This is Home, Part 37 - Elliott, Grandpa and Aunt Edith, Grandpa and the Salesman, Aunt Edith

This is part 37 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Elliott

Mary Ellen, Bea and Katie's father died when Katie was little more than a baby. He walked to Huntsville to get a haircut and he didn't return home. A sheriff's posse tried to find him, Daddy and Uncle Doc looked for him and some organization like the Boy Scouts tried to find him. The neighbors also looked for him.

This was Elliott. Finally, he was found on ground that had been covered several times. He was lying under a bush beside a stream. There were candy bars in his pockets for his children. He had had a heart attack.

Daddy and Uncle Doc were the only members left of a large family.

Grandpa and Aunt Edith

Grandpa moved in with Aunt Edith to help her with the children and the farm. Finally, the farm was sold and Aunt Edith and the children moved to Huntsville. She started taking care of elderly ladies in her two-story home.

Grandpa and the Salesman

Grandpa came to stay with us awhile to visit.

There was a route through our area similar to the Fuller Brush Co. I usually know the name of the company, but it escapes me now.

Anyway, the salesman was a man probably in his middle thirties. He had polio when he was younger and walked with heavy metal braces on his legs and black dress boots. I think he may also have used a metal cane.

The man sold vanilla and spices, aluminum cookware, and other home products. He cooked a single layer cake on top of the stove to show Mom how easy it was in his cooking pan. She didn't buy them, but she always bought several things from him.

Grandpa and the salesman talked when he came out. Grandpa found out he was single and lived with his mother in Cairo. Also, they had a room they wanted to rent. Grandpa decided to rent it. He told Mom he would like to be close to everything, like the barbershop, and that he would run into a lot of people to talk to there. He said he would enjoy walking around the village. He said Cairo had just about anything he would need, although it was a small place.

Mom was trying to get him to stay with us, but he liked to be independent.

Aunt Edith

Aunt Edith said she would never marry and bring someone in to boss her children. She stayed single until the children were grown and married.

She bought or leased a three-story building (very large) in Huntsville and had a nursing home. I wonder if it was originally a nursing home. This was probably while I was in college. I don't know.

I admire her for making it on her own and taking good care of her children.

Later, Bea worked in the nursing home sometimes and so did Mary Ellen.

This is Home, Part 29 - Mom's Red Dress, Mom's sore throat, Mom's headaches, Mom's hives

This is part 29 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Mom's Red Dress

Mom told me that when she was young her favorite color was red. She said she wanted a red dress but in those days, a nice girl didn't wear that color. When Jean and I were grown and I lived out here in Arizona, she bought herself a red and black checked suit. So she finally got to wear red.

Mom's sore throat

Mom said when she was little and had a sore throat that needed a doctor, the doctor blew a yellow powder onto her throat through a straw. The name of the powder was something like Golden Seal. I wonder if it was sulfa?

Mom's headaches

Mom said she used to have really bad "sick headaches" and there wasn't really much anyone could do for them except put a wet cloth on her forehead and tell her to rest. She said she was so thankful when they got aspirin.

I checked and found out aspirin was invented a year before she was born. It was evidently not in common usage since doctors didn't recommend it.

I remember her having them sometimes. She took aspirin and went to bed with a wet cloth on her head. Uncle Doc took over the cooking until she felt better.

As she got past middle age they just about went away.

Mom's hives

A funny thing happened one time, although I'm not sure Mom would characterize it that way.

Mom had hives for some reason. Nothing seemed to get rid of them. They just itched and itched.

One afternoon, a car pulled up out front. I told Mom a man in a suit was getting out. Mom gave me a horrified look and said, "I don't want to talk to him. Don't answer the door. Maybe he will go away."

By that time, the man was knocking on the door. We didn't answer. He knocked some more. He was pretty plain he wasn't going anywhere.

Finally, Mom said, "Answer the door, but don't invite him in. If he wants to talk to me, tell him I'm sick."

I answered and he did ask for Mom by name. I told him that she was sick and couldn't see anyone.

He said, "I'm a doctor."

I gave up and opened the screen door. Then I told Mom, who reluctantly crept out trying not to scratch or rub.

He turned out to be Dr. Grover Cleveland Rice, Daddy and Uncle Doc's cousin. He lived in Brunswick. He gave Mom some medicine to take. A doctor used to always take his black bag along. It had instruments and medicine in it along with first aid supplies.

Mom took the medicine, but it didn't work. She was having a miserable summer.

Finally, an old Indian traveling through sold her some medicine. By that time, Mom would have taken anything. It worked.

Dr. Rice often came to visit on Sunday after that and brought his wife and little girl. Everyone always enjoyed seeing them. They came for years until the little girl got old enough to be involved in a lot of activities. She was probably around three or four when they first started coming. She used to rock in one of my little chairs.

This is Home, Part 14 - Hot dogs, the little monkey, the puppy in the pocket

This is part 14 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Hot dogs

We used to shop sometimes in Macon instead of Moberly when I was small. They had really good franks at Macon. They were a lot better than what can be bought today. They were large and I loved the skin. It was greasy. It could actually be browned.

The little monkey

I got out of actual shopping for anything if I could. While Mom was shopping one time, Daddy and I made a lovely discovery. There was a man with a monkey just off the main street. It had a little collar around its neck and a tiny chain kept him from disappearing. I'm not sure if he had on a little jacket and cap or not. He was a capuchin monkey. His owner may have had an accordion or something similar. Something attracted our attention.

Anyway, he was such a cute, friendly little monkey. Daddy gave him coins and he bit each one to see if it was good before he put it in a purse. He was in or on some sort of cart. Daddy asked what he could eat. One thing was coconut candy. There used to be candy that was about the size of and shaped like candy made with maraschino cherries in it. Coconut candy had a pale coating of one of these: white, pink, yellow, brown, or green candy. Inside was coconut candy. It could be bought in bulk at grocery stores. The store would put it in a small white sack.

We always fed the monkey coconut candy and gave him coins. I remember him holding out his tiny little hands. He was so cute.

The puppy in the pocket

Jean always stayed with Mom and missed all the fun. She never got into things like I did. One time Daddy and I were walking along a street in Moberly. A man stepped forward and fished this cute little puppy out of his coat pocket. It had huge eyes and a little blunt face and was furry. I really wanted that pup. I petted him. Daddy admired him. I wanted him, but Daddy wouldn't get him. He said that kind of dog belonged in town, not on a farm.

It was a Pekingese and looked like Bandit.

So far I have had three Pekingese since living out here. Sharon bought me two of them. They were all pure bred. Bandit was born in Phoenix, but Wojo came from Kansas and Mizzou came from Missouri.

Sharon also bought me a pure bred Boston terrier named Lady Bug. We used to have a book with a Boston terrier in it and I wanted one.

Daddy, Uncle Doc, and Charley always bought us a candy bar or an ice cream cone each when we all went to town. The candy bars were all chocolate and all different. Mom finally said that was too much.

Daddy and Uncle Doc always met a lot of men they knew to talk with. They were lawyers, judges, politicians, Democratic Committee members, farmers and others. They stood around in groups and talked.

The family I grew up in were staunch Democrats, as I am today.

Dream - The mall, the man in the devil mask, and the storm

On Saturday morning, November 20, 2010, in a period of sleep ending around 11:00 AM, I had a long dream in which I ended up at a large mall, apparently where the old Osco/Bashas' stores were, at 74th St. and McDowell Rd., then left and wandered off north, possibly to Plaza 777 where the radiator shop used to be, then I went back to the mall again. I was talking to some other people sometimes, at least some of them family members. It was afternoon, a pleasant temperature, mild, the sky clear but kind of a gray tone. I went back in the mall and was wandering around. Besides little shops, it had layers to go though. Some of the mall was to the right, like at Fashion Square, but I went to the left, and it seemed like I was going through layers of primarily the same store, to different departments, with walls between them. I also found some candy by little walls, in glass jars. I ate some of it and was looking for more.

I finally left, taking a heavy white plastic trophy I saw on a shelf by the free snacks. It was a statue of something, heavy and compact and styled, with just the suggestion of an animal form. Out in the parking lot I began to wonder if it was really free, and decided that it probably wasn't. I looked around it for a price tag. At or near the car, the gold 1989 Olds, I finally found a small white sticker with something written on it. I turned it up toward the sky to try to get more light on it, but the light was dim, it was late in the afternoon and the sky was somewhat overcast. A little sunlight came through, though. At first I thought the price was other things, then finally resolved it as $9.00. I decided that I had to take it back. I walked back in with it, hoping that no one would bother me about it. Some people frowned at me, and I eventually set it down somewhere, not where I got it.

I saw my sister, the oldest one, who was several years younger than me, and we walked through the mall together.

It was starting to get late and things getting ready to close. We went back toward the entrance. We passed some people from the store at a minor side entrance, doing a strange dance, one or two dressed in strange clothes and wearing strange lifelike almost devil-like masks, but without the horns, doing a strange acrobatic dance over a large broad mattress-like thing close to the floor, entertainment for the people. A woman showed up with the mask after a while and did some of the tumbles, but it was like they shared the same mask, that the other guy had taken it off while he was gone and then she emerged wearing it, though I think I eventually saw them together with masks on.

Approaching the main exit, I lost my sister and went back into the mall looking for her. I got to where it turned a corner, and there were other little stores, some of them selling food, but they were pulling down their roll-up covers over the fronts of the stores.

Going back, I passed the man with the devil mask and strange costume. He had his shoes off and his feet were covered with fake feet too. The mask was tight fitting and had no seams, and looked natural, though still somewhat rubbery. He had a reflective expression on his face, sitting and looking off into the distance to the right, toward the short exit, rubbing his foot. He talked very briefly. I moved on. Near the main exit, my sister came up behind me. She had been following me for a while, and seemed amused by it.

She had been for a while at a side room across the aisle, too, a place where food was served and also where everyone sang and played musical instruments. I could see them from here. I went over and went in for a while. The place had a tropical theme, which became more manifest deeper into it. At the other side of the room it blended into an outdoor area with plants and palm trees, and round concrete tables among shrubbery. Inside, everyone sat close together. I wandered outside for a while. There were worries and warnings about a storm approaching. It was still light outside, late afternoon, near sundown, still with some sunlight. A strange cloud was there to the southeast though, gray brown, boiling, churning at the edges, on the ground, wider at the top than the bottom, and with a flat top. It was coming this way, visibly so, though people didn't know if it would dissipate before it got here or not. People were running around, though, trying to get away. I kept looking back at it. Each time I looked it was moving this way, but didn't seem to get closer between looks. I wandered off to the southwest, into the parking lot. Large areas were flooding, with tall palm trees sometimes at a slant, sometimes with large areas of sodden mud over the parking lot and things. It had evidently gone through here already.

I went back inside and went over to the main exit. The various things lining it, little stores and various activities, had closed for the most part, and were covered up, but now they were starting to reopen, a late night thing. Things seemed more sinister. The man in the evil mask was back again. A place there was also offering odds at things, like odds on how TV shows would do, and odds on other minor things, and I thought about placing a bet, but wandered back to the main section and was trying to find the board/sign I saw with odds on it. Looking at it, I realized I had misunderstood what I had read before, and the odds weren't good. I decided not to do it. The man with the devil mask was going over a raised, long rectangular area with concrete edges, and a cloth placed over the middle. Underneath it were a series of crosswise rods and large beads. Before, when I was going to leave, he had been on a slanted one, like an escalator, with things in the middle that weren't moving but with bands on the edges moving down, with little rough things on them and around them, like tiny broken rocks. He had been cavorting in the middle and maybe singing. I had tried to grab onto and slide down one of the bands. As I made my way toward the direction of the exit, I saw him looking my way, not entirely happy at it.

It was night now, had been for a while, late, and I went out the exit to leave. It was cold, and the parking lot was covered by cold mud, with snow dusting it in places. Some areas just had a little mud, and some areas were very diluted, almost water, some just slightly dirty water, and some not much of that. It was daylight still then for a while. I went to the car. It was looking normal, but as I got there, or soon after I got there, it changed to a much smaller and lighter electric car, still with front wheel drive. Some other people were coming too to their cars. We passed by some tiny wooden guard shack type things, damaged by the storm, sometimes sitting at angles there between the rows of cars, wet inside. I walked through one and out the other side, wondering a bit if someone would object. The others seemed more afraid to do that. I got to my car, which turned out to have my mother's purse there on a small white table behind the passenger door. I guessed I must have left it outside the car. I was glad no one had taken it.

I got in and drove, not toward the exit at 74th St., but down the row toward the north, then toward the east and into another row going back south, where conditions were much worse, heavy mud covered the pavement. A delivery type truck was backing out down the row ahead of me. It slowly backed out, but there was some kind of trouble, and it finally got going and moved away. There was another big truck on its side at an angle, that I had to go around. In the dream I didn't know why I came back there, it was a lot harder to get through and more dangerous. The small car with front wheel drive that I was in, though, pulled through and over the mud.

I got to the front, by the mall, and turned to the west, toward 74th. Other cars were going out through the exit near the intersection, across from the bank. I didn't like that though. I thought it was too close to the intersection, too hard to get out, although it had a traffic light. However, there didn't seem to be one earlier, and at times, and I tried to go to the south, to another large exit, further away from the intersection. People on the walk around the mall were calling out to me, not to do it, it was too dangerous. It was fully night now, late. I tried to go south, but ran into increasingly heavier, deeper mud, and there was also worry that I might heading into the storm, that it would come through here. I turned around and went back. A little Mexican-type kid, possibly part Indian, had been following me, a little girl. She was associated with someone, a couple of people mainly, but had been following me, and I agreed to let her go along. The car was so tiny now, that she was riding on the back. It was rainy and cool, even chilly. The car seemed to be a two seater with a small wooden platform on the back, even some wood rails going along the sides, and a very short front.

I waited at the light for a while. It turned red just as I got there. Across the street, there was just the sidewalk with landscaping along it. Everything was wet and cold, and rain was softly falling. Water was running in the gutter in front of me, and it was a sharp short slope to the street. I couldn't see the traffic light from here. I had to lean forward and tilt my head to look up, then I could see a tiny curved dark metal tube coming down from it, with the end glowing the color the light was. Off to the right was the intersection with its own traffic lights, and I thought it was going to be a long time to wait, to get them both coordinated properly. There was only a very short wait, though, before I saw the light in the tube above me turn to green, and I pulled out into the street, going south, the girl happily riding along with me, and sometimes running beside me holding on. I had no idea really what I was going to do with her, whether I could drop her off at her house somewhere along the way, maybe on a small side trip, or at somebody else's house along the way, or just a a place where she could make it home from or be picked up from, an intersection in the neighborhood, or if I even had to take her to my house for a while. Her parents seemed to approve her going along with me though, so I guessed it was alright, whatever was going to happen.

Dream - The strange visitor, the march of the dinosaurs, the rejected loan, and the company picnic

On Wednesday, December 30, 2009, around late morning, I dreamed I traveled to the Midwest. I lived in street apartments maybe, though they seemed like homes crammed together. I went around a curve and saw my home, my home in the dream, not in real life. It was multistory, part of it used by other people, crammed next to similar houses/apartments. The street was a residential one, large enough for cars to park on both sides and for a car to go between them. The cars that were occasionally parked there were very narrow, with a squeezed look.

There was some kind of trouble with parking, though. It seemed important to park right against the sidewalk, and close to the other cars. Although I evidently walked there, I had to park the 1970 Cadillac, which was both shorter and narrower than in real life, and also had a squeezed look. I managed to get it between two other cars, evidently by picking it up and putting it there, first on one side of the street and then the other. A skinny little old man, a neighbor, came out and cheerfully helped me. He still had dark hair, and resembled Pete, the man who used to live next to us before he died. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was low in the sky and gave things an orangish cast.

I went to my home briefly. My mother was there and some other people, some of the family I think, maybe including my little sister. I think there was some time before dinner, and I decided to go for a walk or was maybe told to get something. I walked back the way I had come, back toward where there was a section with stores. It was around sundown, perhaps slightly after now. I worried a bit about someone mugging me. I was going somewhere I really didn't have to be going, and it would be one of those accidents of fate, that didn't have to actually happen.

As I approached a place where the road turned right, or perhaps where it joined another road, already walking along beside stores and businesses, somebody gently came at me from behind, putting his arms around me, apparently as a beginning of trying to rob me. I shook him off somehow and went around the corner and down a ways, then crossed the street to a store on the other side. A lot of them were already closing, small town hours I guess. He came after me again, before I crossed the street and again afterwards I think. After a bit of a struggle, starting on the other side of the street, and then picking up again on this side, during which I bashed him against the windows, bending them in temporarily, almost breaking them maybe, trying to break them and shove him at least partly through them, but also concerned about doing so, both because of the damage to the store, which maybe couldn't afford it, and because it might seriously hurt him. He was a soft, gangly figure, maybe around six feet tall, which would make him a little shorter than me.

My brother came partway through the fight and helped me some, and I think another family member or two also eventually showed up. We took him in with us, to the house. I was not entirely happy with this. At first it seemed we were just trying to help him, but then it seemed they actually knew something about him. He was someone who had come out here to visit, some distant friend of some kind evidently, maybe even a distant relative. He appeared to be from some Eastern European country, and looked slightly like the Borat movie character. He was milder and less talkative, but seemed equally clueless.


There was an old fashioned mall, around the middle of town I think. It was laid out like a plus sign, two long streets crossing with a large open area in the middle. It wasn't covered, everything was outside. The small stores and kiosks out in the road may or may not have had any individual coverings, though the stores along the street were normal buildings. There also seemed to be one corner that led to some water, perhaps a small stream that went across it in front of a building, a small stream that nevertheless had a tiny wharf on it, apparently more decorative than actually needed, as the stream was very shallow, maybe a foot or two deep in places, less so in others, though it may have gotten deeper further on.

The mall was blacklisting some people. A tiny open-air bookstore in the center where the aisles crossed was handling it. It was night. The mall was very crowded. I had gone back there again, to talk to them about it.

The person who was being blacklisted this time was evidently the Eastern European person. It seems he had tried to shoplift a few times, mainly because he was clueless, but I think he did know it was stealing. I tried to change the bookstore person's mind, a short, slightly overweight woman around forty or so. She looked a little like the producer on David Letterman, though I didn't realize it at the time. (I realized Thursday night, 12-31-2009, that she also looked like a cashier at the Fry's grocery store, who I had argued with (though she was cheerful about it) the last time I was there, the previous Tuesday.) She didn't seem interested, though, she felt like she gave him enough chances, and she had had complaints from other people. I thought that he was really going to try to do better, but it seemed to be too late.

There was also some trouble with some small dinosaurs that sometimes came out late at night. It was some kind of local legend. I briefly saw them crossing the middle of the mall. They were multicolored and small, in the three to four feet tall area. At least one was on two legs, a long-necked slim one, probably of the egg stealing type. The others were mostly four legged, with short heavy necks, maybe little triceratops and ankylosaurs, perhaps even stegosaurs too. There were not many of the dinosaurs, I saw maybe six or seven, most of them together, different types mixed together.

I left and came back again later. It was late at night, and perhaps a day or two had passed. There was still talk about the little colorful dinosaurs sometimes coming out at night in the mall area. I saw them again, going at an angle across the center of the mall area again, and talked to some people at a store near one of the corners about them. We talked in somewhat hushed tones, watching them with wonder. They didn't seem dangerous, but you never really know.


Sometime later I went along a side aisle and down another to a small business. It seemed to be daytime now, maybe early afternoon. They were wondering how to get around the blacklist. A guy caught me before I got there and gave me something. He was from a nearby town, and had some kind of column he writes on the Internet. He gave me an award for them. It had an arc for the face of a clock, and projecting plastic clock hands, one of which had the award attached, at least the part naming who got it, and a stiff rectangular flap/ribbon sticking out and bent to a particular position, with a short double bend near the end, like a step, with his watch attached to it, the back of it stuck on it somehow, with the straps hanging down. It was a thin black watch. It was supposed to be a symbol of something and show it was really him. He gave the award to the people in the office, or to someone they were representing in the fight. His column, which just came out, was supporting them.

I took it to them and told them about it, and sat it on the counter, and set it up. The clock hands were moving now, as I pulled them out some from the arc that was the face. The people still didn't know what to do, other than going to nearby towns and trying to get past the boycott there, and hoping to somehow convince the people here to undo it.


I went walking to a different area, back across the main road that leads to and goes through the mall. I reached an office area, and went through a hallway that wound around over a floor that was uneven and slanted, like a forest path, and the walls were also uneven and rounded, this way and that, just some kind of plasterboard evidently, oddly cut and set at odd angles, or maybe possibly something like cubicle dividers, though solid, I'm not sure now, though I lean toward the plasterboard. There were generally no windows, just occasional notices or posters.

There was a room that my father had there. I went in and I think my mother was there, maybe someone else too. My father wasn't there right now, he went somewhere else. I went back along the curved irregular hallway, winding along until I got on a section where the hallway had turned in a U shape from where I had been, well past the short section of hall I had used to connect with this one.

I came to a room where I thought he might be, and somewhat slowly and carefully opened the door. People inside were talking, one in particular, saying something to the effect that "What do you want us to do?" or "What would you have us to do?" and maybe "You can understand." I seemed to be interrupting something, some kind of business meeting. I apologized for interrupting. I was confused initially about what was being discussed, but then I realized that they were actually saying that they have no real choice in the matter. By signs or posters on the wall I saw that it was some kind of MasterCard place. There was a fairly good sized group of people, maybe 12 to 15, mostly men but some women, laying and sitting on the floor in a rough oval, on pillows, bed pillows I think, with my father with them to the right. They were actually telling him that they can't do it anymore, that they can't wait anymore for him to pay them, and can't loan him anything anymore. They have looked at the company and have seen that it was no use, it wasn't going to get any better, and they were going to foreclose and take whatever was left of the company, which wouldn't be much.

My father was saddened, and perhaps a little bitter, but I could see he understood and accepted it. He looked somewhat younger than he does now. The people seemed sympathetic, or gave the appearance of it, but at the same time felt that they were just doing their job, it was something they had to do sometimes, and they had done it before with other people, though I could sense this more than them actually saying it. They continued to talk some though, sympathetically.

They were lounging around, dressed very casually, almost like a pajama party, though it was not a phrase that occurred to me at the time. A lot of them were dressed in sweats, or partial sweats, a lot of them with just sweat shorts, hairy flabby men with legs and stomach and chest and sometimes shoulders showing, though they usually had some kind of soft open shirt, completely unbuttoned and opened up. They looked really unattractive, flabby and with large amounts of hair. The women were better covered up, and generally sitting upright on the pillows, but seemed kind of medium to slim, bookish and with glasses, with unremarkable figures. The people seemed to be generally in their twenties or thirties, perhaps a few in their forties.

One of the men eventually suggested that it was time for their normal Friday afternoon barbecue, that they had every week, and why didn't he join them, attempting to lighten the situation and cheer him up some. He agreed to do so, and they wandered out onto a very large lawn, park-like, that had widely scattered tables and largish barbecue grills on legs and wheels. Other people were there too, from other parts of the company I guess, but also from other companies, and even families that happened to be there on their own. I followed along for a while. My father started doing something with one of the grills. I think some of the family was supposed to show up in a little while.

I wandered off after a while, back to the office where my mother was. I told her what happened. We tried to see if anything of the business was left, we and/or the company had some kind of investments, online I think, in the company itself and in some other things, but when my mother looked, it all seemed to be gone too. Either the investments went bad or they were seized, differently depending on the investment I think, though I think most of them simply went bad. There was something to do with the sea too, some of the investments involved it in some way, and I was seeing old bearded sailors in my mind, in yellow raincoats, holding pipes to their mouths. I think we went off toward the sea then some, partway there. We were going there to see something, to check on the investments personally maybe, going to an old weathered wharf, which was not far away and which the building seemed to slowly blend into.

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.

Dream - Working as a policeman, mistaken for a black woman, and the pie-slice shaped books that I took without paying

On Friday morning, September 12, 2008, I dreamed I drove to Fallon, Nevada, and parked on a dirt lot in front of apartments where I was or had been staying (in the dream), more in the area of the first place I had stayed in real life rather than the second. A woman joined me and kept part of her stuff in the vehicle I was driving. It might have been a car at first, but later it was more of a little pickup with a camper shell or maybe a small station wagon, though it just seemed to have two doors. I seemed to be sleeping in it, at least part of the time, maybe laying down in the back. She slept in it too, at least sometimes, sleeping in the passenger seat sitting up. She also had a dog of some kind, something like a cocker spaniel or a little larger. She seemed to have to wait for me for some reason, I'm not sure why now, maybe I had to unlock the entrance to the apartments for her, maybe she just wanted to check in with me, but it seems like something more.

Then I somehow got a temporary job as a policeman. Someone who was a policeman wanted me to do it. I think it was only part time at first, but then it changed to full time. I was a little uncertain about it. I'm not sure my normal boss was even told about it, it might have gone through higher channels. I would walk around town on foot, normally with another policeman, the one who wanted me I think. Sometimes another policeman or two were there also.

There was some kind of a problem with crumbling concrete or cement. They were massive blocky supports for something, though in some cases there may only have been a partial structure above them, like a small overhang. In some cases the concrete may have been part of a building, maybe a corner. The concrete, looking like stucco, crumbled like dried mud when poked at. I was showing someone who I think was supposed to be a detective. He looked like the Range Manager at a place I used to work, a medium size man with reddish hair and a mustache. He poked at the concrete too when I showed him. In some ways he was a little in his actions like Captain Stottlemeyer on the "Monk" TV show. We were near and at a corner where a shopping area started a little beyond.

At a bookstore in the shopping center, I took two copies of a sequel, a collection of very short anecdotes and advice and recipes. The books were triangular, like wide pie slices. At first I think they were hardcover with slipcovers, but later they were softcover. I simply took the books without paying. They were sitting outside with others on a table and I just swooped through going from south to north, looking at them briefly and then taking them with me. I thought at first that it was okay because I had the earlier book in the series, but later I started to worry about it. I thought that I probably wasn't entitled to them after all and worried about getting them back somehow, maybe just walking in and dropping them off and walking out. I continued carrying them around. I walked out and back down the street, going east, and then turned right at another street going south, gradually circling back toward the shopping center.

Halfway along I met some black women who were visiting from somewhere else. They were fascinated by me and almost acted like they knew me. I was partially disguised as someone else and as they talked I was slowly changing, becoming more disguised, finally seeming to be a black woman, though I think they thought I was from the beginning. (Normally I am a white man.)

I finally managed to leave them and continued walking, turning right at the next road and going west. I turned right again, then, onto the road that headed back toward the shopping center.

Reaching the shopping center, I went through a small eating place and picked up a very small double or triple sundae. I don't think it had bananas. It was in an elongated paper cup type thing with a stiff paper wrapped around it. I was holding it in one hand and the books in the other. I worried about getting ice cream on my fingers and then on the books. I was eating the ice cream by sticking my mouth down on it. I finally wandered off and left the shopping center again. In some ways the area seemed a little like the area in part of Reno.

I wandered way back toward not too far from where I was staying and was sitting at a small rectangular table near the sidewalk. I was on the other side of the main road, which went east and west, and the small neighborhood road cross-street was a little to the north. I was with one or two other people.

The visiting black woman and her friends came by, then. They still thought I was a black woman. She sat down and happily talked to me, but she seemed increasingly upset about the books. I'm not sure why. She kept looking at them. They were stacked upside down and nothing was printed on the bottom. She may have wanted one or she may have wanted a look at one. She finally got up and left, looking very upset.

I left shortly afterward, and walked back toward the shopping center and the bookstore to try to give the books back. The books were starting to look less new after all the carrying around. I thought about trying to get someone else to do it for me, maybe the detective.

I changed to stealth mode, where people simply didn't pay attention to me, and I became or was represented as not much more than a pair of dark shoes surrounded by a round shadow, though in reality I may have simply been there but unnoticeable. I was going through a downtown area, crossing streets, trying to stay out of the way of people and cars.


A couple of months or so previously, in July 2008, I had another dream where I took books from a bookstore without paying.

Dream - Taking a book without paying, then getting attacked by people

On July 17 or 18, 2008, or possibly slightly earlier, I had a dream in which I took a book and some other things from a bookstore without paying, intending to bring them back, and then being threatened by people and sometimes getting into fights.

In the dream, I was at a mall. It had outdoor walkways between between rows of shops. It seems like it was partly paved with asphalt, old now, and was partly dirt, kind of a pale dirt with some large sand or very small rock. The parking lot was similar. The walkways and stores were not entirely level and some areas were on slightly different levels.

I was looking at some books in a bookstore in the mall. I don't think I had much money with me. I think my mother was somewhere in the area, but I'm not sure where and she didn't show up later in the dream.

I went out of the bookstore holding a small book and some papers partly curled in one hand. I hadn't paid for them and was coming back, I wanted to check the other bookstore. I went out and walked to the right down the line of shops. The light was dim and there were a few other people around, including some threatening figures. The area by the shops was broad, but after walking for a while I turned to the right to a narrower area that led to where the other bookstore was. The other bookstore was slightly lower and the walkway dipped down some and the surface became irregular, changing in large part to unpaved with an irregular hill-like area as it went down before reaching the door of the bookstore, which was across the path to the left.

I went in and looked for a while without finding anything I wanted. The bookstore seemed similar to some bookstores in other dreams, being relatively small and having a larger back area than the front, with a room or rooms at the back that led off to the right. I held tightly to the small book and papers in my hand the whole time. I was hoping that they would look like they belonged with me and not the store. It began to bother me, though, and I started to worry that someone at the store might question me about them. They weren't actually mine and still belonged to the other bookstore, and the store might not be able to distinguish them from its own books and might think that they belonged to them.

I went to leave and an employee had gone to the door and was crouched down low, working at something around or on the door frame. He was in the way and I would have to go right by him, maybe even stepping over him. I went toward him and as I reached him he moved slightly to the side, still working on whatever he was working on. I squeezed by him, pushing at him some as I went. I think I gently pushed at his hip with my hand as I went by, encouraging him to move a little more, which he did, and then I patted him a little as I went on by.

I was back out in the dim outdoor light, then, making my way up the irregular slope, intending to go back to the other bookstore. Sinister figures were ahead and to some extent gathered around me from the sides and behind as I walked. The ones who gathered around me kind of converted to my side. One of them came up and talked to me briefly as we walked, saying something like he understood what I was doing and would support me, or something like that.

We came then toward the group ahead, a larger group with its own leader, a group my group had been part of. The other group apparently expected my group to still be part of it and support it and waited cockily for me, talking some among themselves while they watched me approach. They were just beyond where the narrower walkway joined the broad one.

When I reached them I went through them, though, and kept walking, turning to the left. The people with me went into the others, distracting them and drawing them aside. The leader of the larger group and some others started walking a little behind me and to the sides. The leader seemed puzzled and curious as to what was happening. He still seemed cocky or at least acted like it. I went down the length of the mall toward the parking lot. I turned, though, and went back for some reason, going back along the line of stores.

I saw a woman coming from a smaller side branch. She had dark hair and was tall and somewhat muscular for a woman. She was a worker at a store and was now leaving the mall after working late figuring up the books. She was still carrying some books and papers and some other stuff. She was somewhat nervous about going out into the broader area, fearing what might happen. She had had a bad experience before, she had been attacked at some earlier time, perhaps weeks or months before. She had physically recovered but was now somewhat fearful. She didn't know me and seemed to think I might be part of the group of bad people who were still following me around. I walked toward her, intending to reassure her.

She stopped and waited, looking uncertain and afraid. She had brought some stuff with her to protect herself and started to throw things at me I think. I threw things back I think and as we got close to each other she was hitting me with something and knocked me away. I guess I rolled or something and got ten or twenty feet away.

Nearby I saw some kind of small ornamental wooden table. It had tall, old fashioned legs that had been turned on a lathe. The tabletop was perhaps eight by twelve inches, perhaps even six by ten. The legs were very tall though, making it around three to four feet tall.

I grabbed the legs of the table, holding them squeezed mostly together in one hand, and went to her and hit her in the face with the table, more than once I think, knocking her back and down. I then threw her a long distance.

She lay on her back, then, some of the stuff she had been carrying still by her. Her face had blood splattered on it and there was blood splattered on her clothes. She lay there with a grimace on her face, and her eyes closed, her face turning slowly a little to one side and then the other. The place I had thrown her was a more open area, past where the mall ended on one side, though there was another building or buildings a ways to the side and back past a broad undeveloped looking area. There was something a little to her right that may have been a gully or creek.

I didn't intend to hurt her badly during the fight and I hoped that I hadn't. I had needed to subdue her, though, to stop her from fighting me and so I could talk to her and explain the situation. It didn't look like she was able to fight any more, but that was not actually certain. It looked like I would have to wait a while to be able to explain the situation to her, but I thought that she would be on my side when I did, and follow along with me like the others.

It started to get a little lighter now, not so dim, like it was early morning before dawn. I went back toward the parking lot for some reason, I'm not sure now why. I think I was concerned that someone may have been waiting for me, perhaps my mother. I think I left the woman there at least temporarily. There seemed to be some urgency about things.

There was a broad dirt road by some mostly dead vegetation, bushes and small trees, kind of undeveloped looking. Beyond the mall area and in front of it, cars were parked there.

As I went to and in it the situation seemed to became more ominous and threatening, like I was going to finally be attacked by the people following me. We had picked up some others as we had walked around, including some teenagers. Some of the people were getting closer to me as I moved back and forth on the dirt road. I looked things over as I walked, nervously watching the unpleasant developments.

Someone came up by me, I'm not sure who. I think it might have been the person who had joined with me earlier and controlled the others, but I'm not sure. If it was, he now seemed to have turned against me. He was bent toward me, his head down and saying something to me. He talked low and seemed somewhat mad. I think one of his hands was on me, the other hand was holding a very small pocketknife that was partly open. It looked like I was going to be killed.

I tried to draw back and was thinking, "NO!" and found that I was also holding a very small pocketknife, perhaps even smaller than his. The blade was less than half open and was only a couple of inches long. I put it up to the inside edge of his lower jaw about halfway from his chin and after a pause, pushed it slowly in while he stood there, bent and tensed, his head slightly tilted away from it. I was just shoving it in along the inner side of the jawbone, near his tongue, but I was afraid I was somehow killing him, or that there might be a chance I was doing so. It felt bad that I was having to attack him, maybe even killing him, especially since he may have been the one who helped me earlier. It was terrible how these things sometimes worked out.

About ten or twenty feet away toward the edge or a little beyond the edge of the road, a tall teenage boy stood. He had black hair and was medium build with a bit of a soft look. When I stabbed the man under the jaw, the boy's eyes got big and he cried out, "No!" Evidently he was the man's son. I felt really bad about all this. I still wasn't absolutely sure the man had been attacking me, though it sure looked like it. I wished I hadn't had to do it but there didn't seem to be anything else I could have done, though it seemed that there should have been, that there should have been another way.

The mall reminds me a little of the old Town and Country mall in Phoenix, with some features of Coronado High School and perhaps some things from malls in Reno and Carson City.


In September 2008, about two months after this dream, I had another dream about taking books from a bookstore without paying. In the later dream they were pie slice shaped books. The later dream was much more pleasant.

Dream - Studying data formats, then flying to a mall and meeting someone from grade school

On Saturday morning, July 26, 2008, I dreamed I was studying data formats when a practice alert occurred, then afterwards I flew to a mall and met someone from grade school.

In the dream, I was at work in Nevada. The Engineering room was filled with rows of long tables. I was sitting at one near the front near the corner. On the other side of the wall was the short hallway going to the front door.

I was reading books and doing research. The books were about various things, including formats for getting user names and passwords and security stuff. A lot of other stuff too, probably user addresses, but also other information. It seemed a lot of stuff to have to enter into the computer. It also talked about formats of a type of manuscript and for the editing of it. Many other things, too, including natural history type info.

The Engineering boss came over. He was on the other side of the table across from me and down a little ways toward the inside of the room, and animatedly talking to people. He was smiling as he talked, but I felt he was really spying on us, me in particular, checking to see if we were working. I kept on reading the books and I think taking an occasional note. It was something I needed to be doing and was work related. I felt a little uncomfortable anyway, though not much.

A practice alert occurred, a prescheduled one, though I had forgotten it would happen. The others left, some faster than others. I continued to try and read for a little while, to try and finish up some what I had been doing, but finally realized that I had better get going, that I would get in trouble otherwise. I left and wandered around. I don't remember now what I did.

I eventually ended up eating in my car. It was parked along with many other cars in rows in, I guess, a gravel parking lot. It was beyond the buildings out in what in real life would be desert, out in the Elko direction, away from Fallon. Although it was around lunchtime the light was not very bright, like it might be a little cloudy. I think I was still reading while I ate, also looking out the windows and thinking.

I looked at my watch (or a clock on the dash) and saw that it was a little after 1:00 PM. It was almost 11:00 when the practice alert occurred. I had decided to just combine it with lunch. I thought now, though, that the alert was probably only twenty minutes long and now it was getting kind of late and I had better get back. It didn't seem important, the amount of time I was taking, but then it seemed that the time might matter, that some people might be upset. Some other people stopped by and started talking to me. I got out and shut the door. It was an old car, like something from the 1950s. It seems I had another car there, too.

There was some kind of odd locking device on the outside. Sometimes it was on the fender near the passenger door and sometimes it was on the other side of the door around the bottom of the thick roof pillar. A key went in it to turn it. It was a round thing perhaps a couple of inches across with a bar across the middle. Once the key went in I turned the dial around quite a bit, it had a lot of travel. I kept talking about it as I demonstrated it. It seems it also had something to do with the wipers. One person was still there listening, but the others had gone on, going back to work. We had to get started, too.

I went and looked and there was a long way down to the shopping center. Although it was now a shopping center, not the place I worked, it didn't seem to matter or even be noticeable. The shopping center was at a lower level, down in the desert. The desert had occasional brush and plants. There was a broad dirt road that led down there that went to the side and then turned to the left toward it. Someone was still with me, though it didn't seem to be the same person as before, he seemed taller. Though I suppose he could just have changed in the dream, he looked different, too.

I decided to just fly down there, that I could do it. I wanted to show the other person, too. I think I was encouraging him to fly, but he didn't want to and either drove or hurried down on foot. I flew down, low over the landscape. I couldn't get much height.

As I got closer, a bunch of people were coming out and going down the road toward me. Then the man I was with suddenly came out of the tall brush at the right side of the dirt road. As I came down to the ground the people moved past me, talking among themselves. It seemed to be closing time, at least for the shift the people were on.

I went in to the shopping center. The light was dim. There were still people around, though not huge numbers. There seemed to be some military connection, like the shopping center had some military connection or side purpose.

I was still thinking about the user name, password, and user data formats as given in the book. It seemed there was some manual there that also talked about it as part of other things. It talked about something completely different at the front of it, maybe appliances or something like that, like the rest was partially hidden.

I needed to go to the upper level. It seemed the shopping center was very tall (though it didn't seem so when I saw it outside). The upper levels may not all be shopping and I think that some of them may have had more of a military purpose. There was some kind of projecting balcony or landing, maybe with folding stairs, though I think there was also a stairway or elevator somewhere far at the back of it.

I showed the person with me that I didn't need to use the stairs, I was so tall that I could reach up and grab the floor or something around there with my hand and then pull myself up on it. I think I may have originally thought more about flying up, though.

However I did it, I was now up on the walkway and could go toward the next level of the shopping center. The walkway was made of some dark material, metal and maybe old wood. It went into a right angle turn to the left and then I reached the end. There was a bit of a gap between it and the next level of the shopping center, and the next level was slightly higher, maybe a couple of feet, maybe more. The next level had a narrow walkway long the front of it with a thin metal railing. Someone was already there, or got there just as I was reaching it.

I recognised him as a short person I used to go to grade school with. He was still short and looked much the same, just older. He was there now on the walkway beyond the railing. He wanted to know if I recognized him. I said yes, and told him my name just in case he didn't remember it. I was very, very tired now, though, and I didn't get the name out very well. It was soft and blurred and trailed off. I tried again, saying something like "Stlephebim Morgahn." It was not very good, but I was so tired it was very hard to talk. He seemed to understand anyway.

He offered to help me up on the narrow walkway where he stood, there in front of the next level. I took his hand and he pulled me up.

When I got there I saw he was much taller and his face was longer and narrower. He was much taller that I was, maybe a half foot or so taller. I was surprised. He said he shot up a lot after grade school (or I simply supposed that to be the case). There was some other quality about him too, like he had some extra knowledge and/or power and was part of the military aspect of things in some intelligence or security function or knew something about it.

Dream - The bird-boy, the Christmas pageant, mall shopping, stolen presents, and the award

On October 4, 2008, I had either one very, very long dream that was in two parts, or two dreams that seemed later to be connected. Either way, they were both interesting. Even though the part I remember is very long, the actual beginning is forgotten.


In the dream, I went into a small shop, a gift shop of some kind I think. It seemed to be part of a mall or plaza. I think I was just going to look at things quickly and then leave, but they had some kind of strange new bird that somebody had brought in, a type of bird that had been discovered a little earlier and was just now being reported to the world. The reporting itself was a news story and not part of this shop and maybe not even about this particular bird, though it seemed to be one of the first ones that were brought in.

There was also a second bird of some type in the store, on the other side of the room next to the wall, on some shelves or some piece of furniture or display. It was smaller and different from the first and much more like a bird in appearance, and I didn't pay much attention to it.

The first bird, on the counter, had a head very much like a human toddler, a little boy. Its body was also vaguely like that but its legs, which I never really saw clearly, were bird's legs. Sometimes it seemed to have hands and sometimes little white wings. Its neck was a little long for a boy and it had wrinkles like an old man. Sometimes when it moved its head down and smiled, the wrinkles moved into its face, otherwise its face seemed smooth. It was a little smaller than a human, perhaps only fourteen inches tall, not counting its legs, which were in any case very short and I think dark colored. It was brought in by a man in late middle age and I think with a woman with him, probably his wife. The bird/baby boy was being propped up by the woman behind the counter. I had looked briefly at things in the store and then gone back to it. The man and one or two other people were there at the counter, women I think, talking about and oohing over the bird. I talked some to the bird, too, like one might talk to a baby or even a little dog. The bird looked back at me and sometimes made little sounds, not much and not anything meaningful.

The bird's body was originally wrapped in a pale blanket. This was taken off and I was confused that the bird apparently had two pouches across its lower stomach, one above the other, tight against its body. This was like a marsupial, but it was supposed to be a bird. Then they lifted it out and it turned out to be just a leather pouch it was in. Out of the pouch, it was revealed that the bird was wearing a white diaper.

I kept talking and making sounds to the bird. Eventually we went to the back of the store, where a few tables were set out for people to eat at, though we didn't use them. I was standing talking to the bird, which was flying and hovering in the air, moving its tiny wings. Sometimes I was on my knees partly looking up at it. It was getting better at making sounds and seemed almost like it was making words. I said "Goo-goo" one time to it and it said the same thing back to me. The man at that point came over and tried to discourage me from doing it, saying that they were going to be putting it in some kind of school shortly, maybe in a few months, I'm not sure. The impression is that he didn't want the bird learning nonsense sounds, he wanted it to learn real words.

The man sat down at a table while I continued to look mostly at the bird and sometimes talk to it, while I also talked to the man, usually continuing to look at the bird and only giving the man occasional glances. I wondered how long the bird could live and how old it was and how long its childhood was. I asked the man how old he thought I was. He was saying something about how he didn't know and I could be blah, blah, or could be blah, blah, etc. I said I was 55. He said he would never have guessed.


I was in a big mall, then. Thousands of people were in a huge room sitting in built-in seats watching a performance, apparently a Christmas pageant, though I'm not sure how much of it actually directly related to Christmas. My mother and one or two people with her were in the seats, also watching it. She sent me out to shop, holding a list of things to get, mostly gifts for my brother. I visited various small shops, getting almost all the presents. They were almost all in clear plastic bags, separately, though one or two bags may have had more than one thing in them, and an item or two did not have a bag. All of the items were very small, including a camera.

I went to the far end of the mall where a movie theater was, visiting a restroom. It was getting late, and I was getting concerned about dinner. I started heading back finally to the huge section where thousands of people were seated watching a performance. Middle-aged women in makeup and jewels and fancy clothes crowded around the entrance with me, pushing against me, smiling, talking to themselves and sometimes to me. Inside, people were singing, and some of them were going down the aisles and through the rows singing and doing various minor performances and interacting with the crowd.

I finally managed to get away and make my way back along the shops, stopping every few shops and sitting down at little tables just outside the shops, and going through the collection of bags and looking at things. I thought that I should combine some of what I had, and put the items without a bag, there were perhaps only a couple that way, into the bags, combining them with whatever was in there.

The last shop I stopped at, some kind of eating place, there was someone at the back, a relatively young, short, thin person. It seemed like it might be a man and then it seemed more like a woman. The uncertainty went back and forth for a while, even later after we had talked some, though finally near the end it seemed that she was definitely a woman. She was a little like Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, short hair and all.

Now, at the beginning, she was at the back, behind the counter, saying something sardonically about someone saying something about Stephen, and that her name was Stephenson. I perked up and became interested at that point, because my own name was Stephen, though I hadn't said anything and it didn't seem possible that I was the one she was talking about. I called out that my name was Stephen. She seemed interested and said, smiling, something about it being a coincidence and went to her right and exited the counter and the room. She came back into the store, then, or maybe appeared just outside it. A woman in the store and I think another employee were singing and going to this place and that, sometimes popping out of some different place unexpectedly, at least once appearing outside the store. The first woman was part of this performance and also singing and popping out of different places. This didn't go on for very long before fading back in intensity and then mostly stopping. I wondered if this was something they did there frequently.

I had gone forward into the place at first to get a little closer after I said something to the woman and she started talking to me, and then I went back out as they were performing. I went back now to where I had been sitting to get the bags and try to sort through them and find good places to put the items without bags, and found almost all of them gone. Someone had stolen them. I started searching an accordion-like briefcase I found on or by a picnic table-like seat by a small rectangular table just inside the business. A man sitting there and talking to a person on the other side of the table partially turned towards me and was upset that I was looking through his briefcase. I continued looking but didn't find anything but some papers and other normal stuff. I finally stopped looking in it. I had to leave, I had to search elsewhere for them now. I went back out.

I sat at a very small, round table just outside the place and looked through what I had left again. I came across two knives I had picked up along the way at different places. One of them had maybe an inch and a half broken off the blade, and I had earlier used the square corner at the break to carve something in the face of a soft brick-like thing, kind of a message, though I think the carving looked almost like runes. It was way back where the thousands of people were watching the performance, in the seating area. The other knife had a wavy blade, like it had been bent and then straightened out, and it had some big raised smooth dark areas like old rust or old food.

I considered just leaving them on the table. They would be picked up when the tables were cleared, but I worried if someone should find them, maybe even some kids, and get into trouble with them. I finally decided to take the broken one. It seemed for some reason to be more dangerous, the other one seemed old and worn and weak. I left it there and went out into the mall.

I looked briefly at some places nearby, and then started flying sitting up, partially cross-legged. Some people were beside me to the right, following on the ground, mostly women. As I went on they came closer, touching me with their shoulders or heads, oohing and aahing and making little appreciative comments about my flying. The mall seemed much larger now, and had aisles go off at angles to the one I was on. I was flying back toward the movie house at the far end. I had to go to the bathroom and thought I could use the restroom there and look for the missing stuff on the way. It was getting late and I would have to go back to the others afterwards and we would have to decide what to do about the missing items, to try to get them again or get something else instead or maybe just do without them.

The aisle was much bigger and longer and fancier than it had been. It was paved in different areas with different kinds of paving stones or tiles. Some areas had large tan shiny brick-like tiles, some had smaller brighter squarer ones, etc. A largish shiny brick-like one of one kind or another was predominant, though. The mall aisle had a gentle downhill trend with a series of a few downward steps every few hundred feet.

At a place where an aisle crossed this one, I saw outside through a large window area a giant Wizard of Oz-like head pushing its way through the dirt with hands sticking up by its jaw, palms out, coming toward the mall at an angle. Like the Wizard in the movie, it had a scowl on its face. It went to the mall near the intersection of aisles and got inside. I thought it was probably a hologram and part of the show. Inside it met another head coming the other way and they stopped, facing each other a few feet apart. I flew over and around them, and as I did they faded to a grainy semitransparent blueness, confirming they were indeed holograms. I felt satisfied by this, and as I flew I saw a large dark bronze lion head on the outside wall of the other aisle, filling a doorway. I felt that it was also capable of movement, particularly facial movement. I got the impression that it was somewhat amused, but it didn't seem to move much, if at all, while I was watching it.

I went back to flying down the aisle and soon came to two tall, short buses, one immediately behind the other, and heading away from me, apparently used for tours of the mall. A very tall, very hairy man was laying on top of the bus closest to me. He was probably seven or eight feet tall and dressed like a street thug from an old movie, even having I think a soft cap. I wondered if he took the things I had bought and I think asked him about it and pulled or pushed him by the shoulder, turning him partly over. I saw part of a large clear plastic bag or two under him. He said, "Hey, what is this, I can get a gun!"

I pulled him off the top of the bus and he fell flat against the ground with his hands and arms partly under the end of the bus and his head against or at the end of it. The bus had stopped. I fought an accomplice then, a much smaller man but much larger than me, who also said that he could get a gun. They were both dead now, or apparently so.

The police came and a detective questioned me. I told them what had happened, that I had done it, that they had said they could get a gun. The detective immediately accepted it then, happily, and said something like, "Well, that's it, then!" and the small bus was found to have a lot of stolen loot in it. Most of it was other people's, but they happily gave it all to me, happy that the case was solved and they had gotten all the loot back before it could be gotten rid of. In fact, most of the stuff that was mine was still missing, so presumably they had gotten rid of part of it. They were happily giving everything to me, though. I wondered if I should say anything and worried about what would happen if they found out later. They kept going on about it and it was getting more and more awkward to bring it up.

I was being congratulated and about to be given an award, including prize money. It was going to be given, they said, by Bill Maher, but I had Regis pictured in my mind and associated with that name. I was pointed toward an ornate box the size of a small room, in the street that was the mall aisle. The room/box had heavy raised simple designs on it, and was apparently made of dark brass with a door of the same material and its own heavy raised simple designs. A person stood guard there, acting as a doorman, dressed in court finery from around Shakespeare's time. A crowd had gathered, everyone was happy. It looked like I wasn't going to be able to get to a bathroom right away, though I glanced somewhat wistfully around the area as I flew toward and around the box/room, waiting for the door to open and the person to come out with the award and the prize money.