Tuesday’s Wandering Thought
A coffee shop barista approached me as I sat typing. He was wearing a hat, sunglasses, and jacket and had served me just a few minutes before. Smiling big, he said, “Howdy, buddy.”
I stared at him in confusion. “Hey. What’s going on?”
Grinning, he removed his sunglasses and hat. “We were asked to dress up like our favorite customers for Halloween. I chose you.”
Bursting out laughing, I took in he outfit. “Spot on,” I said. “That’s cool. Thanks.” Then I laughed more.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
Here we go. Thursday ends in a y, so it must be time for me to rant.
Subject: Are more people running red lights?
It seemed like that was rare for me to witness anywhere outside of Japan, which was over thirty years ago. I’d see one sometimes in the Bay area, especially in San Jose.
Now, here in little Ashland, I typically witness two cars or more a day running red lights. I rarely if ever saw them before the COVID era began. Now they’re increasing. While some are people turning left across traffic and waiting for an opening that doesn’t come until the light changes, the huge percentage are going straight, speeding up to hurtle through an intersection before the light goes red.
They often don’t make it. People get the green light and begin to go and then, here comes the red light runner, forcing everyone with the green light and right of way to slam on their brakes. I often witness very close calls between vehicles, or the speeding vehicle and cyclists or passengers.
It reminds me of the one crash I saw when someone ran the redlight.
This was around 1997. We were living in Mountain View, California, and had decided to go to the Mall of America in Milpitas. Stopped at a traffic light, I realized I needed to be in the lane to the right. Only one car inhabited it, so I thought I’d delay until they went and then shift over.
The light changed. The car in the next lane started off. I followed.
Suddenly, here comes a Cadillac sedan. Running the light from my left, they slammed into the driver’s side of the first car.
That could’ve easily been me.
We went right, around the block, coming back to check on the cars. Took a few minutes and by the time we arrived, the cops were there and the people from the crash were in a parking lot. But my wife and I stopped anyway, to share what we witnessed, and to check on the people.
As we approached, we heard the young female driver whose car was hit say with heavy sobbing, “I thought the light had changed.” On the parking lot’s other side, an old man paced while an elderly woman fumed beside him, arms crossed, lips tight.
I immediately said to the young driver, “It had changed. I was there. It was green when you went.”
The cops looked at me and asked who I was. I explained it all. My wife and I verified, the light was absolutely green when the woman went forward.
I heard the fuming woman say, “You’re always doing this. I knew this was going to happen.” As I looked her way, she finished to the old man, “You’re lucky you haven’t killed someone yet, but you will, if you don’t change.”
Watching these people taking greater and greater risk, I often now think the same thing which that woman said that day.
White Corvette Dream
The dream began when my wife and I, young people in our early twenties, were driving a red and white Chevy S10 pickup along winding roads. (My father drove a pickup just like this when I was in my twenties.) The roads were well-paved and we encountered no problems. It seemed to be a pleasure drive.
Returning to a house where I think we lived (it wasn’t clear in the dreamscape), we encountered Dad. He was tipsy, surprising me. He greeted us and then gave me a rambling speech and presented me with two checks, telling me, “This is for the hardship I’ve given you.” I protested that it wasn’t necessary, everyone makes mistakes, and so one, but he was adamant.
He went off and I went off. Finding my wife, I told her about it.
I was then outside, looking up at the blue sky. The moon and the sun drifted and floated across the sky’s highest reaches, leaving me startled because they don’t usually drift like an unmoored ship. Cartoon animals began crossing the sky with most changing and becoming something else as they did. One cartoon began very tiny and then grew into a small bunny as it crossed the sky, growing into a larger bunny, transforming from a cartoon creature into a real rabbit, which finished by bounding across the horizon.
Laughing and smiling, I tried telling others about this, but no one was interested beyond what they were doing, which disappointed me. One of my younger sisters then noticed the sky and announced it, and everyone stopped what they were doing to ooh and ah over the sky, irritating and exasperating me. I complained to them about it; all replied that they hadn’t heard me.
Back in the house with my dad, I told him that I need to go to the bank to deposit his checks and tried giving them back to him. He wouldn’t take them back and then declared that he had a check that needed deposited in his account and asked me to do that, scribbling out a check and signing it as he spoke. I took the check but then thought, Dad doesn’t have an account in my bank, does he? Also, he hadn’t give me acount information, although I supposed that they could get the info from the check. The whole exchange left me confused.
But I walked through the house and went upstairs to the bank. Two bank employees were waiting for me there. They already had Dad’s check but then swapped it with the one I had and destroyed the other one. While all this was going on, they sketched what they were doing but spoke so fast that I understood none of it.
Returning to the house and my wife, we went down concrete steps into a well-lit concrete garage. It was like a small maze of different garages but they were all mine.
We entered one of them and found a white 1981 Corvette with a red interior. (By happenstance, Dad had a ’81 Corvette but it was dark blue.)
The car was immaculate. As my wife and I took it in, I said, “I’d forgotten that I had this.”
She said, “Let’s take it for a ride.”
Her request surprised me but she was already getting into the car, taking the driver’s seat. My surprise doubled at that point; this wasn’t the kind of car she liked driving. I tried talking her out of it, pointing out the car’s power and that it’s a manual (she doesn’t know how to drive a manual) but she remained insistent and enthusiastic that she wanted to take it for a ride.
The dream ended with me getting in the other seat as she leaned forward and reached for the key already in the ignition.
A Dark & Stormy Dream
Awakening this morning, I was surprised. Sunshine was flowing into the bedroom.
Where was the dark rain?
I listened to the house’s silence. Wednesday, I thought, considering my plans.
No, Sunday, I corrected myself.
I’d expected night, rain, and Wednesday because that’s what I dreamed. Alternatively, maybe that was a different reality embracing me — which I thought was a dream — and now I’m back here again, where it was sunny, daylight, and Sunday. It’s something to contemplate.
The dream had leaned toward the odd side. My wife and I were with many others. We’d gone somewhere where I was to receive a prize and she was to be honored at a dinner. Pretty exciting stuff.
Meanwhile, I was eager to continue writing another novel which I was working on. But first, the dinner.
We’d all parked. I had my black RX-7. It was night, pitch black, and pouring rain. Despite those circumstances, it was a boisterous crowd streaming into the festivities. I knew many and was busy waving, calling out greetings to friends, and laughing.
We got into the hall’s foyer, a lovely warm, tall, and pink marble place with thick carpeting and golden chandeliers. As I chatted with friends, my wife moved away from me, but I could still see her. I called to her so we could go in and find our table.
She turned back around. Shock was on her face. I went to her and asked what was wrong.
“Doctor D is dead,” she answered.
Others approached us, inquiring if all was okay. I explained to them what she’d told me and who Doctor D was to her. Meanwhile, I wondered how she’d received the news; I’d been watching her. Nobody talked to her and she wasn’t on the phone.
Using our coats to protect our heads from the rain, we hustled through the dark rainy night back to my black car. Many other cars were already started and moving, shiny dark shapes, filling the air with exhaust smoke and startling me, because I thought they were staying for the dinner. While wondering why they weren’t I started entering my car.
Another person called to me. Sitting in her car, her window partially down, she explained that she was trying to use her computer writing program but it was asking for a code. She didn’t know how to get a code.
“Yes, you need a code,” I said. She replied that she’d never heard of that, and I said, “I think I can get one for you.”
Returning to my car, I started it and plugged my computer in, then typed some keys.
A series of red characters came up on a black screen. I memorized them and ran through the drenching rain to the other person. “Here, put these numbers in.” When she was ready, I repeated what I’d memorized.
We had to do this twice. I worried that I’d gotten the numbers wrong but it worked after the second time. “Good,” I said, and she replied, “Thank you.”
Head and shoulders hunched, I dashed back to the car. My wife was inside it, waiting. The rain cut visibility like a sheet had been tossed over the world.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me. “You’re not wet.”
The dream ended.
First, after dreaming this and thinking about it, I eventually fired up my ‘puter. When I checked Facebook for messages from friends and family, FB showed me a post under its “Memories” category; it was the photo I shared in this post. I thought it a stretch as a coincidence to dream of a car that I haven’t owned in over eight years and see a picture of it on the same morning.
I liked that car a great deal, owning it for almost twenty years. A 1993 Mazda R1, it’d been bought as a gift to myself in 1996 after I’d retired from the military in 1995 and landed a good-paying job with a civilian company, a medicial device startup in Silicon Valley. The car reminded me of that life era, and how much my life changed at that point.
All that rain and darkness intrigued me. Despite that, we’d been very happy. I was getting a prize, and my wife was being honored. The mood quickly changed with news of a doctor’s death, but I don’t know of that doctor in real life, so that left me puzzled.
Overall, I don’t have any strong grasp on any insights about the dream. As always, it could be Neurons just having fun, or some weird neural scrambling brought on by unknown causes.
That’s how it goes with my dreams. If anyone can tell me what it means, it’d be appreciated.
Friday’s Wandering Thoughts
I saw a photograph of a USPS envelope in an online post today.
The photo was supporting a story about the first female postmaster in colonial America. First thought: I didn’t know they had cameras capable of doing such clear, detailed photographs in colonial America. The colonists were more advanced than I thought. (Yeah, that’s snark.)
Second thought, looking at the envelope in the photo, what is v-mail service?
As it was part of the return address for the War & Navy Departments, I figured it was related to WWII, and the v probably meant victory. I looked it up online and verified that. But there was more to the story:
“Generative AI is experimental. Info quality may vary.
“V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was a mail service used during World War II to expedite mail service for American armed forces overseas. The Post Office Department officially inaugurated V-Mail service on June 15, 1942.
“V-mail worked by:
- Letters written on pre-printed forms were photographed and reproduced onto microfilm.
- The rolls of microfilm were transported overseas.
- The letters were printed again at one-quarter size and mailed to their destination.”
They were using microfilm to transport letters in WWII.
I’ve only been alive for almost 68 years, and wasn’t alive during WWII. In all that time, I’d never heard or seen v-mail service referenced anywhere. Maybe it just flew over my head. I don’t know.
It’s really surprising as Mom was a little girl living in a small rural town in Iowa during WWII. She had brothers who served in the US Navy, as did her friends and classmates. Stories from the fronts transfixed her. I thought she would have mentioned v-mail service. That causes me to wonder if she is aware of it. It’s something to ask her.
What’s more astonishing is that the v-mail service wasn’t original. This system was based on a British service called “Airgraph”. Giving me another pow-pow moment of discovery, Airgraph was developed by the Eastman Kodak Company in conjuction with Imperial Airways and Pan-American Airways in the 1930s.
Pow. I’m knocked down in amazement.
Once again, learning something new and astonishing. It makes me smile.
Perspectives
My wife shared a friend’s anecdote.
She hadn’t seen the friend in a while. They have a regular gang that meet for coffee at Growlers after exercises classes each M-W-F morning.
Converted from an old gas station, Growlers, nominally a purveyor of beers, is in downtown Ashland. It actually shares its space with a small coffee shop. It’s normally not busy in the morning. That allows the coffee gang to pull together tables and make noise as they please. Outdoor seating with firepits is available, and that’s where they’ll typically be.
The gang is a flexible group with active lives, so the group meeting ranges from four to fifteen people. They’re mostly women. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers, retired teachers, programmers, nurses, musicians, accountants, architects, artists, firefighters, college professors, and so on. They’re characters, and have been coming to the same exercise class, with the same instructor, Mary, for over thirty years. My wife, in her mid-sixties, is the youngest. She started the coffee gant back when she began taking the class after we moved here in 2006. Always pursuing fitness, when she arrived here, she began looking for a new exercise routine, and heard about Mary’s Y class. That’s where she was told this tale this morning.
Weirdly, my wife doesn’t like the coffee at Growler’s, so she has tea.
“We’ve downsized,” L said. L is the friend. “I’m 76 and my husband is 82. We had a 3,000 foot home and five and half acres just outside of Ashland. We were talking and agreed, we don’t need all this property. So we sold our place and bought a smaller one here in town.
“Well, after we’d sold our property, the new owners called us. They wondered if we could meet at our old house and walk the property line with them so they can learn about their new land. Naturally, we agreed, so a time and place was set.
“We’d never met them. Well, we got out of the car to wait, and then they arrived. Well, they were older than us! Both had walkers.
“Then they told us, they were downsizing, too. We were speechless.”
I laughed when I was told the story and wondered, moving into a 3000 square foot home with some land while downsizing, just how big was their last place?
The Maze Dream
This dream began as a military variation.
I was in the US Air Force in the dream, as I had been for twenty plus years in real life. Arriving at a new assignment, I was created warmly by new co-workers. They’d been looking forward to my arrival.
After settling into a room, I change into my uniform to go meet my new commander. My pants an shirt were crisply sharp and mustache and hair cut were aligned with regulations. Very satisfying. Putting on my highly polished shoes, I discovered I had no shoe strings.
No shoe strings. The situation flummoxed me. How could I have shoes with the strings to tie them?
It was late, I had an appointment, and nothing was open to buy new laces. But needing shoe strings, I went around fast, knocking on doors and talking to people, looking for shoe strings to borrow. I found a pair of shoes with purple shoe strings but rejected them; purple shoe strings with a dress uniform wouldn’t work. I’d rather go without shoe strings.
Co-workers came to the door, urging me to hurry. I told them about my problem with the thought one of them may be able to help me.
They laughed it off and urged me not to worry because I wouldn’t be needing my shoes. Plans were afoot (sorry) for me to wear different clothes and footwear.
Mystified by that, I went with them.
I met the commander, a light colonel. After welcoming me, he immediately asked, “Didn’t they tell you about your new assignment?”
“No details,” I answered, hiding confusing.
He chortled and gestured. “We’re going to make you big. Then you an help monitor the maze and guide people through it.”
Those words completely confused me but I reigned that it and responded with a respectful, “Sir?”
Seeing my confusion, he continued smiling and answered, “You’ll see.”
The next I knew, I was very large. I guess I was twenty-five feet high and proportionately as broad as a fit young man. No longer appearing as I had, I’d lost my mustache, and was very pale skinned, with short, razor-cut hair. My clothing and shoes were now tight black pants, a tight white tee shirt, and black canvas shoes.
And I was in a maze.
Lined with white cement, the waist rose to about my waist. The walls were about a foot thick. I could see people wandering through the maze. I then understood, oh, I’m supposed to be helping them because they can’t see where they are, nor where they should go. Others large individuals, like me, male and female, of various ethnicities were finding lost individuals and calling out directions abut where to go.
Finding a young woman near me in the maze, I began doing the same.
Dream end
I often have dreams which focuses on my military career. I always think of it as a subconscious yearning for that period of life, which was ordered and structured, but also full of purpose and direction.
The twists, of needing shoe laces, and then becoming a large person, helping others through a maze, were quite unique in my dream experiences. I arrived at the conclusion that I’m trying to tell myself that I’m worrying about something which doesn’t matter, and that I’m ‘bigger’ than that. It’s not others I’m helping through the maze, but myself.
Or The Neurons were yet again just messing with me.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Mood: spirited
The crescendo you might have heard earlier today was Tuesday, October 17, 2023, arriving. We’ve now passed half of the tenth month. Many are gearing up for the holiday season to launch.
It’s 53 F in Ashlandia, where the animals are feted and the people drink coffee all day. It feels curiously warm and pleasant. Forecasters expect our temperatures to crest at 71 F. We may see another degree or two at our house. Where and how we’re situated in relation to mountains and sunshine often results in a little more heat found in my space.
Beautiful out there, though, with stingy white clouds drifting through a strong azure sky and an invigorating sun.
A friend forwarded some humor to me. I plucked a few out for your morning jollies. They seem relatable to modern life and might distract us some from the wars and political messes swirling through October.
I’m feeling much better today. It’s been days since I’ve had any energy. This illness drained and wearied me, and became a stanch reminder of how often we don’t appreciate things until they’re gone. In my case, it was energy, willpower, clear thinking, and being pain free. I hope I never reach that state on a regular basis. So many people live like that with diseases and sickness. I saw it regularly when I visited Mom and witnessed her enduring and coping with multiple issues.
I also see it with my buddy, Larry, who lives on an oxygen bottle these days, Most painfully, I see it in my wife as she fights with flares of pain and stiffness delivered by her auto-immune issues. I took my own decent health too much for granted.
The Neurons have “Love Will Keep Us Together” looping in the morning mental music stream (Trademark flabbergasted). Although Neil Sedaka was co-writer and originally released it, I have the Captain and Tennille cover from 1973. As I said the last time I shared this song, back in 2018, it’s not my style but it was being played frequently on the radio stations where I lived, so I heard it all the time. I don’t know what prompted The Neurons to bring it out of the music vault but I fear I must play it for others or it will keep going around my head.
If you read a previous post this week, you might remember that my wife and I couldn’t remember what I thought I might buy Mom for her birthay. Well, one happy tidbit is that my wife pulled enough out for me to recall all the details. See, two brains are better than one.
The converasation was about genealogy. We were specifically talking about the Mayflower and William Brewster. Three of us are related to him via DNA. In my case, he would be my great-grandfather by ten. From that conversation, I thought buying Mom a gift to the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. I wonder if they shorten that to ‘the society’ or ‘the descendants’ in private conversations?
Stay positive, be strong, and keep optimistic. I’m up for coffee. Anyone else?
Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 