Dream - Cars and fake cars, rock displays and fountains, and barking, painted, seal-like creatures

On Friday, July 31, 2009, around 2:30-6:25 AM, I dreamed I was at some place a little like my old elementary school, and perhaps where the school is, though it and the surrounding area were a little different in the dream. I was in something like the multipurpose room, but it was laid out the other way, north-south, and was some kind of grocery store, an older style one, with simpler shelves and displays. It also sold other things, and had a long tall counter, with a few people behind it, along the east side of the room. I was there a long time, with someone else, perhaps two people. My mother might have been one of them, but someone else was also with me. I mostly wandered around the store by myself. There was some worry about rain and flooding, and it became important to leave soon.

A little later, not long before I left, I went to a wooden replica of a sports car, apparently a Lamborghini or Ferrari or something like that. It was made of two rough, somewhat splintery, light brownish orange wooden halves, put together around the bumper level or just above, so that it had an upper half and a lower half. It was nearly life-size. I pulled the halves apart, pulling the top one up some, doing it a time or two, then a little later started taking the top section apart in small splintery sections, though it had appeared to be carved from a single piece of wood. I was a little surprised that it was coming apart. The pieces almost seemed to be breaking/peeling off, but they were fairly regular in shape, like it was intended to be that way. I had been trying to show someone the car before we left, perhaps my mother, perhaps someone else, then I was outside trying to walk home.

I remember earlier going to the place, walking up there toward it in the dark, with someone with me, perhaps 15 or 20 feet to the right, and us talking some. It was still dark when I left. One or two people were out there with me, some distance away. We sometimes talked. I was trying to walk home through the neighborhood, but they wanted to go a different way and were in more of a hurry. They left, though I'm not sure they went together. I think one or more of them might have ultimately used a car.

I wandered back and forth a bit, without getting very far west. The houses were small with small yards, in rows that ran east-west. They got much smaller then, with the alley between them not even wide enough for any but the smallest cars. I started going west, then down a street that was almost aligned with the school, a little north of center. Things expanded again and the yards became huge.

Several houses down, on the left side of the street, I came across a small car parked there. I think it was initially empty, and I looked it over and fiddled with it some, even looking inside it and feeling things inside it and fiddling with them. Someone else was nearby and it was bothering them, and they were trying to talk me out of it. I don't know if the person was one of the people who had come with me or was one of the people who had been in the school/store. I think it bothered them that I was doing this to some stranger's car.

Then a young dark-haired woman, who long ago was one of my teachers, came out of the house to the left and got in the car. I'm not sure what school I knew her from, it could have been my elementary school or high school or even DeVry, where I went to college. Perhaps she was even a combination of some teachers. She got in the little car and fiddled with things, trying to get it ready to go and started up. She had a smile on her face and seemed only vaguely aware of me, then she talked to me about what she was doing in a somewhat absent minded way. She seemed to age a little after a few moments, perhaps becoming around thirty or in her mid thirties, and had a little bit of a hassled look, though she was still smiling. At this point she may have looked a little like Mr. Monk's dead wife, Trudy (from the "Monk" TV show), though with dark hair, but she still looked more like one of my teachers. She finally got everything like she wanted, I guess, and left.

I wandered off, going some to the west and then turning to the south and going through the neighborhood, partly between houses I think, getting to a minor cross street that looped up and ran north-south for a while before turning back to the west. I felt that some people were after me now, in a small way, maybe disturbed by my wandering around and through the neighborhood.

I came across an area that was more open, with wide spaces between buildings, which didn't always seem to be houses. I was going south still. Not far to the east, a little ways behind the buildings, the land went into a rounded slope heading down to a creek or ditch or canal. The land here seemed to be mostly rock, though some places had dirt. At least a couple of places had rock displays, flat, somewhat irregular rocks stacked on top of each other in a rough square, perhaps six or eight feet on a side and perhaps a couple of feet high. The displays had a few buildings between them and were to the back, with old, worn, colored walks leading back to them from the main walk that ran in front of the buildings. They were wet, either from rain or an associated small fountain or both. I think I went back to the first one and then back to the second. I started picking up some of the irregular decorative slabs, cleaning water off of them.

A young relative came up, perhaps a cousin, a teen-aged girl, and I talked with her about about the displays. She helped with cleaning the water off some. We weren't just wiping water off, a little bit of wet dirt and grit was also being wiped off. Then she went off somewhere, perhaps to a car to go somewhere else. I think she had originally came in a car with some other people, with someone else driving. The car was parked maybe one or two hundred feet away to the southwest, though I think it moved closer, more directly west.

A little later, a car pulled up beside and a little behind a building a couple of buildings back to the north, and one or two people got out to do something in the buildings. Some kids were left in the car, maybe with one or two adults. One of the kids pointed toward me and was saying, "Say, isn't that the person people were looking for?" After continuing a bit with it, the kid was finally able to get the adults' attention and the car came closer, I guess after the people in the building got back in, though I'm not sure all of them did.

Then a young woman in the car started throwing things at me, sometimes hitting the rocks and sometimes hitting me. I think one of them hit me on the left temple/cheek area. They seemed to be rags or paper towels that had been wadded up and dipped in a small can of white paint. It was drizzling rain too, and the paint was running off in thin diluted streaks. I started wiping it off the rocks. I recognized her as a former girlfriend, not of mine, but of the character I was now playing, which seemed separate from the real me. It seemed ironic that she was doing this. She obviously hadn't recognized me, and I wondered how long it would take until she did. The car came much closer, pulling up beside me perhaps only six to ten feet away, and she was still yelling at me and saying how she was going to contact the authorities, and was still throwing wadded, dipped in paint things at me and was about to throw another one, when the cousin came back and quickly went over to her and explained the situation and told her who I was. The woman stopped, then, looking at me a little uncertainly, but with recognition. We talked briefly, then, though I don't think I got too close to the car.

Then I went further east, to where the dark rock went in a sharp rounded slope downward. It was still drizzling rain. The slope turned almost vertical, then mostly flattened out, though it continued downward in a shallow irregular slope, apparently eventually leading to a lake or perhaps the sea. Beginning on the sharp slope, and in a huge mass on the more level area below it, were large, very fat gray seals or perhaps manatees (though they had seal-like heads). A small can of white paint had been thrown out on them, perhaps a more tan one, though I'm not sure. They were making almost continual barking sounds and moving their heads and upper bodies this way and that, sometimes moving to different positions, milling around a bit, and moving the small can from one animal to another with their noses, the can moving downhill from one animal to another but also going back and forth to the sides. A lot of the animals had white streaks of paint running down them, mixing with the rain. It finally seemed like almost all of them did. They were a protected species, whatever they were, and there was concern in the town about their welfare. I could even hear a distant discussion, people far away somewhere, closer to the downtown area I guess, talking about them. I hoped the paint was nontoxic and wouldn't hurt them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Dream - Riding in old experimental cars in Russia, drawn there through watching movie footage

On Monday, August 24, 2009, around 2:00-6:30 AM, I dreamed I was driving on large hills. It was cold and slushy, sometimes with damp, partially frozen slush covering part or most of the road, sometimes with tall ridges in the middle. Sometimes it was night and sometimes it seemed to be almost night or perhaps just before dawn. We had more than one car, two and maybe three. The person who was the Engineering Manager where I used to work was in one of them. He was having trouble with the build-up on the road, really worried about it, scared of it, particularly the ridges, some of which seemed about a foot high. I sometimes went over them, though I tried to maneuver the car so that a wheel was over them instead of the middle. This wasn't always possible though, the road sometimes curved some, plus I moved the car gradually back and forth looking for better parts of the road, plus sometimes a car would come from the other direction, and I couldn't always keep the ridge under my wheels. I couldn't move too quickly, too, because the car might lose traction. Although I thought the front of the car would scrape on the ridge, perhaps breaking or scraping off the top of the ridge if it wasn't too hard, the car went over the top of the ridge without any noticeable problem. I didn't even hear or feel scraping, except for perhaps for just a tiny bit initially, though the ridge should have been far too high to drive over without hitting it. Later, sometimes the Engineering Manager seemed to be in the car with me, in the passenger seat, cringing, and sometimes he wasn't, being instead in a car ahead or behind, sometimes far enough distant that it wasn't visible.

The slush and snow went on for a long time, with the road going through it, and sometimes up and down hills. The scenery initially, besides the large hills and the snow and slush, seemed to be dirt with low vegetation and some trees, not big ones. Later it was much the same. We eventually got to where it was apparently slightly warmer, and there was little or no slush. We were out far away from the cities, out in the wilderness somewhere, though even earlier we were on the edge of things.

Getting out to where there were small towns or settlements, we stopped somewhere to get something to eat. It was part restaurant, part convenience store. I think my father might have been there too, at that time. Perhaps he was with us later too, in a different car.

As we continued on, the hills got more gentle, more like slopes, and it was a little warmer and the land mostly dried out, becoming more dirt. We reached some place far out away from places. I think the roads were even dirt by then. Someone else showed up too, about the time we got there. It seemed we got involved with something, and I think I may have gotten somehow to Nevada, perhaps to someplace north of Fallon, though earlier it seemed to be in Arizona. I got involved in doing something there, though I'm not sure what now. This may have actually been the area with the restaurant/settlements, instead of someplace farther out, I'm not sure now.


I was made aware, though, of people filming a documentary in Russia, and Siberia, of cars being sent out with television cameras, filming as they drove, going through the countryside, day after day. The land was mostly empty, sometimes with vast areas of low, mostly green vegetation, usually on the long slopes. Sometimes the cars drove over large hills and even mountains, though.

I was drawn to watching the footage, taken from the cars as they drove. It tended to be night at first, though sometimes it seemed early morning, and it tended to be mostly overcast. Sometimes we saw or went through small towns or settlements, generally just a few buildings, with small widely scattered homes out in the countryside. I'm not sure I ever noticed the driver, maybe a glimpse of hands on the wheel. The camera was pointed to the front, sometimes looking toward the sides some.

I seemed to be there, watching the drive through Russia, from a camera in the car. It felt like I was a passenger, able to look out to the side as well as seeing the road ahead. I was in different cars at different times. We were away from the cities, in the countryside, which was almost entirely unpopulated. Sometimes I would see other cars. We went over mountains and up and down long slopes. It was cool in the car, tending toward cold. I could feel it. Outside the roads were wet, sometimes with a little snow or slush, especially higher up. It felt very peaceful, in the car, being driven, watching the scenery. It went on for a very long time. Sometimes my attention would go back to what I was doing, back where I really was, and I would do things there. Then after a while my attention would go back to the cars in Russia, perhaps being reminded of them by someone where I was, and I would be drawn back to them, and would be in one of them, again being driven along. I spent extremely long times there. It wasn't like watching scenes on television of it, this was the raw footage being shot, before it was condensed for the documentary. I was there in real time, while it was being shot, and the long drives went on forever, for hour after hour. I was aware of this while it was happening, that I was seeing the long version, and that what would be later shown would be specially selected clips from it.

Sometimes, especially toward the end, I would see secret weapons or machines, out in the open, just one at a time usually, with a few people associated with them. The machines tended to get more futuristic as time went on, but still with a primitive look. Most were apparently left over from the old days, but some were still being worked on in a small manner. They seemed to be mostly on the order of rocket or bullet shaped tanks or cars, armored, with rivets showing, with projections on the front that were apparently rockets or guns, some were bristling with them. They were now apparently considered only marginally secret, something on the order of curiosities, and a small amount of national pride seemed to be associated with them.

Later I went back mostly to doing things where I was, still sometimes drawn back for a little while to the cars in Russia, as they went driving along, filming. Some fantastic machines were showing up where I was, too, but these were more advanced, and manned, more disk-shaped with wheels, bristling with projections, going fast, very dynamic. They looked vaguely like the thing Han Solo drove in Star Wars, though more of a ground vehicle, but still able to fly and sometimes doing so. A few showed up, singly, at different times, clearly visible in the bright sunshine. One of the machines showed up at an underpass, out in the country, came up very rapidly and paused, there under the intersection and partly out, then zoomed on. A few other people were with me. We were concerned about them, but though they seemed vaguely threatening, they didn't seem to be really concerned about us. We seemed to be working on some kind of project, something to do I think with making preparations and fortifications against them, protections against them. We were doing other things too, roadwork and some kind of construction I think.


When I woke up, I was sitting in a chair in front of the computer, with the radio on, and it was cold, cold enough to feel chilled. It had rained a few days ago and the temperature had dropped, with highs in the 90s. Now, early in the morning, with the air conditioner (evaporative cooler) apparently still on, it felt too cool, and I wrapped the towel, that I had as a small substitute blanket, around my shoulders and felt warmer.

Dream - The house in the barren wilderness, the gate that wouldn't latch properly, the coming storm, and the former name of Gabriel Warlock Strange

On Saturday, July 25, 2009, around 4:00-7:30 AM, I dreamed I was going across a largely barren landscape, from one isolated bar to another. The bars were simply made, with furniture simply cut from a powdery dark wood, and straight simple small bars/counters. We stopped there for food, I think. We had started out from some house, I think, that was itself fairly isolated. The land was barren, a wasteland, partly flat dirt and partly extremely low sparse dark vegetation, apparently grass but looking more like some kind of moss. It was cool and overcast, dim, a feeling of bleakness was over things. The whole family was traveling, perhaps in more than one car.

We got to what was evidently something like a farmhouse, though I'm not sure there was really a farm. It was getting dark. We were going to leave there too, it was just a place we were stopping for a little while. Far out in the back, perhaps 80 to 100 feet away, near the corner of the fence, which was tall and made of spaced wood boards, like some country fences, though about six feet high, was a gate. Beyond the fence was more barren land, mostly flat like the rest of it.

The gate had to be latched properly, but it was difficult to get the latch to stay together. We had been out to it earlier and opened it, now I had to check on it to make sure it was staying closed. I found that it still wasn't closing properly. A little girl went out with me, perhaps 10 years old, a relative of some kind. She stayed back by the house, on the small back porch, watching me. It was fairly dark, with a light at the back of the house providing some illumination. We had to leave soon, a storm was moving in fast, and it was very windy. The wind was making it harder to secure the gate, and it kept moving back and forth. I had two sets of gloves, one a dark heavy rubber and one that was white and much lighter weight, and cloth. I had put on the white gloves to do it, but it bothered me because I should be using the heavy rubber gloves instead. There was some problem with them though, either I couldn't find them right away or couldn't get into them for some reason.

I was having a lot of trouble with the gate, and it was taking a lot longer than I hoped it might. The little girl sometimes called out to me from the small back porch, talking to me, and I yelled back replies. Finally, still working on the gate, I told her to tell my mother, who was in the house somewhere, that she needed to hurry up and get ready to leave, because we had to leave soon, before the storm came. I was hoping to outrun the storm, but we would have to move pretty fast because the storm was moving quickly.


The former name of Gabriel Warlock Strange / GabrielWarlockStrange, Charles Brian Smith, came up in the dream, either faintly spoken, like something carried on the wind, or as a faint thought, disconnected from what was happening, back when we were in one of the bars along the way. I was talking to a few people at the time, some of which may have been family members.

The dream had a lot more in it, particularly earlier, and some more along the way, but I don't remember what it was.


In real life, I had earlier been working on a post for my blog that had a gate near the end, "Vanquishing the beast", and the previous day had talked to my mother about our back gate, which had a problem with the latch and it looked like someone had tried to get in, since the board laying on the ground in front of it was pushed back in a small arc.

GabrielWarlockStrange, before his death, was a poster on the unknowncountry.com message board. He died on June 18, 2009, but at the time of the dream I had known about his death for less than two weeks. He had been in poor health for a long time, many years, and sometimes mentioned it in his posts.

Gabriel Warlock Strange was his real legal name, he had changed it to that. He dropped the spaces for his user name on the message board, and other users frequently abbreviated it further, mostly commonly to GWS.

I had another dream about him a few years before this one, in which I was wandering through a large multistory building and came across him busy at work building an elevator that would go into outer space. I suppose that could be interpreted as building an elevator to Heaven, but he had a 12 part theory of how the universe worked, that he sometimes talked about, so it may be related to that too.

There was also another dream with him in it, a couple of years or so before this one. It had robots and people with metal insides and strange demonic things and a ranch and a celebration and presents, as well as shopping at a grocery-drugstore.

In real life, he had been working on a time travel novel involving a couple of characters, an ape and a sentient computer that looked like a briefcase, that were running away, traveling from the future to the past. They arrived in our time, our present, and were getting into various situations with people here. He posted on the message board the part of it that he had written, and then posted more as he wrote it. Then he had computer problems, as well as increasing health problems, and had to borrow someone else's computer to make posts, which tended to be few in number and did not include more of the story. He had written some more of the story on paper, he said, and I think was looking for some way to get it scanned into the computer, but apparently never did so, and was unable to get it posted before he died.

Dream - I go to work for the last time, then step off into empty space, drifting through the air to the other side

On Friday, June 12, 2009, late in the morning, I dreamed I was taking a shower, in some kind of business area or maybe shopping center. It was in a very large shower stall, probably twice as big as normal, with heavily textured sliding glass doors, I think, very large ones. Other people were around, walking past, this way and that.

My slippers were outside the shower, but after a while I brought them in, I think because I was worried about leaving them out there, but I'm not sure. I was hoping they wouldn't get too wet in the shower, but they ended up getting more wet than I was comfortable with, and dark dirt was washing off them, from the soles I think. I put them back out of the shower, but then changed my mind and brought them back in. I was concerned now about the dirt, that once wet it could be a problem and come off and leave tracks, maybe get on the tops of the slippers too, so it had to be washed off even if they got a little wet. I was tired and sleepy, and everything seemed to be moving slow. It seems I might have even sat down or kneeled at some point, too tired to continue, wanting to rest for a while.

I was sitting down, putting the slippers on, and I still had to finish with my shower, when the shower room shrunk around me, and I became aware I was sitting in a car and had been taking a shower there, inside it. The windows were slightly fogged on the inside and damp, and sometimes seemed much taller and flatter than the windows on a normal car.

I seemed to be parked by the edge of a broad sidewalk that ran along the side of a mall. People were walking back and forth along it, but not great numbers of them. Ahead of me, at the far end where the mall turned a corner and went in front of me, a few more people were walking, and I saw what appeared to be a guard, an overweight person in blue pants and a light blue shirt, with some kind of tag sewed to his shirt. He was frowning in my direction and talking into a little handheld device.

I still hadn't finished my shower. I wanted to finish it, but decided I wouldn't be able to. It was not a good place to be taking a shower, and though most people just walked on by, sometimes looking at me, sometimes not, it seemed I was attracting enough attention to get the guard notified, or at least I assumed that might be the case. I couldn't be sure he was actually talking about me, but I couldn't take the chance that he wasn't. I was somehow now partly dressed though, wearing some odd pants and shirt that I wouldn't normally wear. They seemed soft and almost flannel-like.

Another guard was on the sidewalk not far from me, and seemed to be receiving communications from someone, maybe from the first guard, or it could have been relayed from someone else. I thought it might be about me but I didn't know, and he wasn't paying any attention to me. He was looking in the general direction of the first guard but not at him, more just a general look down the way of the sidewalk.

I got out of the car, which might have been the 1970 Cadillac, though it's hard to be sure, it seemed to have a darker interior and so might have been the 1987 Oldsmobile. I walked down the length of the shopping center toward the first guard, probably walking on the asphalt instead of the sidewalk. I went by him and through glass doors into the shopping center. I think he turned slightly my way, still frowning and talking into his radio, but didn't say anything to me.

Inside, there was a dimly lit room, large and seemingly open at the ends to the shopping center or to other rooms, like it was something set up in the aisle without any walls beyond what were already there. A few people were there at computer workstations on dark table-like surfaces. The computers were dark and oddly shaped, with extensions going up square pillars.

I went to my computer, my workstation, and the table that was my desk. The computer was separated into various odd components, it was made that way. It had a small flat screen mounted on the square pillar, with dark wires going down to odd dark little devices, then to more devices on the table. A few people were passing through the area, in both directions, and a few people were at the computers. It seemed sad and bittersweet. I had come back now, after I'd left, but it was really all over.

I tried to log out, but then I found that the keyboard was separated into several dark rectangular pieces, with a couple of them on the square pillar under the monitor, which was mounted high on it. None of the keyboards had many keys. "Oh, that again," I thought. There didn't seem to be nearly enough keys to do anything useful, and I didn't see how I could log out. It would be bad to leave it that way and have people find it like that in the morning. I looked at it, somewhat amused, and decided to just turn it off. As I reached toward a small dark button toward the upper right corner of a keyboard on the pillar, perhaps the second one away from the screen, I noticed that I had somehow managed to log out anyway. I saw the white letters on the black, DOS-like screen, saying so. I continued to reach for the button anyway, and pushed it with my fingers. I pushed two buttons, actually, as there were two grouped close together, and when I pushed the one I wanted I also partly caught the one beside it to the left. The computer immediately turned off, with maybe a small chirp, and the screen flashed and went dark.

I picked up my giant plastic space shuttle model, that I had in the dream. I didn't want to leave it behind. I wrapped my left arm around it, holding it next to my body, sometimes also holding the end with my right hand. The model was probably about five or six feet long. Some people were coming in for the next shift. I recognized some of them from Nevada. Some of them looked at me a little funny, but they didn't want to really look at me. They knew I was going away and would not be back.

I walked back out through the glass doors and found I was now on a tall concrete platform with a lot of stuff on it, some in big dark boxes. I was on the level of a second story. It seemed to be late afternoon, though earlier it had been more toward the middle of the day, maybe late morning. Water was running off the edge of the concrete platform, just little shallow puddles of it, making tiny streams and drips as it went over. Far below, a middle-aged woman stood a little to my left.

I decided to move to my left and step off and glide down, as I could sometimes do these things, though I was intending this time to somehow just step off and stretch my foot down, not really letting go until I was standing on something. The water increased, and was coming out from more places. A lot was coming out from under the boxes and stuff, so it was hard to see what was happening. There was just a narrow space left open along the front, with occasional breaks in the stacks of boxes and things, and it was hard to find a dry spot to step in. I tried to carefully swing around and move to the left, trying to step in a dry spot, and accidentally splashed some water out over the edge where the woman was. I looked and she had quickly moved off, going under the overhang I think. I wasn't sure if she was hit, she might have been but I hoped not. It couldn't be helped now anyway.

I stretched my right leg out far over the edge, hanging there in space, partly holding onto something, but I was so far out that I essentially made a commitment to it, it was too late to turn back now. I swung my leg slowly around, trying to find someplace to put it, but there was too much water now. Most of the platform had water pooled out on it, running off in shallow little streams and dribbles. I finally swung slowly farther and farther toward the other side of the platform, and went all the way over to the corner, where there were some small dry areas, but was still mostly covered by thin sheets of water slowly dribbling off of wet spots around them. I was probably still standing at least partly in wet areas. From there I looked out again on the sunken broken concrete far below me. It rose away in a very gentle slope to where it became level with the ground. On each side were rough, irregular dirt cliffs with thin, half-dead yellow-green grass and areas of broken concrete.

I swung my leg far out and drifted through the air, going across the open space very slowly, the broken concrete of the ramp passing slowly under me. It seemed like a slow, peaceful process. As I went, I looked for a place to land, finally deciding on the top of the dirt cliff on the far side, about halfway along the ramp. I found my brother there, looking much younger, a few feet from the edge. He seemed to be waiting for me.

Dream - At a large glowing building, after the breakdown of civilization

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, in the morning, I dreamed I was at the place where my elementary school is, but it was a big white scientific/hospital/research place/store that was very wide and several stories in some areas. It tended to be set back from the broad parking lot in steps, and on slightly higher ground. The inside tended to have a soft glow, even from the walls, and some of the objects even seemed to glow some, though some were darker. The building seemed to glow some too, as viewed from the outside, like light softly shining through slightly frosted glass. The building even had a glass-like appearance.

Some areas had books for sale or display, but they didn't look like normal books, in some places being indistinct, softly glowing, irregular somewhat flattened things, partly darkened, almost like books burned around the edges and softly glowing from within with pale light. They were mostly spaced some from each other too, setting out on long shallow glowing shelf structures with the book covers facing out, though in some cases they were a bit closer spaced and even with the spine outward. In one of the inner rooms they were behind counters, stacked more normally and looking closer to what books normally looked like, though still a little odd. I went in there a few times.

Something strange was going on, some kind of disturbance, though I think at least part of it was outside, in the outside world, and filtered through to affect what was happening in the building. It was some kind of strange disaster I think, and after a period of confusion where not much was controlled, some kind of repressive military-style control slowly settled in place, with black-dressed troopers searching for people who had committed offenses, and death was the punishment for stealing from the place, even for stealing small items. Earlier though, when the period of confusion was in effect, people did pretty much what they wanted, and there was a lot of stealing. I even came in and took a few things. It didn't seem all that important anymore not to, like things had broken down almost completely and civilization was falling apart, at least to some extent and for a while, though the people in the building maintained a little bit of control.

What I took was on the small side, a couple of things like flattened wadded heavy plastic, like the plastic used for inflatable toys. They were around the size of a closed billfold or a little smaller. I'm not sure what their function was. They were on the wall behind a counter in the area in front of a major entrance, in a recessed window-like area in the wall, which was white like most other places. The objects themselves were more of a gray-green. I carried them around for a long time, even hiding them temporarily in the building, in a place deeper in and to the right, that seemed partly a store and partly a huge bedroom, reminding me somehow of the master bedroom in my grandmother's house in Arizona, though many times its size and mostly white. I put them behind a counter there that was near the front of the room. Some books were on shelves there under the counter, arranged like books on shelves normally are. Some people were looking for me by that time, but only in a vague sort of way, not really knowing who they were looking for, just looking for someone who had taken things.

I also later got the things outside to the car. It was night. My brother was there also, and worried about me or us getting caught with it. He was also there earlier in the dream, when we were first going in the building I think, or one of the times, but we were separated most of the time from each other. Toward the end, I think I managed to get one of the things back in, to the counter near the front, and maybe put it behind the counter. I still had the other one, though, in the car I think.

There was some darkish rectangular thing mounted on a wall somewhere. It might have even been outside the building. It was maybe 15 inches high and 20 or 24 inches wide. It was smaller when I first saw it, maybe less than half that size, but it grew to the size of a desk mat, and looked much like one. It appeared to be just thin plastic, though, like the kind used in inflatable toys, and some parts were even thinner, even trash bag thinness.

I pulled off a long dark strip of it from a panel on the right end of it. The plastic I pulled off was very thin, almost like carbon paper. I was going to take it inside and try to represent it as the other item, maybe folding it up. It almost seemed like somehow it was at least akin to the missing item. We were outside now, near the car. My brother was nervous and didn't see how this was helping, and worried about me being seen doing it and being seen holding it. I was holding it up in front of me, with it hanging full length. The thing I had torn it off from was something that also belonged to the building, and so we could get into trouble for taking it, too, and even killed for it. A black garbed trooper carrying some kind of big gun in both hands was only around 15 feet away, and seemed interested in us, though only in a vaguely happily curious way. My brother kept worrying, though, about getting caught.

The dream was fairly long and had a strange feeling about it, a kind of peaceful dreaminess a lot of the time. More went on in it, but it's hard to grasp exactly what.

There seems a vague association with earlier dreams where I was outside in a broad area at night, with scattered little buildings or structures and I had to make my way from one side of the area to the other, or nearly so, sometimes going in the odd little buildings. Sometimes magic was involved in some way, and sometimes some kind of task had to be completed, sometimes that night, and sometimes people or beings were after me, and strange monsters, maybe even ogres or dragons, might be about.

Dream - The pickpocket

On Thursday, April 16, 2009, around 5:30-8:00 AM, I dreamed I was going back to a store, somewhere in the Phoenix area I guess, maybe toward Tempe. It was night, fairly late. I had been there not long ago, maybe hours or less, but had to go back. I guess I had gotten the wrong thing or missed getting something or had to talk to my mother about what I found, but whatever happened she wanted me to go back.

I was driving down a long, almost empty street, not going terribly fast. The street was fairly broad, but didn't have any markings, and seemed to be residential on one side, though a wall separated whatever was there from the street. The street was lit by occasional street lights. I think I was a little concerned about a police car possibly going by or even following me, as they sometimes seem to be looking for something to do late at night. It's possible one may have passed going the other way, but I'm not sure.

Far ahead, in a patch of darkness where a tree or bush hung out over the wall, there seemed to be something. I wondered if it was somebody on a bicycle. I slowly angled the car to move further away from the side. As I grew closer, I could see that it was someone on a bicycle. I don't think the person was aware of me until I was very close. I passed him or her at a wide distance.

I finally got to the store, which was a large low building on the left, with a cross street on the other side of it. I pulled off into a little lane that ran by the parking lot, with a low wall separating it from the parking lot, then turned right a short distance and then right again into the entrance to the parking lot. There were still cars there. There were a couple that I noticed in particular, near where I was going to park. They were parked facing toward the wall that ran by the little lane. One was some kind of Cadillac that had been modified to have a huge trunk that stuck way out, maybe ten feet or so. The car I was driving wasn't terribly large, maybe around the size of an Oldsmobile Delta 88, as they were in the late 1980s, or perhaps even a little smaller. However, it was growing smaller still, and as I swung it around to park near the entrance to the lot, actually holding onto the car and picking it up, the wheels ran over the long trunk of the Cadillac. I carelessly let it happen, being too tired to bother worrying about it I think, thinking that the car was too small to really hurt the Cadillac. Indeed, the wheels were now so small they could have been on a golf cart. I did start to worry now, though, that maybe it really did do something to the trunk, that maybe the metal was too weak and thin to withstand it. I went and looked closely at the trunk. It was a pale whitish green, with some variation in color. Though I feared there might be a slightly depressed track along it, and initially there seemed that there might be, I found that there was just a slight tread mark, a slightly dirty area where the tires had gone.

I put the car, which now had shrunk to just a small platform, on the edge of a broad raised area that was evidently part of a speed bump, near some other cars and almost behind one, and next to a small dumpster. The platform had two very long wooden poles attached, that I folded on hinges at their base, and put them along in front of the dumpster, where I thought they would be out of the way. I went inside the store, then.

It seemed to be a kind of hardware/home improvement store, at least the section of it that I was in. It may have had other things further on. There was a room in the front part, partly closed off from the rest of the store, that had particular things in it separated from the rest of the store by tall windows. It had big glass double doors on each end leading on into the rest of the store. On the end I went through, the one farthest from the road and closest to the entrance to the parking lot, the doors led through into a broad hallway that ran along the side of the building for a distance. On the right, doors opened into rooms where various things were being taught. Some kind of how-to type of instruction, I thought, though I think classes of a community service nature were also taught, I supposed. I wanted to get past this area, to where I could access the main part of the store. A few people were in the hallway. As I walked along, I could see some people in the rooms through partly open doors. Some of them looked back.

Then suddenly a short man, with a somewhat frantic look on his face, rushed up behind me and started rapidly patting my back pockets all over. I quickly drew away from him, feeling my back pockets myself, trying to see if my wallet was still there. The pockets seemed enormous, much wider than normal, and at first there didn't seem to be anything in them. I was quickly feeling along the outside, and there just seemed to be me underneath. Getting further back, though, I finally found the wallet, much smaller than normal, half-sized really, practically lost in the huge pocket. Already half-turned from him, I turned more and threw him back, away from me. He looked at me, his arms partly sticking out at the sides, standing with his legs apart and his knees bent a little, looking uncertain and kind of guilty, maybe about six to eight feet away from me. I turned and was walking away, when he rushed me again and was again frantically feeling my back pockets. I again threw him off me and again checked to be sure my wallet was still there, and started loudly calling out for guards, for security people to come, that the man was trying to rob me. Some people came and held him, and looked at me in a calm and reassuring way, saying that they would take care of him.

It turned out, though, that he had been in one of the classes, something about protecting yourself from theft, and he had been assigned by the teacher to go out and do to people what he had done to me, I guess to see how it was when real thieves did it. He didn't seem to be very good at the job, it seemed to me, as normally those people are much more careful, and don't want their victims to know they are being robbed.

I went into one of the classes then, in one of the little rooms, being directed there by the guards I think, and listened to the teacher talk about something for a while. I don't remember now what he was saying. He sat on the edge of a tall chair or stool, while the rest of us had smaller, normal size chairs. I think they were of light colored wood, like school chairs. I wanted to finish this up and go on to what I had been doing. I wasn't intending to stay for the whole thing, just enough to get through the particular thing he was talking about, and then leave.

Dream - Racing along a high, icy road

On Wednesday, April 15, 2009, probably somewhere in the 1:00-5:00 AM area, I dreamed I was driving in Nevada. It was night. I think it was just getting dark when I was setting out. I think my father was with me, also. I was going from Fallon north to gradually increasing elevation, then turning right. There was only one way back from here though, and one lane, not even a lane going here. The lane going back was already clogged with cars, all the way to the road I was on. I couldn't see what the problem was. I went past it to the other side of town. The whole thing was just a thinly developed area with scattered homes and businesses, but there wasn't any other way back. I was concerned about the time, that it would take too long, and I might not get back in time. I may have been concerned about going to work. I continued driving around, then somehow I did get back, at least in a way.

Then I was headed from Fallon, I think, but on the other side of it, going south, and had gotten past or to the first mountain, then I think I was heading back, going with some other cars down a mountain across a broad valley heading to another mountain. There was some kind of problem with the road I think, and maybe police cars waiting further on, that even came this way checking on the cars. There was a backup of cars even here.

Then I seemed to be much farther away, looking at the road from the air and the car going along it. The road was raised high above the ground on a narrow man-made ridge, and the whole area was covered with snow. The road had hardly any cars, and they were very widely separated, with long stretches between them. I saw the car I was in racing along the road, along the narrow snowy icy ridge high above the surrounding land, between mountains and heading toward the next one, and thought how dangerous it was, and how lucky I had been not to get into an accident.

Dream - The woman with the wooden station wagon

On Tuesday, September 15, 2009, in the morning, possibly very early in the morning, I dreamed I was driving in Nevada in the Fallon area in the dark, later driving in the rural outskirts to the south with a few other people. Someone with me, a girl I think, wanted us to sing an old Sonny and Cher song, but with vulgar language added. I didn't sing the vulgar language, though. There was something earlier about going to a room or rooms I was staying at too, and other things, maybe a car lot or junkyard. I think my father was there at times too and maybe my mother. I think it was a fairly long dream, generally pleasant.

Then I was in a big house with big some rooms. Two very large, very long tables had been set up, almost filling portions of two rooms. The tables were covered with various food dishes, fairly simple ones, mostly in plates or shallow bowls. The tables themselves were dark and simple. My aunt, my mother's sister, was there, and I think my mother and younger sister, and possibly my brother. I was trying to find something that my aunt would eat, making various suggestions. I think I found something like soft pretzel sticks and something else, and then a little later some small bananas, then I left to go home. The place was some distance from it.

I had gotten paid now and it was easier to buy things. I was going to get gas and pick up some more groceries. I bought a bunch of groceries at the service station, a paper sack of them. I was tired and operating mostly on nervous energy. I quickly threw a bunch of things in the sack, sweet rolls and maybe some more bananas and some other things, maybe some kind of meat too. I saw a loaf of Rainbow bread, but it had a small tear in the bag. I examined it closely and worried about it a bit, but decided to go ahead and get it. I intended to go to a real store later, but I wanted to pick up a bunch of stuff to keep us going for now. I was very tired. I took it to the counter and paid for it, then went back to the car. I had parked it at the pumps without thinking, since I normally get gas, but I just wanted to grab some groceries this time. I had stopped and looked back at it, but decided to just leave it, and hurry up and get the groceries. I felt bad about blocking the pump and hoped they wouldn't be too mad. I was too tired to get back in and repark it somewhere. It seems I did take the groceries home, and my mother and some other people were there. She was glad to see me, but then I left again and went to a different service station, somewhere in Phoenix. It seemed I was getting gas this time. It was a small station.

When I got back to my car, I saw a woman at a nearby pump who had a wooden car. It was large and boxy and very simple. It sat high off the ground on wooden 2 by 4 inch boards that acted as legs. At first they didn't seem to have wheels, but later I saw tiny dark rollers under them. The car was roughly a tall station wagon configuration with a short hood. It was mostly empty inside. The seats were just a wooden platform. It didn't seem to have an engine. Though sometimes it did seem to go under it's own power, other times it used foot power. I started talking to the woman a bit. She got finished and went to get in her car, and asked if I wanted to go with her. I finally decided to get in. I noticed a police car a little ahead and to the left, at another pump, and worried about it a bit. The car didn't have any seat belts, and he might decide to give us a ticket for that. The car was kind of odd, and potentially noticeable because of that, but since it was obviously a homemade thing I hoped he would give us some slack. He came back to his car and finished up, and mostly seemed to ignore us. The woman kept talking in a somewhat tired, matter of fact way about various things.

We started going and pulled out onto the street. I was sitting at what would normally be the driver's area, and she was on the passenger side, but she did most of the driving, though at some point she suggested I take over, and I drove from where I was without having to move. At some point she joked about having taken a Republican position on something, and hoped I wasn't mad about that. She was apparently a Democrat, though. We eventually got to a house somewhere, apparently hers, but then started to pull out in the street and leave again. It was morning now, though it was night when we started, and the light was still fairly dim. She was driving now, and was driving earlier when we got here I believe. I was still worried about getting stopped by the police, this time more because the car was so odd, and they might think it didn't meet regulations and was somehow unsafe. A police car was starting to come by at the left, as we waited to pull out onto the street.

The dream faded into multiple scenarios then, with us getting stopped by that car or another one, and the officer calling in and asking about it, and another car coming in from the other direction, and another officer on the radio saying that he had stopped some other car that was similarly odd at an earlier time, and the judge threw the case out, so it probably wasn't worth getting involved in, to just let it go.

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 - After the collapse of civilization, a group of people live in an indoor mall

On Wednesday, March 25, 2009, around 9:10-11:00 PM, I dreamed I was in a large dark indoor mall, sometime after the collapse of civilization. People lived in the dark aisles of the mall and in the shops. There was a small controlling government in the mall, and another one somewhere outside in the woods. The government in the mall was very repressive. There was a strict curfew with guards patrolling in the dark with dogs, and the doors were locked and guarded to prevent people from leaving and to prevent anyone from getting in. If someone did get back in they were shot.

One time a young girl, maybe ten or twelve, managed to escape one night. She made it to the door at the end of the mall aisle, after the aisle had turned a corner, and found the door ajar with no one guarding it. Someone had gotten out before her and it hadn't yet been discovered. She went out through it. There was someone she wanted to see in the woods, a boyfriend I think. She wanted to leave the group, at least eventually, and go away with him. She managed to get back before the door was discovered, and cautiously and swiftly made her way along in the dark, keeping close to the shops. She had almost made it back to the main camp in the aisle when she was discovered. A guard found her and turned his flashlight on her. It was assumed that she had only broken the curfew. I tried to help her out a little, shining a light behind her, and saw a large dark-colored dog a few feet away, slowly sniffing its way toward her. Evidently it had been following her for a while.

The man who was the leader took her with him to one of the shops, where a particular group of people were staying. He said that she would be all right, that she needed some people to take care of her and these would do it, that nothing bad would happen to her. He went back then to where he was staying in the aisle, and was listening to a device that had something similar to a telephone headset but smaller, maybe like a radio set. He had it to one ear while listening to a young woman tell stories to him, like he did every night. I thought the voice on the headset, which was that of a young girl crying out in pain and fear and the faint sound of blows and other voices, sounded very much like the voice of the girl that had just been taken away, and I also realized that it sounded very much like the voice of the young woman who told him stories each night, only the woman's voice, because she was a little older, was smoother and a little deeper. I wondered if the young girl had somehow been brought forward through time and was now being tortured, despite what the man had said.

A few hours later, toward morning, I wandered back toward the shop where the young girl had been taken, feeling a little guilty about it and wondering if she was alright. The leader or someone sent by him came to me and showed me the store window, where I could see what looked something like her along with a bunch of other people, though I couldn't be sure it was really her no matter how hard I concentrated. She started doing a dance with the other people, a big ensemble affair, showing what she had learned and how happy she was. It looked odd sometimes, and sometimes the movements seemed jerky and the figures not quiet real, like animated puppets. I wondered, too, whether I was actually seeing through the glass or if something was being projected on the glass from the other side, and that they might be trying to disguise what had really happened to the girl. The shop window to the right side of it was doing something similar, with people dancing, though with different people or a different dance. I was shown other shop windows on the other side of the aisle, where similar things were happening, though with fewer people shown. I wondered if I should try to go in the room and look for myself to see if she was alright, but was afraid of what might happen, and was unsure if I could do anything to help the situation.

More happened earlier in the dream, but I don't remember it. (I had earlier been watching the TV show "Lost.")

Two, two, two comic books in one!

In late 1965, when I was in the seventh grade, we moved back to Missouri for what turned out to be less than a year, initially staying at my grandmother's farm, then moving to a house in town sometime during the winter.

In the spring or summer of 1966, I walked to the store and bought some comics. When I was reading one of them, I eventually became bothered by the cover. It just felt too thick, but it was just the cover; it didn't have any of the pages stuck to it. I kept coming back to it though, it just didn't feel right. I finally managed to separate it. There was an extra page there, but it was shiny like the cover, and was in fact the cover. For some reason they had put two covers on this issue. The comic book was a special issue, maybe an annual, and was thicker than normal, with square binding. The cover wasn't stapled on, just glued. However, the outer cover wasn't glued, and I was able to get it entirely off. I now had a comic with two covers, and the outer cover could be put back on again and look like it belonged there.

I decided to use the comic for a magic trick. I came upon my mother out on the sidewalk in front of the house, I think I just happened to find her out there. She may have just driven back from somewhere, or was perhaps about to drive somewhere. I stood a little ways in front of her, talking to her and showing her the comic, and saying that I was going to do a magic trick. Although she acknowledged what I said, she was busy happily talking to me about something, going on and on, animatedly waving her hands some.

Holding the comic in front of me, I turned around and pulled the extra cover off while I was facing away from her. I continued turning around, not pausing at all, though maybe slowing slightly. When I was facing her again I was holding what seemed to be two identical comics. I said that I have two comics, and I turned around again, this time slipping the extra cover back on. When I was again facing her, I was just holding one comic, and I said I had one comic. My mother glanced at it but kept on talking. I turned around again, and when I was again facing her I was again holding up what appeared to be two comics, and again I said that I had two comics. She may have glanced slightly at it, but kept on talking. I turned around again, doing the trick again, and kept on doing it, over and over, showing one comic and then two, and then one and then two, etc., while she kept on talking.

Suddenly she stopped and looked down at the comics, saying, "How did you do that?" I explained it to her, after which she seemed to get distracted again, and went back to talking about other things, a continuation of what she was saying earlier to some extent, though with more added. She was talking slower now, though, with pauses, and seemed somewhat distracted, her eyes for the most part not looking at me, but up and past me, a smile still on her face as she talked. After a while she said she had to go now, and I think said something about my father and getting supper ready and something about doing something with the girls, my little sisters.

I was a little disappointed that she didn't pay more attention to my trick, but at least she did finally notice it. I understood that she was busy, though, and had other things on her mind. At the same time, what she was saying was interesting, and I would have normally wanted to hear it, but I was distracted by trying to show her my trick, and while I also tried to listen to what she was saying, I was not able to give it the proper attention, the attention that it deserved, and I ended up being also disappointed by that. I should have let her go ahead and talk first, then showed her the trick, but I was too impatient.

I did the trick for at least one of my sisters, too, and my brother, at different times, so I got some more use out of it. They didn't have big reactions to it, mostly just looking at it, without saying much. I think at least one of my sisters looked at it for quite a while, without saying anything, and I finally showed her how I was doing it, after which she still didn't say much. She was pretty little, though. My brother just glanced at it, and talked a little then about something else, and I shortly thereafter explained it to him. Everyone that I showed the trick to, I also showed how it was done.


(The title of this post comes from the old Certs TV commercial, where two people argue over whether it is a breath mint or a candy mint, with the announcer finally saying that it's "Two, two, two mints in one!")

The house on the highway, Part 6 - Some things I missed

These are some more memories about my grandparents' farm in north-central Missouri, the house on the highway, three miles from town.

The house had light gray slate shingles on the outside walls, with faint grooves in a wood grain pattern. One time Uncle Doc was standing near the house talking to someone. I was bored and looking at the shingles, and I saw one that had broken, at an angle, the split going from the top near one side and slanting toward that side. It was completely broken through, but it had enough nails that it was still hanging more or less normally. I finally pointed it out to Uncle Doc, who looked at it and felt the shingle with one hand, saying a sentence or two to me briefly, but soon went back to talking to the other man, while still holding the shingle and feeling it and sometimes looking at it.

Inside, the house had ceiling tiles with patterns that I sometimes formed pictures with in my mind, including a picture of an old woman. The smear or bump patterns in the plaster of the walls could sometimes be used to form pictures too. It was primarily in the 1960s that I did this.

I was told by my mother that my grandfather liked to get up early and try to light the gas stove, maybe to make some coffee, I'm not sure now. He would turn on the gas and then look for a match. When he then tried to light the stove, the accumulated gas would go off in a small explosion. The others would hear the noise and come in and find him standing there with a surprised expression on his face.

One time we were eating over at the farm again, having supper I think. It was after we had moved, probably away from Missouri and not just to town, but were visiting again. My mother was somewhere else for the moment, in town somewhere, maybe at a store. She had left us there for several hours, so we could visit. Considering that she was gone for hours, it sounds like it might have been the time when we had briefly moved back to Missouri, and had a house in town then, which would make it 1966. In my mind it feels more like the early 1960s, but I guess it could have been slightly later. Now, at supper, I had a big plate of food and was eating it rapidly, and my grandmother remarked on how fast I was eating, and said something about not wanting me to choke. I ate for a little more, but slowed down and gradually stopped, becoming afraid to eat. I think I managed to eat a little more, stuff that was more without objects, like mashed potatoes, but I think I even stopped that after a while. When my mother came back, I was still sitting there. I think some of the others, my brother and sisters, might still have been there too, but by that time they were either finished or getting close to it. My mother came in looking happy, but soon asked what was wrong, based on my reactions and sitting there looking worried and sad with a big plate of partly eaten food in front of me. My grandmother told her briefly about it, and I said something or other regarding it. I worried, too, about it being permanent, and whether I could somehow get over it. I did manage to eat food again, though I'm not sure it was that same day. Eating wasn't something I could expect to avoid for very long, and I knew I had to do it again even if I wasn't comfortable with it right now. I hoped the fear would somehow fade away, though I worried about the time that would take, picturing weeks without food, though I knew that couldn't happen, that my parents would make me eat at some point, would insist that I do it, and I would in any case have to eat. The immediacy of the fear had faded some by bedtime, though the worry remained, even as I tried to sleep. The next day it was distant enough that I could force myself to eat, and the fear had begun to seem kind of stupid, that I should be afraid of choking so much, but it was still there, nagging at me. I still worried about choking for a long time, weeks, and even longer, and ate kind of slowly and carefully, not enjoying it as much as I used to.

One time when we had gone back to the farm, it seems like it was one of the times we went back there for a month in the late summer, in the early 1960s, a dog had killed a chicken that had gotten out. It was far out in one of the fields, on the side toward town. The chicken had been chewed open, and I saw a circle of eggs in formation, buds on stalks, the buds getting bigger as the array of them progressed through the circle, approaching the size when it would be time to be laid. It was interesting to see. I didn't know it had a structure like that inside it. The farmhands were going to take the chicken away and dispose of it, because the dog might choke on it, might choke on one of the chicken bones.

Most of the windows in the house had old, cranky, sometimes brittle at the edges paper shades that rolled up, as well as large Venetian blinds, and curtains too.

One time one of the babies, one of my sisters, was rolling over and over, heading for the edge of the bed, apparently because someone had sat down and tilted the mattress, and my grandmother quickly caught her, scooping her up. Years earlier it had happened to another baby, and someone else had caught him or her. The last one it happened to was my littlest sister, one of the times we had come back there from Arizona. It seems there was also someone that tried to roll off a couch in the living room, and someone caught him or her, and there was someone who managed to roll off the couch and didn't get caught, maybe my littlest sister again. She cried after landing on the rug or carpet, but seemed alright.

One time, when I was little, I was waiting with my brother for my mother to come back. We were standing in our cribs, in our bedroom at the farm. We called for her off and on for a long time, but she didn't show up. We were supposed to stay in our cribs and not climb out, because we might get hurt. She or another adult was supposed to lift us out. She didn't show up this time, though. My brother and I talked to each other a bit and sometimes tried calling for her again. He finally got disgusted and said he wasn't going to wait anymore, and started to climb out. I begged him not to, and said that we were supposed to stay in the cribs, but he said it was too long and he wasn't going to wait anymore, talking disgustingly about her leaving us in the cribs and not coming. She finally showed up, sometime after my brother had left the room. She looked really surprised and somewhat dismayed.

A family lived nearby on the other side of the road, a little closer to town, and we sometimes went over there and visited. The adults would talk, sometimes going inside, and my brother and I would usually stay outside and play with the kids there. Sometimes an adult or two would join in. One time we were playing baseball and a window got broken, I think from a ball I hit. The adults came pouring out of the house to see what happened, and the game broke up after that.

When my brother and I were very little, we had little red winter coats with strange interlocking metal buckles that my mother would have to fasten for us. The buckles were basically loops with a flat end with corners, then short sides, and then the metal would go into the cloth strap. They somehow hooked into each other, turning until one fit inside the other, then it would be pulled tight. I had trouble figuring it out, and it seemed to go together the wrong way and stick out or not stay together at all.

When I was little, maybe around four or five or so, I had a shirt with colored Autumn leaves sown into it, made out of thread. That was my favorite shirt, the shirt with the colored leaves. I would sometimes wear it for a short time years later, when I was much too big for it. My mother finally cautioned me not to put it on anymore, that I might tear it. We could keep it and look at it, she said, but I shouldn't wear it. I also had a second one with sown-in-thread Autumn leaves, that I was given several years after the first. It was significantly larger, and I also sometimes tried to wear that even after I had gotten too big for it, but also eventually gave up on it. The second shirt was nice, but it was not as good looking as the first, and the first was always my favorite anyway.

When my little brother was very little, he got trapped in the bathroom at the farm one time. It had some kind of slide latch and he was too small to use it, he could barely reach it. He didn't usually try to lock it, but this time he did. He couldn't unlock it though, and he was trapped in there. My mother was at the door, and my grandmother. They were listening, trying to hear him, and they were trying to tell him how to open it, my mother doing most of the talking I think. I asked what was happening and my mother told me. I tried to help too, telling him what to do in a loud voice. We were at it for a long time. He finally somehow got it open, the door just suddenly opened and he was there. He later claimed that he could always get out, which didn't make sense to me. He gave a reason of some kind for not opening the door, but I don't remember it. The door also had an old-time style key hole, made for an old-fashioned key, the kind with a long rod with a metal flap on the end, but we never used it, and I don't think we even had a key for that door. Other doors also used that type of key, but I think the front door might have had a more modern lock. The one toward the highway might have had a more modern lock too, but I think it also had an inside slide latch.

By the time my brother was born, when I was a year and five months old, I had already felt like I had lived a long time, and done many things, and played a lot with my mother. It felt like I had only come into a proper awareness of things a few months before, though, that before that things were dimmer, and much simpler, and while I had a lot of fun then, it was more like living in the moment, now I felt very grown up. The few months figure seems an odd thing for a very little kid to be thinking, but somehow that's how I formed the image in my mind, of a block of time that I thought of as months, going back into the previous fall, perhaps to around the beginning of fall. I didn't really think of the seasons too much, I just pictured how things were those times of the year, and thought mainly in terms of months, and the approximate time of year the transition occurred, a few months before the end of the year, and my brother being born not long after the end of the year, relatively close in time to it. Winter was pictured as a time of darkness, and cold outside, but the transition was before that, at a time when it was cooler than before, sometimes cold, and the light dimmer, but it could still be pleasant, the weather could still be nice. One of the times I was thinking about this was the time when my brother, when he was just a baby, had thrown his baby brush out of the crib and broken the handle off it. I was worrying about it, and my mother finally said that he didn't care, that he was just a baby. I said that I knew that, but when he got older, and could care, he wouldn't have a baby brush. I was also thinking at the time, doesn't she know I know this, I'm old now and I can understand these things, I'm not a baby anymore, and I went back through it in my mind, back to the time the transition occurred and what things were like before that.

My mother used to talk of how she had told me that I had to give up the baby bottles so my brother could use them, and about how nice I was to do it, and I think even how brave. I remember the discussions about it, but just a little. I also remember being saddened that I had to give them up, but understanding that I had to, that my little brother needed them now, and I was getting grown up enough that I didn't really need them anymore, which was her argument. My brother was still using them when we moved into the house in town, which would definitely put our move there, I would think, as no later than 1956, probably spring, summer or fall, which would put me as either nearly three or just barely three. She finally got him to stop using the bottle by cutting too big a hole in the nipple, and it ran out on him when he tried to use it. She said he looked very surprised.

One time after my sister was born, in 1960, we were at the farm and I was out in the front yard one evening, far from the house. My father was out there with me, smoking a cigarette. He was unusually thoughtful, and said that girls were different and had to be treated gently and protected, something like that. He told me to remember it, and asked me if I would remember it five years from now. I said yes. He pressed me on it, turning toward me and asking if I would, looking hopeful. I said yes, hoping that I would remember. It seemed a long time away, but I was going to have to try to do it, to try really hard to be sure and remember. It seemed like a lot of pressure to put on a little kid. (The weather was pleasant, so that would place it several months after she was born, maybe even over half a year.)

One time, in the 1950s or early 60s, we found a baby mouse and kept it in the bathtub for a while, but it only lived about a day. It was very cute.

One time in the early 1960s, we, or more probably I, made some small holes in one of the big trees that ran beside the farm house, by swinging a garden tool into the trunk. Charley, the old farmhand, was upset and yelled at us, saying the sap would run out and the tree would die. He was a very little old man then, and we were bigger and a lot heavier than he was, or at least I was a lot bigger. He was very skinny, though, and we were tall for our ages, and overweight. It seemed a little odd for it to be that way, for him to seem so small, though of course we were just children and he was an adult, so he had the authority, and of course I liked him and didn't want to upset him. It bothered me that he thought that the tree would die, though, even if I couldn't see how what I had done could really do it. I later mentioned what had happened to my mother, and she said the tree wouldn't die, he was just old and worried about things, that sometimes old people did that.

Sometimes, on rare occasions, a young woman, a cousin, drove up and parked at the edge of the driveway by the farm house. She was friendly, but spent most of her time with the adults.

One time my aunt, my mother's younger sister, gave me a big metal airplane with wings that were separate from it, they were in one piece and had to be put up into a big metal slot in the bottom and secured by a metal tab or two that had to be swiveled into place. In later years it got so loose that the wings kept slipping out, and it became hard to get it to stay together, but I still liked it. She had gotten the plane when she had been in a different city, maybe St. Louis.

One of the toys I had was a sheet metal waiter, perhaps 8-10 inches tall, dressed in fancy clothes and carrying a tray held far in front of him, with a cloth draped over his arm, with him leaning out, in mid stride. He had little wheels on his feet that made noise when turned, and I think gave off sparks, unless I am thinking of a different toy. He wasn't able to stand on his own though, though it seemed he might have been intended to. There was also a toy that was a little metal tank that had a flat metal Superman under it. That tank also had little wheels, and if you pushed the tank ahead Superman was supposed to rise up under it and lift the tank, his hands and maybe head were attached to it with a simple hinge. It sometimes needed a little help to work though, and didn't always lift up all the way. We had lots of metal toys, including a big top that made a humming sound when spun. It was spun by pumping a twisted metal rod that went through the top of it. We also had a lot of simple toys made out of wood. Later, toward the end of the 1950s, we started to get more and more toys made out of plastic. They seemed odd things. Some of them were little simple planes with little propellers snapped onto the wings. The ends of the propellers were flexible enough to bend some, and sometimes I even took them off and put them back on. It seemed a very strange material.

I had a piggy bank that I was carrying one time. I took it from the living room area into one of the bedrooms. I was bent over, my hands on the sides and underneath it, the piggy bank hanging down quite a ways. It was large and heavy and hard to hold onto. I had been talking to my mother and brother back in the living room, and as I was slowly walking through the bedroom, still talking, and my brother perhaps having come with me, suddenly the piggy bank slipped out of my grasp and fell on the floor, and completely shattered, a lot of it turning to powder. I felt very bad about it and felt very guilty, that I was too old and shouldn't have had that happen, that I had failed, though I was still in actuality pretty little.

My brother and I each had little red scooters made out of heavy sheet metal. We would stand on them and push them along with one foot. It was a lot of fun. One time one of them was left out in the gravel driveway and someone drove over it. My mother told us about it and scolded us a bit. It was bent up pretty badly. My father tried to straighten it out some, but it was still pretty bent. It was harder to use that way, not as much fun. The tiny straight handlebars were even bent to one side. There was no way to know whose it actually was. I think we both ended up using the remaining one more often and using the bent one only when the other was not available, and then not for very long. We still have it, though.

We had a big rocker that my father's brother had made for us. It had plywood sides cut to look like a duck, or perhaps a swan, and a wood seat between them, within kind of a box-shaped seating area. It was painted white, and because of the curved shape of the bottom of the sides, it could be rocked back and forth when sat in. It also had some detail of the face and feathers painted in. It was only big enough for one person at a time, and I think may have been made specifically as a present for me, perhaps at a time when my brother may have been too little for it. I think it was generally kept outdoors, in the yard.


The house on the highway, Part 1
The house on the highway, Part 2
The house on the highway, Part 3
The house on the highway, Part 4
The house on the highway, Part 5