Tag: childhood

The Tornado Dream

I remember five dreams from last night. Two were military dreams. The enticing dream was the tornado dream.

I was a small boy when I went outside to look at the sky. As children will, I heard of something happening. I didn’t understand most of it but the gist was that it had something to do with the sky and the weather.

So out I went. It seemed pleasant outside. Calm. I looked across a rolling housing development similar to one where I resided outside of Pittsburgh, PA, when I was young. Low lines of brick houses with aluminum siding and one and two car garages aligned on either side of neat, wide streets. No sidewalks, all the houses were setback, with proudly maintained green lawns and tidy bushes.

As I’m looking, a shout rings out. I see a man and woman pointing, then children pointing. I hear them shouting, “Tornado!” They’re pointing toward me. I look up. A narrow, silvery gray funnel is descending from the clouds toward me.

Crying for help, I throw myself down and clutch the grass, yelling as the funnel cloud rotates around me, tugging at my body. I hang on, shouting for Mom, “Help, the tornado is trying to get me.” I look back. It’s still there. Other funnels are descending.

I keep hanging on until the tornado vanishes. Nobody comes to help me, but I survive unscathed. Dream end.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

If you think this Wednesday is for the birds, it may be because it’s National Bird Day in the U.S. It’s also January 5, 2022. We have about three hundred sixty days until the new year, so hang in there.

The temperature has settled on 39 degrees F. We’re on the way to a high of 46 but clouds again have reduced the sunshine to graylight. Looks like rain out there, so bundle up. Sunrise came on like a slow spread at 7:40 AM and the sun will steal away at 4:53 PM.

My local friends are all buttoned down against COVID-19. All are vaxxed and boosted but all said, “Why risk it?” My wife and I had already decided the same. Gonna be a long winter.

As this is National Bird Day, songs with birds mentioned are in the morning mental stream. We have your robins, blackbirds, snow bird, freebird, night bird, nightingale, dove, and eagle. We also have a Flock of Seagulls. But then the neurons came up with Elton John and “High Flying Bird” from 1973. The album was Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player. Released in my high school junior year, I found that it dragged too much or the album felt sort of thin. But then, there were certain days, when events and words dumped my mood into the shitter, that this album was good to listen to as a salve for my teenage soul, a good counterweight to Dark Side of the Moon and Quadrophenia. Now the song is part of a pleasant trip back through my head to that place and those people, and the accoutrement wondering of what happened to different folks. Some stories have been told; others were swallowed by life.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed and distance, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Who’s up for coffee besides me? Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Yep, turn the page. Start a new leaf. Begin anew, again. November is upon us, a continuation of the autumn months for those of us above the equator. We’re like a ship sailing toward winter. Clouds grow darker and heavier. Sunshine thins and fades, surrendering us to increasingly cold air. We hover around warm spots, watching the horizons for signs of snow, awaiting the next phase.

Or we shrug and press on. Or gather winter sports equipment, put on warmer coats, and head for the hills. Who cares what season it is? Well, we care, but each season brings it personality in. We can usually find things to love and admire in each season. The cats, though, are definitive summer folk. They’re already going out only to dart back in with complaints. “Where is the sun? Turn off the wind. Make it warmer.” So they go until they find a faintly suitable place and curl up, gradually replacing their mutterings with snores.

Today is Monday, November 1, 2021, the first Monday in November. So, we’ll have five Mondays in this month, along with five Tuesdays. The sunshine shifted into the valley with meager offerings at 7:44 AM. The sun will fade away at 6:05 PM. Temperatures will stay chilly with rainfall and winds contributing, giving us a high of 56 degrees F. But the air is clear and absent any signs of wildfire smoke.

For reasons that aren’t in focus for me, a 1973 Marvin Gaye song is playing in the morning mental music stream. Yes, Marvin is singing, “Let’s Get It On”, a smooth, lovely song, evocative of hopeful young love and sex. Hearing the song conjures scenes of dark houses with slow dancing, making out on furniture, quiet pairings of couples who sneak away for some privacy. All this goes with the Halloween period because growing up in the western Pennsylvania area as a teen, that early darkness in alignment with parents’ work hours afforded some unique opportunities to visit with friends in their houses. We were usually outside in the summer and spring, see, while winter brought freezing air and heavy snow that made such visiting difficult. Also, reaching into November, you were a month, almost two, into the new school year. Got to reacquaint yourself you hadn’t seen for a while, rekindling affection and interest. I guess I untied the knot about why the song is hovering around my mind this morning.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Here’s the music, there’s my coffee, and here we go, galloping on into November. Onward, he cried from the rear. Let’s go. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Woo-hoo. Welcome to Sunday, September 12, 2021, National Video Games Day! Yes, today is set aside as a day of observance and remembrance to the video games we loved and played. Yeah. A popular social media device is to ask you what your favorite video game was a child. I think mine was Etch-A-Sketch. Does that qualify? I do remember when Pong came out and we all played it for about twenty minutes. Ah, the seventies. What a period for video games.

Sunrise was 6:44 AM today. Sunrise cometh at 7:27 PM as daylight hours accordion down. AQI is moderate, mid seventies, and the high today will be in the low 80s F here in Ashland, southern Oregon.

I’ve already dated myself with my video game recollections. So, nothing to lose. I awoke with “25 or 6 to4” by the Chicago Transit Authority playing in the mental music stream. Its emergence for here and now isn’t clear. What is clear is that it’s stuck and must be shared to be removed. Chicago later dropped the last two words of its name. Its style changed, too. But, that’s how it goes with music.

So here it is, from pre-Internet, pre-worldwide web, pre-video games. Why I listened to this song on vinyl. Then tape. Now I listen to it on digits. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Now go play a video game while I get coffee. Cheers

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Memory Fuel

Heat fed memories click on. Summertime in Pittsburgh, PA. The Good Humor truck. A race to get money for ice cream. The weight of decisions. Buying for little sisters.

Outside all day. Popping bubbles that rise in the asphalt. Riding bikes. Pedaling as fast as childishly possible to get the wind running your hair back. Playing with Matchbox cars in someone’s shady side yard. Trekking to the creek. Attempting to construct dams. Baseball, softball. Sometimes swimming at a public pool. Chlorine up your nostrils. Red eyes and wrinkled fingers. Walking around. Sweating. Fanning ourselves. Seeking Popsicles. Grinning as we drip with watermelon juice running down our chins. Sunscreen? Suntan lotion was used — at the beach or pool. Never anywhere else.

But…don’t ever recall a hundred degree heat. When ninety was encountered, oh my gosh, is it hot. I’m melting. Ninety now…give me ninety all day. We’re talking 113. 118. Sitting inside by the ‘puter. Or reading. Watching the cats melt.

Same planet. Different world.

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