This is Home, Part 25 - President Roosevelt, the war ends, the men come home

This is part 25 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



President Roosevelt

President Roosevelt had led the country almost through World War II. He is the only president in history who was elected for four terms. I read that in each of those elections, he carried 31 states out of 48. He was loved in the United States and the world.

Just a few days before graduation, we were listening to the radio and heard that President Roosevelt had died. This was on April 12th. I remember telling Daddy, Uncle Doc and Charley that he had died. They were bringing the horses and wagon back from working. For the first time, I saw tears in Uncle Doc's eyes.

President Roosevelt's friends and neighbors plus thousands of others stood weeping at Warm Springs as the funeral train left for Washington, D.C. It took around twenty three hours to get there. (I hope I remembered this correctly.) His casket had been placed on something that raised it so it could be seen out of the windows. At night, the lights in the train were dimmed and the car with his casket was brightly lit. It was also brightly lit during the day. His casket could be seen for miles. The tracks were lined on both sides all the way through the countryside with thousands of people weeping. No matter what the hour there were grandparents, mothers and fathers, often holding children. Mrs. Roosevelt sat watching the continuing tribute to her husband.

On the trip from Washington to Hyde Park, N.Y., the situation was the same.

His daughter, Anna, remembers sitting on the floor and watching from her window all the people who loved him. He was buried in his rose garden at his home in Hyde Park.

There is a famous picture of a black man in a uniform crying and playing "Going Home" on his accordion. I don't know where it was taken.

When President Roosevelt died, it was similar to when President Kennedy died. The whole world mourned and everyone remembers where they were when they heard.

Newspapers published a daily list of servicemen who had died for their country. The day after Roosevelt's death, some newspapers put at the head of their casualty list Roosevelt, Franklin D., Commander-in-Chief.

The war ends

The atomic bomb had been a closely guarded secret. President Truman got the shock of his life when he was told.

First, we had the formal surrender of Germany. V-E day -- Victory in Europe -- was May 8, 1945, but I think the formal surrender was somewhat later. President Roosevelt had told someone that the war in Europe would be over by the end of May.

After calling for the Japanese surrender and receiving their refusal, Truman ordered the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. They still refused and kept fighting. After a second atomic bomb was dropped, they wanted to stop fighting. The formal surrender was signed on September 2, 1945 (V-J Day) on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. World War II was over.

The men come home

Lawrence (Mary Ellen's husband) came home. So did Bob Bolton (Bea's husband). Denver Williams came home with a bride, Caroline, from the South. So we acquired a Catholic girl in a community that was Baptist. Most of the servicemen came home, except for a military force which we maintained overseas.

The jobs that had been filled by their wives were given back to the soldiers. That sounds strange today, but in those days, women were usually housewives. However, some of them liked working and missed their jobs.

This is Home, Part 11 - Sheep shearers, harvest hands, summer nights, the wolf, Rowdy and Buster, a dog with a broken leg, hanging in there, yellow tomatoes and an apple tree

This is part 11 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Sheep shearers

There were quite a few extra men eating at our house sometimes. In the spring when the weather was finally warm, we had sheep shearers who came and removed the sheep's wool so they would be comfortable in the summer. The wool was then rolled into bundles, tied with binder twine, and sold.

I took hold of Daddy or Uncle Doc's hand and went in to see how they did it. The sheep looked so silly sitting meekly on its tail while it had wool all around it. They were shearing evenly down the sheep. When they got through, the sheep looked very white where the wool had been.

While it is still weather for jackets or coats in the spring, the lambs have to have their tails cut off so they only have a short little tail left. It is done for sanitary reasons. Uncle Doc was cutting them off with a sharp knife while Daddy or Charley held the lamb. One held and one dipped.

I told Uncle Doc that I didn't want him to do this, because it would hurt the lamb. He said no, it really doesn't. Then he took my hand and said "Feel here. It is a joint; I'm not cutting the bone. It separates here."

I could feel that the bone was missing at that particular place and it felt like just skin. The lamb didn't even bleed that I saw. It's tail -- what was left of it -- was immediately dipped into a fairly thick substance that smelled really awful. Then the lamb rushed away to its mother.

Harvest hands

In the fall, harvest hands came to cut the hay with a combine. It was hot still, so they rested at noon sometimes and worked late at night. Daddy had two hay fields that I know about. The smell of newly cut hay is wonderful.

When the harvest hands came to dinner at noon, they had taken off their shirts because the shirts were sweaty and had hay dust on them. Mom asked Daddy to ask them to wear their shirts because of us. They shook them out and put them back on.

In the summer, we always ate on the long front porch near the kitchen door. Mom had a table with sides that folded down to about eight or nine inches from the floor. It had an extra leg on each side that was attached to the middle. They would swing out in the middle and hold up the folded down side. Mom put an oil cloth on this table instead of a table cloth.

I think it was called a gate leg table.

Mom always fixed a huge dinner. There were pitchers of ice tea and lemonade setting on the table. She made pie for desert.

Summer nights

It was cooler eating on the porch than in the kitchen. When we ate out there at night we had some determined flying insects who wanted to come in and join us. However, they couldn't get through the screen. The lamp was setting on the table and the light attracted them.

We had the most beautiful moonlight nights back home. There was a breeze most of the time. I remember when I was dating Edgar later that the weeping willow branches made lovely shadows on the porch when they blew in the wind. I always silently admired them when he brought me home.

We used to have moonlight almost as bright as day.

The family used to sit out in the yard on summer nights. The stars were so bright. Charley used to show me the little dipper, big dipper and other configurations in the sky.

Missouri had beautiful rolling green hills. The farm house was built on high ground. We could sit in the yard and see the light of Moberly and Huntsville in the distance. Those were good times. Moberly was twenty miles away by the road and Huntsville was fourteen miles away. Of course, they were closer "as the crow flies."

No matter what the season, Daddy always went to bed at 8 o'clock. He would let Frankie in and wind the clock. Then off to bed.

However, he slept poorly. He had injured his knee when a log rolled and pinched it, and it still ached. Besides, I think his legs may have cramped. Anyway, he slept in short naps. He walked around for awhile between naps and then tried a different bed, such as the living room couch, or the cot on the porch, or even the hammock between two of the cedar trees in the yard.

Uncle Doc had rheumatism and arthritis when he got older, so he was up with his hands and legs cramping. Night was a busy time at our house.

Every night at 4 a.m., I would hear the train whistle as it came around the bend before the crossing in Jacksonville. It was a lonesome sound, but a comforting one too, because it was dependable. I always heard it.

The wolf

Sometimes, we heard a wolf howl. Sometimes another one answered, but we usually just heard one. Daddy said he was talking to or looking for a mate. When some of the livestock such as lambs were taken, the neighbors got upset and stopped by on their horses to see if Daddy wanted to help hunt the wolf and kill it. Daddy was about twenty years older than they were. He just wanted to sleep. Besides, I think he hated to kill it. It looked like a dog.

One time they actually did kill a wolf. One of the neighbors (I think it was Roscoe) stopped to show it to Uncle Doc. He had it tied to the bumper of his car. It was so thin and small, I felt sorry for it. The wolves had a bounty on them at that time and the neighbor was taking it somewhere to collect.

We still heard a wolf howling. I told Daddy it was killing lambs and chickens because it was hungry. I said, lets get it meat from the meat house and put it close to where it is so it won't be hungry.

Daddy said wolves were too smart to eat anything touched by a person. There was no way to feed him.

Rowdy and Buster

We didn't get to keep Rowdy and Buster. When they were about half grown, Irvin Williams, who owned the farm directly up the road from us, came and told Daddy that one of his animals was missing and that he had seen the two pups running across his land. He said he couldn't afford to lose any livestock, and if he saw the pups on his land again he would shoot them.

Daddy asked if he had seen them chasing or trying to kill his livestock. Irvin said no. Daddy told him the pups were not hungry -- that they were fed a lot of food. He said pups run and play. Daddy reminded him that there was a wolf or wolves around. Irvin didn't care -- he wasn't taking any chances. He told Daddy to do something with the pups.

Daddy did something all right. He had a new barn for the sheep so he could put early lambs and their mother inside, instead of covering the snowy pasture with straw again like he did last time. He put straw on the floor of the new barn, a bucket of water inside and some food. Then he gave the barn to the pups. They could get sunshine in and see out, because spaces had been left between the boards so the sheep wouldn't be too hot. At least I think that was why. Maybe it wasn't finished.

Daddy and Charley fed, watered, and petted them. Jean and I petted their noses though the boards. Sometimes they could be heard running and playing inside. Jean and I were afraid to open the door. We thought they might run out and get shot.

Finally, after quite a period of time, Daddy said it wasn't much of a life for them staying in the barn. He asked if we would care if he could find a good home in town for them. We agreed. So away went Rowdy and Buster.

A dog with a broken leg

Rowdy and Buster's mother managed to break her leg. Daddy made a sling for her. It fit underneath her with four holes for her legs. Then he fastened it to a limb of the mulberry tree in the yard. She could just barely touch the yard with her feet.

She stayed that way until her leg healed. He also put a splint on her leg.

She got lots of petting and attention. She managed to get around a little on three legs while waiting for the other one to heal.

Hanging in there

One embarrassing incident I remember is when Aunt Opal and her kids came from Colorado for a visit one time. I had been told repeatedly not to step in between the wood supports for the unfinished floor on the right of the staircase upstairs. I knew better than to step on it, but I just didn't believe it wouldn't support me. I wanted to see what would happen. I found out immediately when I stepped there. Suddenly, I could see into Charley's room. I had gone through his ceiling and would have fallen if I hadn't doubled my arms and put each arm straight out so it would rested on one of the supports. The supports were close together.

Aunt Opal heard something and came in to find me suspended through the ceiling with my legs dangling down into space. She yelled for Mom and the two of them took hold of me and got me down. It was most embarrassing!

What was really bad -- the ceiling always had a place there that looked different even when it was repaired and papered. Every time I looked at it, I felt guilty.

Yellow tomatoes and an apple tree

Jean and I found something to do that was fun. The fourth garden was just off the chicken yard by a pond. There was a large, old, yellow apple tree there in the corner by the wood fence that separated the garden from the sheep pasture. This was inside the garden.

The tree had a trunk that separated into two parts that went outward. If the tree didn't touch the fence, it almost did.

We would get a play bucket or basket of little yellow tomatoes from the garden, climb up on the fence and sit in the tree to eat them.

Dream - We go over the mountain on a train to Phoenix, then my mother walks quickly into Phoenix and I follow, searching for her

On Friday, March 27, 2009, early in the morning, I dreamed I was driving around the edge of a neighborhood in the dark, very fast, perhaps somewhere in Mesa or even Tempe. It felt like it was somewhere near the river bottom. I felt it was necessary to go fast for some reason. I had just been talking with a few people about something, my mother and some other people, maybe including my sister. We had been outside, on the sidewalk. We had walked there, to the corner, from a big house, where we had been talking and perhaps having something to eat. Before that, we had been someplace else, driving I think, maybe partly in the Phoenix area, maybe in different cars. A large part of the dream had been devoted to this, though I have little memory of it now.

Someone caught up and passed me, hurrying along very fast on foot while seeming to be at a walking pace, like an extremely speeded up movie. I reached the place where the road turned and was now almost parallel to the main road (Scottsdale Rd., named Rural Rd. in the Mesa/Tempe area), and then went past the short road that led to the main one. I was going too fast. I had intended to turn off someplace, I think, maybe there, but couldn't. I had, in part, originally been showing off, but it seems I also had someplace I needed to go. I think I also intended, at some point, to return to the people I left, my mother and the others.

I went by a couple of people standing on the road near the sidewalk, talking to each other. They paused and stared at me as I shot down the street and then past them. I'm not sure what they thought about it, and I hoped I didn't upset them too much. They seemed to just be surprised, and in wonder at it. I hoped it didn't go beyond that.

I was going to circle around and go back, but I eventually met up with my mother and someone else, and we went in a very long loop, eventually getting to a place far on the opposite side and far past where the original turnoff had been. It seemed to be on University Drive going toward Scottsdale/Rural Rd. from the Phoenix side. The directions would not have worked out in real life, but they seemed normal in the dream, and something that had been done before in other dreams, perhaps many times.

Then we went to the side and were going to go from Phoenix to Scottsdale up over the hill. My mother and my sister and I, along with someone who may have been a man my sister knew, a friend of hers, but who was shorter than him. It was starting to get light now. We were getting on a small train with some other people. The train went over the hill and down the other side. The place on the other side seemed to be a spread-out small town area, similar in some ways to Sparks, Nevada and to parts of Fallon, Nevada.

Then we were going back, driving toward the hill and the train. I got too far to the side on a road that was by some residences, that was basically just paved lanes for the tires, that diverged more and more from the main road while remaining almost parallel to it, and finally just ended in dirt.

Then we stopped and were trying to get into the line of people, but it was too crowded. We got separated when some of them wanted to go back to the end of the line. I initially went back that way, but didn't want to get in the line way back there, and instead went back to near where the hill started and waited for a break in the line. After the train abruptly loaded a lot of people, the line went forward and got much shorter and I was able to get in near the end of the line. My mother was with me in front of me. She had a light-colored sweater and a short gray coat, and kept almost losing the coat for a while, setting it down and forgetting to pick it up unless reminded. She was getting tired. It was a long slow way up, climbing steps that sometimes turned sharply to the side before turning back to resume going up the hill. People nearby were sympathetic to her.

We finally got on the train. It went a little ways, but then stopped, and we had to walk slowly by tables with cheap little things they were trying to sell. It seems it was some kind of cost-saving move they had implemented recently, and only used it at times of the night when ridership was low. It wasn't night now but it was evidently a weekend. The other members of the group were a little behind us. When we got to the top, the train started again and took us down the other side, but stopped partway down the hill, where the slope was less severe I guess.

Everyone got out of the train. It looked like we were going to have to walk the rest of the way. I had turned, was now facing the uphill direction, and was talking to my sister's friend, I guess, maybe my sister too, and I think one of them might have asked about my mother. I turned back and she was just a dark figure in the distance, way ahead of us, hurrying off toward Phoenix, and then seeming to turn toward the left and getting lost along or among the buildings. I rushed after her but was unable to catch up. It seemed like I could hear the others calling distantly after me, trying to stop me.

Then I got on a wide escalator that went through a vast opening going down under the ground. It went down in sections, with a few feet of a more level structure separating them. To hurry up, I was running down them, barely touching the stairs, holding on to the sides and going down in big jumps. I felt she had probably not gone this way and had gone to the side of it. There was still some chance she was down here, but I couldn't see her anywhere ahead of me, at least nobody I could identify as her. A few widely scattered people were around, though not many, but more showed up as I hurried along and got deeper under the ground.

I figured I would probably have to turn around at some point and go back. I had already really gone farther than I needed to or originally intended. There was some hope that when I came out the other side I would be able to catch up with her because she would have gotten near that area by a different route, but the escalator kept going deeper and deeper, much farther than I had intended. It seemed to be part of a system of city-wide public transportation, and when I went up again I was going to be on the other side of Phoenix, which was probably way too far.

Other escalators were beside this one and also coming in from different directions, going down into a huge area where they gradually leveled off and went straight for a while before gradually ascending again. There was a platform to one side, raised high above the surrounding area at a place where the escalators were still descending, where a few people were standing and a screen was showing a tape of when President Bush had been there earlier, perhaps a day or more before, and had given a kind of mild pep talk speech in a somewhat amused manner (in real life Obama was president). I wondered if they were going to do something similar now and if I would be forced to stay and listen to it, delaying me.

Dream - Shopping at a hardware store, then riding on top of a train while someone tries to shoot me

On the night of January 19-20, 2010, Tuesday-Wednesday, I dreamed I was in a very big hardware store, shopping for something with some other people. We had to leave, then. It was almost time to close, but we had to leave anyway. I wanted to look at things one last time. We were trying to find some stuff as part of something we were trying to put together for a gift for someone. I was trying to find some kind of small mirrors and silvery pipes, maybe one and a quarter inches wide. I convinced the others to let me try one last time. Only a couple of them or so were with me, near the exit. My brother was there too, either with me there or still back in the store. The others were still back in the store somewhere.

I went along the front to the other side, then back into the interior of the store. At the back I raised up in the air, to the top of where some tall ladder-like things were stored, maybe 8 to 10 feet high. I tried to get above them, to a shelf they were leaning against, but it was hard. I was pulling myself up, trying to get on top of them. I had been intending to quickly fly along over things, looking down on them. As I pulled myself up, the ladders kept growing, getting higher. They were very high, maybe 14 feet. By the time I finally got on top of them the shelf had grown too and was a few feet wide now, and seemed to be aluminum with some small narrow ridges running down it.

A store manager had been keeping an eye on me, from maybe 10-15 feet away. I was also an employee now, a fairly new one, who had gotten into a little trouble before because of something, and I was a little worried about being reprimanded again or even fired. I walked along the shelf for a little ways. The manager had gotten up on it too, and was fiddling with something on the wall. Besides the pipes, which were smaller now, maybe half or three quarters of an inch thick, and the small mirrors, which were round or oval, I was also carrying a small screwdriver and pretended to be doing something with it, tightening some screws up there.


The scene changed, then, and we were on top of a train, going away from the city, going east. We were quickly out in the countryside, for the most part. Another train was maybe 20 or 30 feet away to the left, to the north. The manager stayed ahead of me, to the east, for the most part, though sometimes we were close to each other, and sometimes talked a bit, and sometimes we were 5 to 15 feet away. We went past occasional crossroads. Someone was trying to get us now, shooting at us sometimes, sometimes from below.

A few superheroes showed up, to try to help us. The man trying to shoot us had actually hit someone, me I think. I was wounded in some way, though I'm not sure how.

I got off the train onto a road that curved in from the north and then went east. The manager or somebody else also got off, maybe more than one person. I think at least one person got off before I did. The bad man got off, too. The train was still moving, but was not going very fast, probably less than 20 miles per hour, maybe less than 10. I don't think it ever went terribly fast, perhaps 30 to 40.


I went off the road among some small hills at the curves. Sometimes I was in a car and sometimes on foot. The hills were mostly dirt, sometimes with a reddish tint. There were two other roads here, being built through the wilderness, parallel to each other, sometimes going across or along gullies and small canyons. I went along the road for a while. Other people were there too, trying to make their way east. Some others were on the road going back west. I made my way back to the main road.

The scene repeated in part a few times, and I went off a long exit ramp to a road that the previous road went underneath, deeply recessed at that point. A few other people did, too. It seemed to be night now, but not very dark. I went left, and got to a road to the north, maybe the main one, and headed back west.

I got back to the curve. I could see where the car swerved earlier and went off the road into the hills. The heavy skid marks were there, and then it repeated and the person was actually the villain, disguising himself as me, or at least pretending to be me. He didn't actually look like me, and seemed to be wearing some kind of minor costume. Some superheroes flew in, to check on what was happening and to help. The villain talked to them, talking about what happened, telling some false story, pretending to be me. I stayed back among the hills, but finally came out, and exposed him. He went off then, trying to escape and hide. I left, too. The superheroes were looking for him, but there was some concern on my part about him going after me.


I was going away from the city again now, apparently on the main road going east, but after a while it seemed to actually be going north, and maybe even northwest, maybe toward Wickenburg or maybe even past it. I pulled off the road at a place with a few buildings, set back from the road a bit, with a parking lot in front and some tall bushes in front of the road. It didn't seem to be too far from the city, at the edge of it. It felt more like a road not too far from Central Ave., maybe even Central itself, though probably not, since it didn't actually go too far out of the city. My brother was out driving too, along with some others. I'm not sure how many cars were in the group, but he had at least one other person with him in the car. I think my father was in one of the cars, too. It was still night, and darker than it had been earlier, though there were some lights along the road, and by the buildings. It was a place I had been to before in other dreams. I talked to some other people while I was there at the buildings, some of them from the group. I'm not sure my brother got there before I left.

I went back toward the city, and stopped at a place that felt like it was on the northwest corner of 68th St. and McDowell Rd., or maybe 64th St. It was a convenience store, a place I had been to in other dreams. I'm not sure it was actually at that location now, though. While it felt like it was there, it also felt like it was further north. I talked briefly to some people there, and went back to my car, which I think I might have parked near the road. I was expecting my brother and/or father to come, but I'm not sure whether they did before I left. I drove back out onto the street, heading south.


I became more and more aware that I was also laying in bed in my bedroom, laying on my back with my legs apart a little. The radio was playing somewhere, in the next room I think, though it was still clear. I would go back to the dream and then back to being aware of being in bed. Sometimes I was doing both, in bed while the dream was distantly happening.

After a while I was more and more in bed, then was becoming aware that it wasn't real either, that I was actually sitting in the chair in front of the computer, with the radio nearby. I figured that I was laying back some in the chair with my head back. It's an office chair and doesn't recline, though it can tilt some. I thought that I must have my left leg on my briefcase, which was sitting upright on the floor, and my right leg on my plastic lunchbox. This would mean that the chair was turned to the left, with the computer and its desk on my right. It felt very much like I was laying in bed, though. It was a very convincing illusion.

My right leg was tingling more and more though, my calf, and was hurting near the ankle and some on my foot, places where I had sores. The other leg was starting to tingle some, too.

Eventually I was just outside the dream, feeling like I was laying in bed still, and listening to the radio. This went on for a while.

I finally decided that I needed to move, to get my legs off the things and back on the floor. I wasn't sure I could still easily do it, though. I finally opened my eyes and raised my head in a smooth dreamlike motion. I was a little surprised, I wasn't sure I would be able to. I then took my legs off the things, one at a time, my left leg first I think. My calves had been laying on them with my heels hanging over. They still felt funny with my feet on the floor, deadened some, almost half asleep. It took a while for me to really recover. I stumbled out of the room. It was hard to see properly, and hard to keep my eyes open. It had been a fairly long dream.

Dream - The superhero emulators, the stolen object, and the dog with the toy train

On Sunday, May 23, 2010, in the morning, I dreamed I was in my grandmother's house in Arizona. It was different, though, larger, and had a room-size basement near the kitchen. I became a couple of comic book heroes, particularly Spider-Man, though I wasn't really them, just emulating them, with reduced powers. At the same time I was apart from them, watching.

Time was repeating itself with something getting stolen or not stolen, something just outside the front door, something small, like a hardcover book with some little object on top of it, and a strap around it all, only it wasn't a book.

In the basement room, a couple of bad people came, and attacked one of the sometime heroes. I intervened and beat him up. The other one was holding back, partly hidden near the doorway, and higher up than the floor, near the ceiling. The Spider-Man person was still out in the back yard exercising, swinging around with the webs and climbing on things. He wasn't in costume, I think he was shirtless and just wearing pants. He eventually came back in, and was attacked by one of the men, I think the one I had beaten up. The man was fighting with him and I was watching incredulously; didn't he know he was trying to fight Spider-Man? Though he wasn't really as strong as the real Spider-Man, he seemed to be stronger than the guy he was fighting. The other man crept out and was trying to attack him too, and I beat him up, then joined in and beat up the man the Spider-Man figure was fighting, quickly ending it. Then I threw the bad guy out into the back yard, just gave a quick casual toss and out he went. The Spider-Man figure had turned and stared at me, somewhat surprised by it suddenly being over. The two people had been sent by the enemy, a man who was against us, and who was trying to steal the object outside the front door.

I had finally managed to save the object, after several times of having it stolen. As time repeated itself, I had found it there in time and retrieved it, and was happy and somewhat triumphant about it, though I knew it wasn't over, and I would have to keep watch, because time would repeat itself again.

I went out from the basement into the front room, and was talking with my mother, who looked younger, maybe in her early fifties. While talking I noticed to the left side, as determined while inside facing toward the front door, still in the front room, there was a dog something like Spats, a dog we used to have, large and shaggy, but with some gray in its hair instead of mostly being white. It went over to the right and began playing with an electric train engine, which was on a couch out in the floor not far from the front window. A lot of things were on the couch, it was pretty much covered with them.

At first it just seemed to be a small dark electric motor mounted on a small board, along with a few associated things, but it later changed to become a little train engine. I wondered if it was a good idea for the dog to be playing with it, and remarked on it to my mother. She seemed interested, but discounted the idea that it could be a problem.

I looked toward the door and saw that it was time already, as the incident kept repeating itself, and someone had come up and was snatching the thing again, which was laying down just outside the front door. I saw it through the door screen. I said something and got up and ran outside, accosting the perpetrator on the edge of the porch, although he was not the actual thief, just the mastermind.

As I went up to him I had been more my normal form at first, normal at least for the dream, as I was somewhat younger and slimmer than in real life, and still at least somewhat tall. Then I was gradually assuming the form of, or taking over the body of, a short, proper old man in 19th century clothes, with a large upturned collar.

At first I was standing there as I normally was, taller than him, holding him by the face and neck, angrily threatening him, demanding that he give the object back. He was smugly refusing, saying he didn't know what I was talking about. Of course it hadn't been him personally, I knew that, it had been one of his men, but he was responsible and knew all about it.

Then the police were coming up the walk or beside it, talking, trying to calm things down, talking like they knew me, dressed like police in the early 20th century. I found then I was gradually changing to another persona, an angry old man, the owner of the house, dressed in 19th century finery, and my hand drew back until it was just holding onto his neck or face a little bit, and then back further till it was not even that, more touching the lace sticking up around his neck, while he, slightly taller than me now, another old man, looked back at me smugly and haughtily.

The policeman, about to give a more stern warning, and maybe take me in, now looked uncertain, and was saying, "Well, if nothing really happened... Come on Mr. so-and-so," referring to me, I don't now remember the name he gave, trying to calm me down to let the other man go.

The policeman was leading him away, then, to the man's carriage, down the wide concrete steps at the edge of the concrete porch, and into the yard, which was partly paved and partly dirt with a little low grass.

I shouted, "What if I have proof!" in the sharp snappish voice of a cranky old man.

The other man, the enemy, halfway or more to the carriage now, turned and sneered at me and said, "You have no proof."

The policeman, down by the carriage, rounding to the other side of it, sounding somewhat distant now, said, "When you have the proof, call me. Until then...."

I watched him help the man get in the carriage. It was a horse drawn carriage, and it had to go over a swimming pool to get out. It was in the way, a small narrow swimming pool with brick along the edges, an outer row and a slightly sunken inner row. I watched as the driver slowly, carefully moved the carriage over it, the tall wheels going along on the slightly recessed row of bricks like it was on rails. I watched, fascinated.

Then as it neared the end it speeded up and turned to the left, the two wheels on its right going over empty space over the swimming pool, without any problem. The carriage continued on into the street, through the wide opening in the tall, black, iron fence, going away.

I turned and went back to the house, returning to my more normal appearance, for the dream figure. I went back into the house and resumed talking to my mother, hoping that when the scene replayed we could catch it and stop the thing from being stolen. The dog began to lay down train tracks from the couch, on little slabs that it joined together. The tracks went from the couch down onto the floor and turned towards the door, then going out the door and down the short steps immediately beyond it, onto the concrete front porch.

Dream - Grandpa and the violins

In May of 2007, probably around the middle of the month, I dreamed that I was driving through the south side of Phoenix, going east, probably a little south of Jefferson St. There was a lot of bare land, just dirt, to the right, the south. I went by or through some overpasses, underpasses and crossroads. For some reason I had been drinking (I don't drink) and a few miles ahead I was going to hit someone with my car and kill them. I somehow knew this was going to happen, like it was fated or had somehow happened before. Or perhaps I was informed by some presence or entity in the dream. I know there was someone I stopped and talked to. I continued on, but somehow never made it to where I was supposed to kill someone.

The dream seemed to skip ahead a few years, though I seem to remember at least some things happening in between. Years later, though, I was at another town, the place where the dead person's family lived. Grandpa, my mother's father, who has been dead about fifty years, got off a train, along with some other people who were with him. He looked thinner and seemed more energetic, but his hair was short and white instead of gray. He had several violins in their cases sitting around him, though not directly in front of him. There might have been six or seven. Although the person I killed had been dead for several years and presumably long buried, Grandpa felt that it was only right that since he was visiting the person's hometown that he should perform some kind of memorial service. He wasn't mad or judgmental, and seemed almost cheerful. More happened after that, but I don't remember what.

Dream - The levitating train

In March 2008, probably on the 22nd or 23rd, I had a dream about a levitating train. Another unusual thing was that I changed, partway through the dream, from a man into a woman.

In the dream, I had gone toward downtown Phoenix, on the south side, apparently walking. I thought something to myself about me doing this again, going to the south-side downtown Phoenix area, because I had done this so many times before, and the thought was almost one of exasperation. I had originally had some kind of purpose for doing this, but I don't remember what it was. It seems that I was going to meet someone, not there or even in that direction, but for some reason I was going there first. It also seems that I was going to meet some family members a little later, and they were going to somewhere in Tempe where we would meet, and that they had something to do with me going out now, though they didn't send me this direction or intend that I go this direction.

I didn't make it all the way to downtown Phoenix, but instead turned and started going back perhaps somewhere around 20th St. or a little past it. I don't think I went back exactly the same way I came, but turned south down a street and then started back east. I came to a big place on the south side of the street where trains went through going north-south and south-north. There were two huge bays that the trains went through, one for each direction, and something else on the east side of the bays but part of the same building, perhaps an area for maintenance. On the west side and attached was an enclosed structure where people worked and train tickets were purchased. The whole thing, including the bays, was roofed.

The trains were very tall, perhaps as much as three stories, and were very futuristic looking. Most of the height was apparently devoted to the engines and perhaps some for storage, with people riding at the very top. The trains did not have many cars, apparently three including the one the engineer and crew were in. The trains were kind of a semi-shiny gray metallic, the sides slanting out slightly toward the bottom and finally bulging out some the last few feet. The sides were largely blank except for some occasional slight indentations and protrusions that were generally in lines and sometimes, relatively rarely, even small slots. Up high, a row of small windows could be seen. One time I saw what was apparently an engineer leaning out of a larger window toward the front and talking to someone on the ground (actually on the concrete).

The trains came and went fairly swiftly for a while. Then a more extended break came, with a train in the west side bay and I think without a train in the east side one (the east-side trains went north and the west-side trains went south). I wandered around, thinking they probably didn't want me doing that but doing it anyway and hoping no one objected. I talked to a person or two on the way, apparently people who did maintenance and washed the trains. They seemed pleasant enough.

As I made my way back toward the street, I changed into a woman. Instead of being over six feet tall and a little overweight, I was now a lot smaller and slimmer and wore a dress, and had dark brown hair that was styled to curl around to the front a little and on the back of my neck. It seemed a smooth transition, though, and I didn't think it was too unusual. It just kind of faded in as I walked along, and with it came a happier feeling, a feeling of lightness.

As I went toward the street, I was getting kind of anxious to get away, I guess maybe to get back on my journey. I was talking to a few people, and some more were approaching, but none of them were very close, the closest perhaps ten feet away. I realized then that whole train complex was raised high above the street (though it wasn't originally), and the northwest corner I was heading toward was particularly high above the surrounding area, perhaps as much as fifteen to twenty feet.

I was still maybe five or six feet from the edge, and felt that I could just step or jump off the edge and land safely, perhaps even changing to a low glide across the pavement before touching down, but I also felt that if I tried to go over the edge it would upset the other people, who did not know I could do this and would be afraid I would get killed. I could picture them calling out, telling me not to do it, and rushing forward. Even now I could see that they were getting nervous, afraid for me. I edged away from the corner, going back to the south, staying several feet from the side. The people were still somewhat nervous and followed at a little distance, talking to me and me talking to them.

I went at a slight angle away from the edge, continuing south. I went past the train terminals a ways and met some other people (I think they were different ones than before). We talked and I saw, perhaps in my mind, a scene of one of the three-piece trains high in the sky, apparently on the edge of space. It looked ghostly, like it was made out of ice, and the cars kept rocking from side to side, the first and last cars going the same direction at the same time and the middle one going the opposite way. I felt that the appearance and the rocking was a normal effect of the engines, of the type of power used.

I was on a small high platform, then, with a barrier and railing around it. A few other people were with me. They were being taken north, back to the trains, on this moving platform. There was another platform with other people behind us, and perhaps more behind that. The platforms were on top of tower-like structures, probably square or rectangular in cross section, that were narrower than the platforms. We had gotten on the platform by going up stairs that were inside the tower-like structure.

I was laughing and talking about it finally coming true, about how we had ghost cars and ghost trains and ghost something else, referring to the train high in the sky (it was apparently normal for the trains to travel this way). The woman I was talking to was smiling and seeming to accept what I was saying, though I was wording it somewhat awkwardly.

The moving platform reached the place at the station to give or show the train tickets and get on the train, and two women were leaning out a double window opening toward us, to be shown or given the tickets. They had smiles on their faces and seemed to be very happy in their work, and I had the impression that they did a lot of chatting with each other while waiting for the platforms to bring the passengers. I explained to them that I wasn't going on the train, I was just talking to the other people while they took the ride (on the platform) over to the train. I said that I would just get off here. The women workers, though, smiling big and looking at each other and at me, said, through one of them, that I couldn't do that, that I had to take the platform back. I didn't want to do that, I would be going out of my way to go way back there, but it didn't seem that they were going to give in.

The platform had a tall railing that had flat panels on the sides except at the bottom, with three bars going down the sides to support the top rail and the panels. The platform was much narrower than it was long and the three bars were on one of the long sides, with a narrow side facing the worker women. The bars, which were formed of sheet metal and may have been square in cross-section, had different amounts of spacing and were widely spaced enough that I could slip through them.

I quickly slipped through the opening at the southeast corner, on the end away from the worker women. The bottom of the platform was perhaps eight feet above the pavement. I fell quickly and landed lightly, with my knees bending slightly as I hit and then quickly straightening. When I slipped through the bars I could hear the women workers going "Ohhhhh" and could sense them leaning over and looking at me, worrying. I stepped quickly away after landing, a little smile on my face, assuring everyone I was alright.

The platform behind us was starting to approach, though it wasn't too close yet. There was a man on it that I knew. Another person or two were on it as well, but I didn't get a good look at them. The man was leaning forward, looking out toward me and saying something. I don't think he was very concerned that I might be hurt, though he might have been a little surprised and I think maybe a little amused.