

He also said that when he was young, he remembered hearing about Wyatt Earp. We used to talk about the O.K. Corral. If he had still been around, Uncle Doc would have enjoyed seeing it when I finally went there years later with my children and husband. I thought about him, and missed him.

Helping Mom

Sometimes, I helped snap beans or shelled peas. As I got older, I made different kinds of salads. But I really didn't help Mom the way I should have. I did things sometimes.

Daddy used to tell me to help Mom, but she really didn't encourage it. For one thing, she had an enormous amount of work to do and she was very fast while I was so slow I don't think she had time to wait for me. Maybe she wanted us to grow up carefree because she was working hard when she was just a little girl. Anyway, I feel guilty.

She used to tell me to talk to Jean. Jean was afraid of all the animals, except the dogs and cats. She really didn't pay a lot of attention to them, either. Later, she especially liked cats.

Jean and I had the same background, but you would never know it. I loved the farm and all the animals, except the ones that tried to get me.

Jean and I ride Tony

One time when we were small, I took Jean with me and followed Daddy as he watered Tony. When he started to lead him into the barn lot, I wanted to ride. He put us on Tony. Jean was behind me. We were going up the little incline from the road into the barnyard when Jean moved a little farther back.

She said, "I'm falling, I'm falling." I told Daddy. He stopped Tony, checked where she was sitting, and said, "No, you're all right." Jean slid off of Tony and held on to his tail all the way down. Tony just stopped and stood there. Maybe this is one reason she didn't like animals, but she was afraid to begin with. Daddy and Uncle Doc had a little brother who died when a horse kicked him in the head. Daddy was careful with Jean. She just didn't -- maybe couldn't -- hold on to me except very lightly.

Jean hated the farm. She didn't care about all the things I thought were interesting. By the time she was in late grade school, she wanted to live in a big city with lots of things to do and especially lots of dresses to buy. She wanted to do things with people her own age. I was so bored talking to her about clothes and styles. She has lived in Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix since she grew up. She has had a lot of beautiful clothes. I guess she knew what she wanted.

Canning

Anyway, back to the summer. Mom carried vegetables from each of the gardens and canned them. It was really hot in the kitchen when she was canning. Mom was proud of her canning. Daddy made, or had someone make, a lot of shelves in the cellar for her and she canned until they were all full and nothing left to can.

We had an apple tree with yellow apples, pear trees, several kinds of cherry trees, an apricot tree, two mulberry trees, a tree with damsons. She made preserves from some of these and canned them. We had little tiny yellow tomatoes in the garden. She made preserves of them. She said we could have some in the winter that way. Daddy and Uncle Doc also bought a basket of red apples, which she turned into apple sauce and other types of canned apples.

She made dill pickles and bread and butter pickles.

All this time, she was cooking three meals a day. I don't know how she did it.

When I was little, I remember Daddy or Uncle Doc sweeping the front porch for Mom. Then entertaining me so she could get dinner on the table.

Daddy used to come home for dinner, wash his face, neck, and hands. And also comb his hair. His hair was still dark, with threads of gray, and had a wave. He was in his sixties.

Daddy and summer heat

Daddy had trouble standing the heat of summer, more so as he got older. After eating, he went down to the cellar where he rested on the cot for awhile. As he got older, he stayed in the cellar for a longer time at noon and worked later at night.

The cellar was as cold as refrigeration. There were two ways to enter. The kitchen had a door in the floor which one could raise and then climb down the stairs, which is what Daddy did. There was also a slanted outside door laying at an angle on the framework. The head was higher. This door was never locked and could be raised so one could walk down the concrete steps to the cellar. Of course, if anyone opened the outside door, the warm outside air came in. The kitchen door was later blocked off, so only the outside door was used then.

I used to follow Daddy down into the cellar and talk to him. There was an old chair down there, so I could sit beside him.

Churning the butter

There was a churn in the cellar, also. Mom used to churn butter sometimes during the weekend. Charley also came and did part of the churning. I can't remember what the churn looked like, except that it was like a large wooden bucket with a lid and a paddle in the middle. I hope what I have described is correct. The handle of the paddle stuck out the top of the middle of the lid.

I think Mom used to skim a heavy amount of cream off the milk and use it to make butter. I don't know if it had anything else put in it or around it. It may have had table salt in it.

When the butter was finished, there was thin milk left with flecks of butter in it. This was called buttermilk. Mom and Charley liked to drink it. Jean and I didn't like milk of any kind. Maybe chocolate.

Daddy and Uncle Doc wouldn't touch milk if you paid them -- not since Uncle Doc was in college and saw it under a microscope.

The butter was put into a large cereal bowl or small vegetable bowl, and set on the ice in the ice box. When it was placed on the table, it looked like half of a yellow ball.

Ice cream

Sometimes on Sunday, during the summer, they made ice cream. There was a wooden ice cream maker in the cellar with a smaller metal container in it. The cream, sugar and flavoring such as vanilla were put in the metal container. If there was anything else, I don't remember. The ice cream maker outside the metal had ice and coarse salt put in it. A handle had to be turned until the ice cream was frozen. Jean and I thought it would never be ice cream. Just before it was finished, sometimes Mom would add small slices of peaches. We also must have had a peach tree, but I can't think where.

Everyone was given a bowl of it. There was a lot left for later.

Every time Daddy ate ice cream, he rubbed his forehead in the middle and complained that ice cream froze his forehead.

Lettuce inspection

Stephen insisted that I write this down.

When Mom made a salad with lettuce, I used to carefully inspect each piece of lettuce before I ate it. They grew leaf lettuce on the farm.

I think I irritated Mom. She would say, "Maudie, I put that lettuce through several rinse waters. There is nothing on it."

I still inspected it. It was the only thing that bothered me. I was just sure it must have a little bug somewhere. I don't know what age I was. Probably grade school.

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 blue alien that visited my mother

On Monday, October 11, 2010, around 4:00-5:20 AM, I dreamed I walked into the living room from the hallway, and saw a small gray-type alien standing in front of my mother, who looked asleep. She was sitting down, and was at the other, west, end of the room, at the far end of the house actually, in a long narrow area that in the dream ran along the end. It didn't seem to fit with the rest of the house and almost seemed an afterthought, like a filled-in carport. She was wearing a gray sweat shirt and sweat pants, and was sitting on a square couch-like area that ran around a table, with the ends of the couch against the walls, in front of a big window to the front yard area. Her head was tilted a little forward and a little to the side, her eyes closed, and she seemed to be murmuring something, repeating back what the alien was communicating to her. I'm not sure if the alien was actually speaking, or just communicating with its mind, by telepathy. They seemed to be in some kind of communion together, and I felt that they had had many such meetings before.

The alien wasn't actually gray, it was a kind of blue, almost shiny, like leather. It was probably about three feet high. Its head was huge, becoming slightly two lobed at the top, tapering down some almost in a triangular fashion, to a small neck that was relatively short. Its back was to me, and I could see only a little of the side of it. I thought at first it was the little gray kid from next door who sometimes came and talked to her (in the dream it was a human kid who sometimes came over, a little boy with short crew cut-like grayish blond hair), but the whole scene immediately disturbed me for some reason. Then I realized what it really was, an alien, and my eyes grew big.

The alien seemed to sense that something was happening and started to turn its head a little, tilting it slightly, a big black eye partly showing, then all of a sudden it was a faint blur heading my direction and a little to the side, and then fading out. It was gone in a tiny fraction of a second. If I had blinked at the wrong time I would have missed its exit, it was over so fast.

I went off after the gray (really blue) alien, following it into a dining area where several tables were located with people sitting at them. Beyond was another doorway, a large one, that the thing had apparently gone through. There seemed to be little dots of light floating in the air. I wondered if it was somehow the creature, or was maybe something connected with it using a teleportation device or dimensional portal. I swatted at them. They weren't very numerous, just occasional dots, maybe only one or a few visible at once. I felt a slight impact when connecting with them. I turned and the people at a large table there were laughing, though only some of them were looking my way. They had little laser pens and were making dots in the air. Most of the dots were toward the other end of their table. They were having fun with them, just with the making of them and also with seeing if they could confuse people. I said that I could feel it when I hit them, and swiped at the dots again a time or two. I said it a couple of times, but I'm not sure if they believed me.

I wandered off toward the front of the building. The series of rooms kept getting higher, and seemed to have wooden floors, with short transitions that sloped up to the next level. I went though a level that seemed to have something to do with the radiator shop, and then one at the end that seemed to be a house again. My father was there, looking much younger, maybe in his forties. My mother had looked much younger, too. He was talking to some people. They seemed to be minor TV or movie stars, middle aged, who had decided to take up martial arts, and were doing swinging kicks in the middle of the room, but holding on to each other so that the kicks swung way out to the side. My father was sitting on a some dark couch way out into the room, and kicks from one of the people went swinging out way over his head and behind the couch, and swinging back around. On a kick or two the kick scraped against the left-front side of my father's face; apparently it was intended to just brush it, but contacted it a little more firmly than it should have. My father had a shiny piece of thin pale flexible plastic stuck to his face in that area, and he reached up to it and complained a bit, remarking that it might have left a mark (an abrasion) on him that might take a few days to heal, and he would have to walk around like that and explain it to people.

Someone was standing on the other side of my father, a fairly short person who might have been a female, who I think had relatively short blondish hair that stuck out some at the sides, like it was poorly combed. The face of that person was also brushed by a kick, but more lightly, evidently at the planned pressure, though I was never sure whether the extra force on my father's face might not have been intentional. The person who did it remarked on it, but didn't seem to apologize. He and the person he was struggling with sometimes talked, sometimes to each other. After a while they stopped practicing and were wiping the sweat off their faces, and talking some more. I got the feeling that they were hoping to get some Stallone-like movie roles.

I went back to my mother, who had gone over toward the other side of the house, toward the bedrooms, and had gotten a very small gray alien against a small black briefcase, and wanted me to tape it down. I found some Scotch tape in a different room and came back with it. I saw though that she had lots of little aliens taped on already, one to two inches high. The first one was much smaller now, too. I wondered if they could get air, or if they even needed it.

I went looking for a magnifying glass, and went back up to the the upper levels. I tried to get back down to the lower level with a wooden staircase/ladder set in a half-size door opening, but found most of the slats broken away, and I started hanging onto the handle loop of a giant wooden basket they were slowly swinging back and forth and slowly lowering. A man, who might have been Buzz from the TV soap opera "Guiding Light", was in it singing a slow made-up song about a woman, Mary Tyler Moore maybe, who was in the hospital but he hoped would be out soon. The song was to the tune of a familiar one, I think I was thinking Auld Lang Syne, but when I woke up I realized that wasn't the one. I was hanging on to the huge arching handle of the basket, on the side near the top, as it slowly swung back and forth and slowly got lower, toward the small happy crowd below and also heading toward something else, some kind of round walled enclosure maybe five or six feet high, with something in it. The enclosure seemed to be the intended destination.

The long basket handle was fairly thin for its size, and it had a place where it was hooked together with something, a bright metal wire clasp almost like a safety pin or maybe even a paper clip, with a gap of several inches. It seemed a somewhat inadequate repair. I was holding on to the basket handle, on both sides of the clasp, hanging on. The clasp came unhooked then, basically slipped off a notch on the upper portion of the handle, and I was holding the basket handle, with one hand on each section, keeping it from separating too much. I had to go the bathroom and hoped they would hurry this up, but they seemed to be taking their time, as the basket slowly swung and very slowly got lower, and the man kept singing. It looked like it would have been better to take another route down, gone down by some other stairs, but it was too late now.

The dream had a lot more earlier in it, but I don't remember it.


I eventually mentioned to my mother that I had had a dream with her talking with an alien in the living room. She didn't like that idea.


Note: Oddly enough, at the end of the Amazing Race episode on Sunday, October 17, 2010, the two men who came in last and had to leave the race were apparently singers, and sang a slow song at the end about being last, to the tune of some Irish song that I can't remember, maybe Danny Boy but that may not be it. The song seemed eerily reminiscent of the tune in the dream, but with different words of course. The dream may have been predictive of it, almost a week before it happened.

"Until we meet again"

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, after the dream about being James Bond and being given a picture of a rose to give to my mother, I went down to the living room to check on her, a little after 11 AM. I found her wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the couch, sleeping. When I asked if she was alright, she woke up and said yes, and said she had a song going through her mind, that she heard the song on the TV as part of a collection for a commercial or infomercial. I was astounded as I had heard songs in the dream, the last one of which had still been going on in my head. She really liked the song on TV until she remembered that she had heard it when she was in school, that it was sung by a singing group that sung several songs there. It was the last song, and they were really good, and the audience had clapped and she or someone had spoken to them, telling them how good they were and maybe asking them to stay longer, but they had to go on, they had other places to visit. Later she was saying that maybe this was the last one, she thought, and they were going home, to another state, maybe Ohio.

The next day the teacher came, really solemn, and told them the bus had been hit by a train, and the man and the woman had been killed, several people had been killed. My mother turned the TV off after she remembered that, where she had heard the song from, it made her too sad to think of it. She sung several verses of it for me, but couldn't think of the last one. A little later she remembered it and sung it and it went something like this (I forgot the middle part), "May your days be filled with bright tomorrows ... until we meet again."

Dream - James Bond and the picture of the rose

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, sometime in the morning, I dreamed I went to a mall somewhere, in Arizona, probably the Mesa-Tempe area. It was Sunday and in the afternoon, maybe getting late in the afternoon. I think I went to a second one then. I had to get back soon for supper, I think we were having some kind of family get-together.

I had made my way along the mall from one end to the other. It was a large mall. I started on the second story and it had a downhill slope most of the way. Partway along I switched to the bottom story, maybe two thirds or more along. There were several turns. I think I started out soon turning left, then after a little while turning right, then left again for a little longer and then right and then left and then right for a longer time, and then left for a long but shorter time, and then left again for a fairly long time, something like that. I was looking at various things as I went, usually from outside the stores, though I think I went into a few places and through or by a few that were out in the mall. I was nearly to the end now, in the section where the end was. I had been hoping to get something to eat. I had passed a little place selling soft ice cream. I thought of getting some, but wasn't sure I wanted ice cream. There were a lot of people around. It was getting late now, late in the afternoon on Sunday.

An announcement said the mall was going to close soon. People started hurrying, some to leave and some to finish up what they were doing. I was near a little tiny snack place out in the mall aisle, but it wasn't a place I really wanted to get the food from. I turned around and was going past it or through the edge of it. A family was there and some other people. A little kid ran into me from behind and was against me for a moment, then went around me. I wondered if it was something to try and take my wallet, but felt my back pocket and found my wallet was still there.

I had thought to maybe do some shopping for Christmas, but I didn't buy anything, just looked. We didn't have too much money right now to buy stuff with, and I had to be careful in choosing what I bought. I walked back through the mall.

After a while I turned right, and started walking through the longest section, going up hill a little as I walked. I was hoping to come across the ice cream store and maybe buy something. The mall was closing and a lot of stores were dark, maybe most of them, others were pulling down their security cage fronts. I didn't see the ice cream store, but a lot of the stores were dark and it was hard to tell. I wondered if I had been on the upper level when I went through this area, it seemed that I might have but I couldn't remember for sure. The store was probably on the upper level, I thought, maybe at the elevator back at the corner. I stayed on the lower one, though. I didn't know for sure and time was running out anyway, and it might be closed by the time I got up there.

I went through the section and turned right, and went along a relatively short, narrower section without stores. On the right was a long dirt section with a wall beyond it. It had a slight upward slant. The dirt had cactus skeletons and dry desert plants and a low open wooden fence along it, or maybe just posts and wire. I think it had a few cattle skulls somewhere, along with a few bones. One or two of the skulls may have been on the posts, and maybe a couple of cowboy hats. There may also have been a small wagon wheel or two, painted white. It seemed to be something related to Halloween, I thought, though it was past now, and they still had it up, at least for now. It also seemed to have some other tie-in, something that the mall was doing, perhaps related to some activity or event.

I went in it and walked through it for a while. Partway through, I looked back the way I came. It seemed that the bad guy or guys might be back there, that they might have come back, and might be aware of me and trying to sneak up on me. I couldn't see anything for sure, though I thought I could see a few of the townsfolk.

I got to the end and left the dirt area, and went across to where the aisle turned left and divided, with part going on in an upward slant and part beside it to the right on an upper level, perhaps six to eight feet up, going parallel to it. On the left was a section that was open, down to a lower level far below.

I climbed up to the upper walkway. It was in black wood with a black wood railing, with wooden shops along it, like an Old West town. I seemed to be a kind of James Bond character, though later on I was actually James Bond. I went along carefully, watching out for things. Shortly, the aisles turned left again for a while. The Old West section ended here. Then I got on to a longer section that turned right. It went through an area that was mostly just walls, then turned right again, and went along a large area. On the left were some shops, and on the right a railing with a big open area to a lower story. It was much brighter here. I went along the aisle, going upward, until it turned right, and then went that way. It was broader along here, spreading out into a large area. Things were mostly white.

My mother was with me at some point. It seems like she had driven a car there, maybe a station wagon, to the large room/area there that I was in. It was parked somewhere there, a ways back. I met up with her, and we continued walking, hurrying along. I moved faster, and got ahead of her, though she seemed much younger than she does now, maybe even in her thirties. I was worried, I think, about the bad guy catching up.


I came to some small open rooms near the railing. A man came up the steep slope of ground beyond the railing, coming up from the sunken lake that was in the big open section. He was soaked, and met up with two or three of his friends in one of the small rooms. I was worried about him, that he might be a threat, that he might threaten us. He was upset about his girl friend leaving and wasn't rational. He was nervously talking about doing something, that it didn't matter any more. He produced a small chainsaw. The blade was probably only about fifteen inches long, and was black. He turned it on in a threatening manner, waving it around a little, some in my general direction. I worried that he was going to attack us and try to kill us. My mother wasn't in the room, but wasn't very far away. He turned it on and off a few times, waving it a little and looking up at me sometimes, looking upset and worried. His friends, who had seemed supportive at first, looked more worried as time went on. The blade didn't look or act like a normal chainsaw blade, it seems it was a rough, lumpy, abrasive strip with a thin rubber coating, and it didn't spin, it just went back and forth a little along the middle part.

I reached out suddenly and grabbed the blade with the fingers of one hand. I'm not sure whether it was originally on when I grabbed it, but it was turned on at some point for a while while I was holding it. He was looking at me worriedly. I let go, worried that I was going to get cut. After a moment where I thought about what to do, I started struggling with him over it. He wouldn't let go of it. It got pointed up high in the air for a while, and then pointed way down. I think my mother had arrived at some point, and was standing a few feet back, looking worried and concerned, her mouth open. I was worried that his buddies would go to his defense, but they stayed out of it, even though one was literally on each side of him, and an additional one to his right beyond the first one.

I got the saw on the side of his right shoe, which was made of some kind of odd rubber, looking like a poor casting, with raised blotches and extra rubber at some of the seams sticking out in thin ridges. He mocked what I was doing, saying it didn't matter and wouldn't hurt him. The saw got away from his foot and I brought it back down again and got it under his foot, which was now raised up in the air by it, either from the saw pushing at it or him trying to move his foot away from it some or both. I kept up the pressure. It took a long time for the saw to cut through the rubber. He continued to talk to me, looking more sad and worried now, still saying it didn't matter, and saying something about something else, maybe the lake. I looked back down at what I was doing and saw with astonishment that his shoes had changed to rubber swim fins, and that the saw was making progress, cutting up to about halfway through his foot as I watched. I hadn't intended to hurt him that much, just enough to cut him some and hurt him enough that he would be concerned about it and not walking around trying to hurt people.

I withdrew the saw and he put the foot down. He was still sadly saying that it didn't matter. Watery blood was coming out some on the sides of the flipper and spreading a little on the floor under and around his foot. I was worried again that his friends might try to defend him, but they were just looking at him, staring at his face, looking sad and worried. I left them there, suggesting that they get medical assistance, that they needed to get someone. I think someone made a move to call someone or leave to get someone or something like that.


I went to the end of the room, which ended in a very small wharf sticking out, not much more then a heavy wooden sidewalk along part of the edge, sticking out sideways over the ocean. It seemed darker in that direction, like it was twilight or close to it. A few fishermen or sailors sat on or along it, not many, maybe three or four. There were some ships out there somewhere, far out there, and the men were waiting somewhat peacefully and wistfully for them to come back. It felt peaceful there, but I didn't feel it was safe. I couldn't afford to sit down and rest and wait. I felt that the enemy was coming, and I had to take action.

I went back the way I had come, but staying closer to the other side of the area. Along the side, there were sometimes small rooms and areas, sometimes with small side branches continuing at an upward slant to other things. I went by them, without going into them. As I went along, I changed to actually become James Bond, dressed in dark, tight-fitting knit clothes. Sometimes I was more like Sean Connery and sometimes more like Roger Moore. I was trying to pretend I was someone else, just a person there, maybe a tourist.

As I got back to the corner and got on the aisle I took to get there, I looked back and saw that a man was in a part of the wide area near the corner to the aisle, by a narrow counter out by itself, who was finishing up putting on a light gray, padded Batman-like costume with a dark cape and cowl. He was with some other people, some of whom may have been helping him. It seemed like it might have been some part of the activities available there.

I went along back down the aisle, going downhill, and came to the corner that turned left, but went right instead onto an offshoot of the aisle, going into an enclosed section. I met a short woman there, thin and in her thirties or forties. I talked to her briefly about something. She happily answered me, with a kind of smug expression. She seemed to be on my side, and the smug expression was about the information she was giving me, something about other people.

I went on forward and came to a broad opening to a large store. The opening closed off before I could get to it though, by something coming down over it, a wall coming down like a large garage door might. It had square panels like large push buttons maybe a foot or so across covering most of it, set in two or three sections. They had strange symbols on them, and almost all of them were softly lit.

As I came up to it, I saw a small panel under them near the right side. I had to press in a code to enter. I was uncertain what code would be proper. I needed to get inside, though. I thought the bad guy, the head person, might be in there. I needed to get in even if they were closing. It was awkward to enter things on it. It didn't actually have buttons, just a little plate, like dark brass, maybe six to eight inches across with small dark numbers and other things, of various sizes, relatively close-spaced. When I poked on them with my finger something happened, something lit up in an order of some kind up on the door/wall in front of me, and I saw somewhere there a lighted small display of what I pushed, but the place I was pushing didn't go down or do anything. I thought I was just going to enter 007, my code name, and they might let me in because they recognized it, if they did recognize it, but I thought they might because of their possible association with the enemy, that they might do it as a courtesy, and kind of to see what I might want, what I might be doing.

I was having a hard time with it, and was somehow pressing the wrong or too many buttons, and after a pause almost all of the lighted squares went dark. I tried again, and maybe a third time. The result didn't look much at all like 007, being maybe 5 characters, and you'd never know I was trying to type in 007 by looking at it. After a pause the wall came up, though.

There were various people inside, clerks and employees I guess. A woman surrounded by dark counters, with maybe a few other people in there with her, looked at me amusedly and asked in a slow voice, "007?" I looked at small lighted letters on a device on the counter that showed what I typed in, and I didn't see how she derived it from that. Maybe she used the combination of all the times I tried, maybe analyzed by a computer. I nodded. I think she might have said something about the bad guy expecting me, and indicated further on in the store. It seemed to be something owned by him, as part of his empire.

I walked on into the store, relatively slowly, looking at things, stopping frequently. The lighting was subdued. I saw a woman quickly putting some small ceramic figures up on a cart to store for the night. They were probably around six to twelve inches high, and I think of movie and TV characters. The cart, a large square white metal thing with maybe two or three levels, was handled by some other women. Then I saw some life-size manikins, who were movie and TV characters and looked real, who were singing and putting themselves in short compact rows. A Buddy Ebsen figure dressed like the Beverly Hillbillies' Uncle Jed was singing and dancing a little, back and forth from the compact lines to a place a few feet away, where another short line was, where other characters were who were waiting for their turn to join up with the others. It was very pleasant and enjoyable to watch.

After a while I moved on past it, going to the left a ways and then forward. I went by other things, going uphill. Sometimes, too, I ran across widely separated steeper ramp-like areas running across it two or three feet long. I came to an area where jewels were sold on square dark islands in the floor, perhaps six feet across, and I came to a large area where paintings or pictures were set up on an array of easels, and an area where a lot of chairs had been set up, folding chairs, and a lot of people were around, standing and talking and getting into them, special insiders who had been invited to an after-hours showing of some kind, some performance or movie or something. I walked on, still going upward. I came to a broad array of small dark islands again, generally each one with a woman behind it or doing something with the items there. The earlier place had a few women, too.

Near the end of the store, I was given something that the enemy had said to give me for my mother. At first I thought it was jewelry, but then I realized it was a small picture, maybe around eight to ten inches high and six inches wide, on a rigid backing, pale with a large, slightly raised rose done in a silvery sparkly color with a slight bit of rose color in places. There were occasional sparkles of different colors on it and the background, and the picture had a small raised border near the edge. I looked at it and thanked them profusely. I moved on, then. I was getting close to the end of the store area now.

Finally, at the end, there was an open area, set off from the rest with a railing I believe. The open entranceway was to the left, and there was a door to the right. Beyond the area, at the wall, were windows showing the outside and the parking lot. It was still light outside. The enemy was in the open area, within the railing, sitting at a desk. He was an moderately old man, and looked like the Gecko's boss on the Geico insurance commercials. He was busy at something on his desk and talking to people who sometimes came in through the door. He was friendly to me, increasingly so as we talked, with him doing most of the talking. He seemed to regard us as long-time rivals, but friendly rivals. He got happier and more enthusiastic about things, and said I could go out the door, indicating it, and I think getting up even. I might have thanked him for the picture at some point, but I'm not sure. I went off to the open door and back into the mall, to the broad area I had been in earlier.

All through the walk up here through the large store I had been hearing voices singing, one song after another, pleasant songs, generally old songs, like from the first half of the 1900s, sounding like a small choir singing, a mixture of men and women, probably mostly women. The voices had a bright, slightly echoie quality. The final one was "I've got my gal, who could ask for anything more," ending as or shortly after I went out the door back into the mall. It seemed late afternoon, but there were still quite a few people there. I was going to take the picture to my mother, who was still perhaps two-thirds of the way somewhere across the broad area, as the scene started to fade and I woke up.


The following part, featuring some activities with the Batman-like character, may have occurred before the store part, probably did in light of the dream seeming to end after the store part and the song being heavily in my mind as I woke up, and remained in it as I went to check on my mother. After originally meeting the Batman-like character, I might have gone back to the broad area before going to the store, although the scenes don't have an obvious exit from them to it, and just seem to end there. There's also the possibility that the first scenes and the remake were separated by other dream activities, possibly even with the first part before the store and the second part after:

I was joined somewhere in the aisle area by the Batman-like figure, who was much taller and clumsier, and much larger overall, but who also seemed to be me. After a few short misadventures in and near the aisle we made our way back onto the wide area. The Batman-like figure seemed to be to provide comic relief. Perhaps a third or a quarter of the way into the aisle area, we stopped at a place with a white counter and some people in line along it, and got hats. The Batman figure picked up an enormous long hat that was four or five feet long and stuck out far to the back and front, tapering to points, almost like wearing a small canoe. The James Bond figure picked up a more normal one, maybe something like a Robin Hood hat.

We then went over to the other side of the wide area, going across its width rather than its length, to a slightly higher area, a little ways through a small aisle that opened up a bit to a moderately wide area with lots of partial rooms separated by low walls, finally becoming more of a general large area near the other edge, where the mall ended. We stopped a little ways in and stood in front of a counter with some other people. Some hats were sitting in little stacks there, and someone behind the counter, a somewhat grumpy short man with light colored hair, probably gray-white, was giving them out, probably selling them. Either now or later the Batman-like figure got an extremely large, long pointed hat made of soft camouflage material that was just half a hat, with the right side just having long thin straps connecting the ends and holding it on. He wasn't wearing the cowl by that time, and looked uncertain about the whole thing.

Then after a while it redid itself, and it was several years later, like a remake or a sequel, and as the Batman-like figure, I was heavier and didn't fit in the clothes as well, and was a little doubtful about the whole thing. It seemed to be mid to late afternoon. The hat I picked up at the first place was still huge, a lot bigger than before even, but seemed to be made of a kind of extremely loose weave soft straw or reeds. I put it on and continued standing there by the counter, sighing softly about it, waiting for something, maybe for the James Bond figure to come back. I think we then went across to the other place to remake the scene there.

There was some more in the dream with the Batman figure, with him getting the second hat, and him having to wait a little while for it because of the other people there, waiting for theirs. I believe the second hat was smaller than in the previous version, perhaps quite a bit. There may have been some more with the Batman figure after that, and there may have been some more in the original version, with him and the James Bond figure traveling in and near the broad area, perhaps sometimes separately, and some activities there. However, I can't say now what it was, as I either neglected to write it down or didn't remember it at the time. The actual portion written down back then ended with the previous paragraph, with six trailing spaces and then, in brackets, the words "I've got my gal, who could ask for anything more," indicating the song was apparently going through my mind in the dream.

Note from Wednesday, September 27, 2011: The additional story from the dream, above, ended with a gap of six spaces and then part of the song in brackets. This seems to indicate that I had some more to write, but never got around to it. I can't add anything now. It's possible I meant to indicate that the song was going through my mind, but there must have been something more.

Note from Thursday, September 28, 2011: It seems that I actually had a battle with the enemy, near the end of the Old West section, when he came along a taller balcony that was pointed toward it, but it's not recorded here. He looked relatively young then, maybe in his late thirties or somewhere in his forties, and was wearing dark stretchy clothes, and was acting crazy, almost Joker-like. Perhaps it was something in another dream, though, and not this one.


See also the post "Until we meet again", which records what happened, in real life, after I went to check on my mother.

Jumbo Elephant

This is a song the teacher taught us in kindergarten or first grade:

Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
You have such a great long nose,
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
It reaches to your toes.
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
You live in a great big zoo,
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
We'll come and visit you.

There was also a song about a giraffe, but I quickly forgot that one.

Dream - The device to help with astral projections

Very early Wednesday morning, September 10, 2008, around 1:00-2:00 AM, I had a dream in which I saw a large radiator-like object floating in a fiberglass tank, then later I tried to connect a similar object to electricity, as a device to help with astral projections.

In the dream, we went to see my father at his business, where he was having his business these days. He had a small fiberglass tank on the left side of a narrow room with concrete floors. The room was big enough to squeeze two and perhaps three tanks in. There was a hallway that led off from the middle of the room to office-type rooms he had. My father went off to the rooms with my mother and they were talking about something. I stayed and looked at the radiator repair tank.

It was filled with water and there was something large floating in it or suspended in it. I pushed at it from time to time, moving it back and forth a little in the water. Everything was fairly clean, including the floor, like it was fairly new or hadn't been used much, at least not for radiator work. Later, the object seemed more like a floating radiator of some kind, a big thick blocky one. Earlier, it may have just been a hoist for holding radiators, I'm not sure. The radiator-like thing was very heavily built with heavy brass fins that ran across it and square brass tanks, then later it had some kind of rod laid onto the middle of it that was attached to a massive power cord that ran off to an electronic machine. The machine was supposed to be something to help with out of body experiences or something like that.

I had memories then of other times and similar places, a series of such places, in other dreams perhaps or probably. It was a strange feeling and a little disturbing.

Then I was back home at the computer and listening to the radio. (In real life, I was sitting at the computer sleeping and Coast to Coast AM was on with George Noory and guest Lionel Fanthorpe talking about time travel and voodoo.) I was trying to get various largish electronic devices set up, things to help me get an out of body experience or something like that. I had some on the desk or table next to or near the computer screen and one was to the right against the wall. I was having some trouble with it.

I turned the radio off some common setting that it was on and then tuned the channel to bring in the station clearer. Instead of the compromise position, it was tuned slightly to one side in order to have some other benefit. (In real life, the radio is not like this and goes from station to station in discrete steps, not allowing fiddling with the tuning. I do have the bass and highs reduced slightly, though, when listening to AM to minimize noise. However, long ago when I was traveling, probably with the 1970 Cadillac, I did have to tune the radio off center sometimes, probably to bring a faint station in a little louder or to minimize some kind of whine or noise or something like that.)

With the radio tuned properly, the sound was coming through very well and clear, sounding very good. A song of some kind was playing. (In real life it was probably bumper music I was hearing.)

I had ordered something to help with what I was doing. It was $70, and was a heavy brass radiator-like thing like I saw earlier in the dream. I had to hook up the electronics, though, and find some place to put the radiator-like thing. It had to be suspended in a tank of water and I didn't see any place to put it where I was. I couldn't put in the family room because the rod with its massive cable drew a lot of electricity and I couldn't or shouldn't run an extension cord to it. I had wanted to stay in with the computer while I used the device, but it seemed that it was going to be very difficult to get it in there with the computer, and I had to buy some more stuff to even make it work. I didn't have everything I needed now. I almost felt that it would have been better not to spend the $70, but now it was too late, then suddenly things got very ominous and threatening and I abruptly woke up.

Dream - The long line and the door with no return

On Friday morning, September 5, 2008, I dreamed I was driving north or northeast from the Phoenix area, in a smallish car, around the 1987 Oldsmobile's size (a full-size front wheel drive sedan) or a little smaller. I was explaining to someone, my brother I think, about how I used to listen to records in the car in the old days, and then after they changed it I recorded some onto CD's. I was speaking specifically about a certain Neil Diamond album. I'm not sure which one, possibly the new one my sister got me (a CD).

The road wound back and forth and the ground was slowly getting higher. Various other roads joined it. Small towns or just service stations were occasionally seen off to the side.

For some reason I started walking instead, then running. Other people were doing it too, and the cars, never very numerous, were reduced, with mostly just an occasional one going the other way. I was going very fast, I don't remember now just how fast. It was either a little over thirty miles per hour or a little over sixty, on a slight uphill grade. I worried some about the soles of my shoes holding up, especially since I anticipated doing this a lot, going back and forth over this same area on long trips. I wondered if they had holes already. They didn't feel any different, though.

I got to a place where the turnoff led off to a building on the left. The road went to the building and then led around it. Other people were there, waiting in line to make their way around and through it. There was something in the building that they needed before going on. I think it had food, but there also seemed to be something else. I got in line. I think my father had arrived a little earlier, possibly also with his father, though in real life his father had been dead for over twenty years. I think my brother was there somewhere, too. My old lab partner was also there. The line was inside the building now, making its way along the sides.

Someone got a little ahead in line. I heard someone saying, too, something about Obama and him getting out of place, getting ahead in the line. I didn't actually notice Obama there, though I think I did see someone move ahead to a different place in the line. Perhaps they were two separate people, I'm not sure, or it may be that the Obama reference was applied retroactively to the person I saw. In real life, it was around 6-6:30 AM and the radio was playing with the Bruce Jacobs show on, a person with extreme right-wing views. I probably picked up something from it.

In the dream, the line led around the walls to where there was a door that people had to go in. There was a window near it, like a car dealer parts window. Someone went through the door early, out of sequence, to check on things, to see how they were going. I think it might have been my lab partner. He came back out after a short while. He had been anxious to see what the holdup might be, to see why it was taking so long. I think that food was supposed to be available beyond the door, but there was also something else that had to be done before leaving, some kind of short half-page form that had to be filled out, some kind of government thing. I felt that once you went through the door you couldn't normally come back.

Dream - Oh how high the shadow grows

On Saturday morning, September 20, 2008, I had a dream that included a naked man, a black dog, and a song with the words "Oh how high the shadow grows."

In the dream, I was in a large open mall-like area, mostly empty of people, though there were a few. Colors were pale and there seemed a starkness about everything. I was doing something before this, but I'm not sure what now. Going back and forth from the house to there was part of it. Inside the mall there was a small stairway against a wall leading to a small platform that had some low stucco walls around part of it. A door was in the wall at the platform, and maybe a window by it, though it might have had blinds or a curtain or some other covering obscuring the view to the inside.

I went up and down the stairs to the landing a few times, spending part of the time on the landing partly laying down. I seemed to be at least partly trying to hide from people, hide from being bothered by them, though for a while I called out to someone in the mall, a relative I think, maybe my mother. I held a small conversation then, but I wanted to be left alone so I could rest.

At some point some dogs came up, a large black one and two smaller pale ones, one them smaller than the other, generally all of them spaniel types I think, more or less. I was a little concerned sometimes about the big dog, though I felt also that it would probably be alright. I reached out to the big black dog and scratched and rubbed his head between his ears, first on one side and then the other. His snout was very big and his head was small, and I wondered about the size of his brain. Before, things had had a strange quality, like I was looking on the scene without my glasses. Things were much more blurry now, though, and the big dog became especially blurry. It was hard sometimes to see it much beyond its head, and its head seemed to fade at the edges into a blackness that surrounded it and that it seemed to carry with it. I worried a little bit about getting my hands dirty, touching the dog, but it seemed a necessary thing and I didn't worry too much about it. I was very tired and it was hard to move and hard to see and I wanted to rest.

I saw a man down in the mall who was just partly dressed, maybe naked at times. I'm not sure how he got that way. He was wandering around, staggering, bumping into the walls sometimes, a time or two going up and getting briefly in a niche in the wall, partly hiding, partly just resting. I was irritated that he should show up at the mall looking like that, and I went down and I guess basically harassed him for a while, knocking him about a bit, then I carried him up the stairs to the landing and put him down behind the low wall, partly hiding him. He was completely naked now. I think I might have had a part in making him naked. He was mostly out of it by this point, barely conscious.

There was some small bit of clothing on the landing, very thin material, like a piece of a Halloween costume. It was colored maybe a pale red or purple, and gathered in to a long piece of elastic, like maybe a waistband or headband, like it was either some brief shorts or some kind of turban or other headgear. I wasn't sure what to do with it. He was laying on his side partly curled up, his back to the mall. I think I finally just draped it on his shoulders.

I worried about leaving him there, but it seemed better to leave him there than down in the mall the way he was. I worried if I left him up there, though, that people who might be looking for him, maybe friends or family members, wouldn't be able to find him. He was sticking out a little past the edge of the wall, though, his rear and some of his legs. I think I might have intentionally arranged it that way so that people looking for him had a better chance of finding him, while at the same time giving him a little privacy by having him up above the mall and mostly hidden. I went down the stairs then, brushing a little against him as I went, which disturbed me.

I went home then and laid down in bed. Some people occasionally talked to me and to themselves from the hallway. They were hard to hear and sounded faint and far away. I wanted to drift off into the gray softness behind and around me. The dogs came back, coming down the hall. I scratched and rubbed behind the ears of the big black dog, as before. His head seemed even smaller than before but his snout was as big or bigger than ever, and I wondered some more about the size of his brain. He was even harder to see than before, with a deeper blackness surrounding him. I was talking to someone in the hall, a couple of people.

I started singing in a sharp, clear, somewhat high voice, "Oh how high the shadow grows, the plant life of your widow, black lace curtains brought you near, from out the plate glass window". It was a song from long ago and I wondered who had sung it. Then I somehow moved to the computer room and was sitting down, seeming to move through the wall there as the view shifted, still singing I think.

I was still looking out toward the hall, but now it became more distant and had changed to a large room, almost a stage. It had a very low wall and a huge room-spanning sheet of glass. Behind the glass a large group of people were moving, leaving, going from left to right. They were mostly young and were of a range of heights but none were very tall. One of them was talking to me. I was having trouble hearing, the voice sounded faint and far away. Sometimes it seemed to be someone in the middle and sometimes it seemed to be someone toward the left side.

I said something and then the person laughed, and looking back and forth I finally determined that the person was indeed on the left. It was a young girl. She laughed and said, "Don't you recognize me, I'm [the name of my little sister, who is now in her mid-forties]".


Later that day, I was thinking about the dream and the song and realized that I had it wrong in the dream, that it was "Oh how high the scaffold grows" not "Oh how high the shadow grows", and that I have it on an old Elton John 8-track tape. The rest of the song in the dream was accurate, as near as I can remember.

"Don't you recognize me, I'm [my sister's name]," was similar to something she actually said in early January 2008, when I couldn't recognize her voice on a cellphone that greatly distorted it. Also, one time when she was young she was in the second story of the Sears at Los Arcos Mall, and I was shopping there, looking at the trinkets on some shelves out in the floor, trying to find something for my aunt I think, and maybe my grandmother. I heard two or three young people, early teens probably, perhaps 10 or 15 feet away, giggling about something. It irritated me, as they were sort of looking in my direction and I thought there was a possibility that they could be giggling about me for some reason, though I didn't know why. Later at home I found out that one of them was her, and they were apparently giggling because I didn't know she was there. I hadn't bothered to take a good look at them, so I hadn't known one of them was her.

A record at school

When I was in grade school, one day we were working on some kind of projects or something, something that didn't involve the more usual requirement of constantly being seated at your desk. This was probably somewhere around 1964 to 1966.

The teacher had brought her record player to school, and she played some records during class. The records seemed to be collections of hits by various artists. One of the songs was by some singing group that I didn't know (I'm not sure I actually recognized any of the other artists, either). This group sang about a young man who was going off to war, from the viewpoint of his girlfriend. She offered to dress up as a soldier and go with him, but he kept refusing, until in the end where he finally agreed.

I liked the song so much that I finally went up and asked the teacher who was singing it. She said it was Peter, Paul and Mary.

I believe the name of the song was "The Cruel War." The song was on one of their early albums.

I began collecting their albums, bit by bit. I eventually accumulated all of their albums that I know of, up to the time of their temporary breakup. I have some of their later ones, too, but not all of them.