I Had A Dream

February 10, 2010

I had a funny dream not too long ago. Two friends were the main characters. One person Ron was an Army buddy; one not seen for over 40 years. He was the host. Many things happened in a small group of limited ‘locales’ so to speak. I remembered it early the next morning, about 7a.m. and began to write it down while some scenes were so fresh in the memory; the synapse adhered to the sun.

What little I know now of Ron is that he’s a mmusic professor in a southern town not far from where he was born. He was a great guy with an unforgettable laugh that from time to time since reconnecting I try not to poke him in the ribs too much about it. Although he’s a sweet dude, he’s also a bit taller than I.

In the dream we were in a location, (wherever it was) to present some kind of a drumming program; basically for children and adults. The situation seemed to take place in some sort of grammar school grounds. It appeared not to be the normal kind of a grammar school, or first form; remember this was a dream, yes?

At the time of this writing I wasn’t sure about the ‘beginning to end.’ That’s how dreams go, sometimes there’s neither. This was no different as it seemed like this was in fact, the case. This then is the gist of the dream as it was remembered.

I recognised another friend in the dream. It was a guy I hung and jammed with sometimes while living in Oregon. Mickey Beach is his name. (Say Mickey your name is spelled funny ; o) You were in it too for some unknown reason.

Mickey runs a deconstruction/construction organisation in the town where he and I lived. He also is in charge of a resale company that sells those deconstruction things; part of the local private development company that reconstructs homes as well as new, from the ground up; for low income families.

His company owns and runs a one million square foot building holding everything and anything Mickey’s crews and other local contractors take apart piece by piece.

Any kind of structures they deconstruct as well as all kinds of materials that the public may bring for resale or recycle travel in and out of the huge building like a constantly revolving big box store. Bits and pieces of everything set in order on shelves. The building part is similar to the Habitat for Humanity Corporation.

If that’s not enough Mickey is also a blues guitarist who sings, writes and has a great blues band as swell. Quite the creative hard working person he is; like Ron he’s also a grandfather with kids and their families. Mickey’s also on the board of the local Artist’s organisation. His is in the only photo on their wall presenting the board with a guy wearing a ponytail; least he was the last time I’ve seen it.

When doing a mural project with the library system it was Mickey who helped mme acquire most of the materials. He’d call mme up and say he just received something or other and asked if I could use it for the project. Mick’s very cool. He’s always there to support anyone in his town that will in turn help the town.

Why he was in this dream too and ‘plays another main character’ I guess is because it was a dream; part of the synapse. I’ve been to visit Mickey several times over the years, each time we found time to jam. In the dream I remember talking while sitting at a table with him as well as walking with him before giving this presentation. For dream reasons Ron was always with us as well.

The rest of it was what seemed like at this point as being a longer process of walking around, meeting people, talking to Ron and Mickey, while a lot of people were moving about getting prepared for a party; all part of this dream.

One of the scenes appeared to be a birthday party. A grouping of folding tables or whatever was set up in one place close to water; a pond, a lake or whatever it was, wasn’t clear but I can distinctly remember the smell of the water close by.

The tables were full of people, mostly NOT children but adults. Table cloths looked festive, folding chairs where people sat at the tables were set up on a lawn near the body of water. As we entered, this entire scene was to the left and down a little hill. The dream kind of gave an overview of the entire area.

A house sat surrounded by a garden of plants; almost hidden in a jungle scene really. The house was close to us but appeared to be in the background. I DO remember talking and walking around the tables with Ron and Mickey. After waking I can’t remember the conversations but these guys were in the main ones.

When Ron, Mickey and I first arrived the party scene was empty of people until we showed up; then all of a sudden everyone else was there as well. The dream continued from an empty scene to full in milliseconds. On the way to it, we were walking on rolling, grass covered hills. As we all looked up and to the left up on another long hill that ran horizontal to where we were walking, a train was passing at blimp speed as in an advertisement or something. It was strange.

It wasn’t a normal train of course, being a part of the dream. A locomotive pulled the cars. It looked short with maybe seven or eight cargo cars each with closed doors. Instead of the usual train the cars appeared like all their sides facing us as they passed were remodeled. Each had huge holes opened in them like a can opener kind of broken metal would appear; uneven, jagged edged humongous holes with massive metal pieces sticking up and out, around the uneven holes.

Each car had a different vehicle planted, bolted to and held inside the holes; it was like each car, antique ones like in the 30’s or 40’s had crashed into the side of the train but interestingly enough, all were in pretty good shape in the crash scene. All of them appeared to be a long slow moving ad for drunk driving.

There wasn’t much colour and it all looked like graffiti paint, white and black really; chalky looking. The whole train just slowly passed as we were walking along on the way to the party scene. There was a train moving sound so all of us looked over to it while it passed. We didn’t say anything as it looked like art.

When we got close to the party, on the way to it and just before it like where we had to step, it turned into sort of a long, sloping slide; the bottom and sides were bordered in about a 2” red line. It was too steep to walk down so we had to get on our butts and slide down. Like one of those huge multi-lane slides you’d see made specifically for doing this; like a water slide but with no water.

The slide had kind of a white widely spaced pimply surface, but it was no trouble to slide down. It seemed and felt like it was rubberised. We didn’t make a big deal about it as we slid on down. It was like it was a normal thing to do on the way to where we were going. We talked nonchalantly while sliding down.

The dream skips around at this point. I can also remember when first arriving there was no one at where we were supposed to go, like Ron didn’t seem as the host, prepared for this party; embarrassed that no one had shown up; until later. It’s fuzzy at this point but after a while the place was full of people; I mean it was chock full and packed with a huge and boisterous crowd. It had an air of fun.

MMusic was playing from somewhere and everywhere; Mickey and I then began to walk around and schmooze for a while. Ron, Mickey and I talked as a trio while standing up, casually dressed in the middle of the banquet scene for a long time like it was a normal thing, smiling, laughing; I can remember Ron’s laugh from 40 years ago; we were having a ball. Mickey and I at one point bending over in a huge laugh after one of us said something I can’t remember.

Next I recall sitting down at one of the tables; Mickey was across from mme and Ron, was to mmy left. Someone else was on mmy right but I can’t see them. When we did sit down, the tables were really high for our seats. Our mouths height was just under the top of the table so we looked like little kids sitting at the table too high for our bodies; we weren’t wearing any kid’s cones party hats.

We just laughed about it and continued on like it was nothing really. The table was full of some kind of foods, tableware, glasses, dishes, utensils; lots of goodies that I can’t remember seeing clearly or even tasting for that matter. Everything appeared extremely colourful and festive. Everyone else was eating but us.

At another point there were adults, women and a lot of men most of whom were there specifically to see and hear the drumming presentation. I walked around talking to some of them and welcomed them. I remember speaking to them and saying that if they felt like joining in, then just come on up and we’d jam and have a good time no matter what; don’t be shy, it’s a community fundraiser.

They were welcomed to be a part of it too if they cared to because we’re all here to have fun and not necessarily learn anything but we were gathered there to help some kind of a cause; a benefit for a purpose that wasn’t clear.

I also remember one of the women being an old girlfriend I dated and almost married; this part is true. She was a great drummer I knew for a short time before moving to England. The separation was the main cause of that not happening. She’s since passed away from smoking/cancer but I can remember seeing her face smiling at mme at one point. She was such a cool person; Ginny, her name.

Her daughter a few years ago emailed mme asking for a story or two about her mom. I’ve never known her daughter because she hadn’t been born at the time. She found mme on the net from a site where I mentioned her mother. It was then that I learned of a love’s too early passing. Her mom was a very good mmusician; awesome in fact. Her mom and I spent a lot of playing time together.

Most people at the party were or we knew were mmusicians or drummers or both. We didn’t talk to all of them; they were just there with the crowd which estimated at this point to be over four or five hundred; all sitting at the kid’s party tables and having a good time. Conversations were a din like at a banquet kind of a background, mmusic was piped in from some place; lots of activity.

Towards the end of the dream I got up from the table and began walking around by mmyself while wanting to talk to whomever I felt would be interested in whatever it was I was to present. After a few conversations which I can’t remember, Ron, stood up at one point walked over to mme and began introducing mme to every table member at every table.

I heard him saying at each table, and kept on repeating it; “This is MMicky Shine, he’s a good buddy I had in an Army Band we both were members of;” Ron said this continually while leading mme from table to table.

It was like he was a recording; repeating and repeating the same words over and over again that echoed in mmy head. At that point it could have been the same wake up call which was FACE meowing her usual son rise alarm, kneading mmy chest while staring dire wreckedly into mmy eyes. Good morning sweetheart…