Dreaming

Dreaming is a good pastime. Some favorite moments are spent dreaming. It doesn't matter much if they come while asleep or awake; they're all about as meaningful, which is to say they don't amount to much. The other night I dreamt I was running around with TV personalities Al Roker and Matt Lauer on some sort of driving trip. Now this really gets wierd: someone in their crowd of admirers dropped over from a heart attack, and Lauer cut him open and operated on him right there. He just happened to be carrying a heart monitor machine in the trunk of his car and was able to pull this guy through in fine shape. The last thing I remember of the dream was when I said I will get a good blog out of this.

Daydreams aren't much more substantive, although they have caused me to try different things which have certainly added lots of spice to my life. I dreamt big things about Alaska and what I could and would do up there. Well, I drove up the Alaskan Highway to satisfy this dream, only to turn tail and come back after about a week. Of course, I detoured through Colorado, stayed there a year in Greeley, and earned a master's degree. This was not part of the dream but came about as an indirect result.

In many cases the indirect result, or unintended consequences, of a dream is what we can expect. In the first case, I shared that improbable scenario with a small group and got a laugh from it, plus the idea for this blog. In the second case, it set me on the path I followed for the rest of my working years. Dreams still come and go, often something like the bubbles in a bathtub: they form, float awhile, and then pop, never to be thought of again. I think a person never gets to old to dream. Just maybe one of those dreams will hang around awhile to come to fruition.

Blather?

I thought spring arrived several weeks ago but got fooled when winter set in again. Now, however, I think it really came to stay. Yesterday we finished power raking the yard, and Mary is rarin' to go with her yard work. She's got dozens of plants started in the house. This morning I couldn't sit at the breakfast table where she sat eating and reading the paper. The rest of the table was covered with trays of plants. After a slight dust-up between her and me that resulted in her getting up and setting them on the floor, I was able to sit and eat my own cereal.

Media people throw around the term "news cycle." I am always perturbed when the foolishness in Iraq resulting in needless American deaths gets displaced off the front page by events that should be buried deeper in the paper or on television news programs. The attention given to someone like Anna Nicole Smith reeks of simple-mindedness. The lawlessness of Washington politicos dominates our waking hours. The Imus blowout receives attention leading us to think this is one of the worst things that has ever occurred.

The recent slaughter of college staff and students at Virginia Tech deservedly dominates media coverage now, but something of insignificance will arrive to displace it pretty soon. Maybe one of the British Royals will do something juvenile again or a movie star will be picked up for DUI. I often wonder what a person should do to counteract the influencing hailstorm of crap that's thrown at us most days. Turn it off, get a hobby, read classic literature, go on a solitary trek in the desert, get shipwrecked on an uninhabited tropical island, . . . ?

Anything Goes

Winter finally arrived in North Dakota. We've had more winter snows the last few days than we had when we expected it. Christmas was brown. April is white. It is good moisture, though, and I don't hear anyone complain about it. Of course, it will thaw all at once and run off into the river.
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Mary, her sisters, and sister-in-law will head to Minneapolis Friday for a girls' weekend. Knowing them, they will have fun. Dinner theatre, tours, shopping, etc. As for me, heh-heh.
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We attended a funeral south of Carson on Monday at a small country church. I felt a lonely wind blowing at that cemetery. That country down there is big with very few families living there anymore. We even crossed some cattle guards on an open range area. The people that do live down there need to drive many miles for anything, except solitude.
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My favorite radio-tv man got in trouble lately: Don Imus. He is a rough talker and deserved reprimanding. Many are calling for his firing instead of the two week suspension he did receive. All I can say is they would lose a good man if he was taken off permanently. That man has raised over $100 million for a variety of charities, all of which are important. Besides, he raises public attention and interest in many areas of governmental abuse and omission.

The Crash

Who understands why an image or a memory pops into view again after being burined in there for a few years. That happened to me a couple days ago. I remembered a bus tour we took to the Northwest where we experienced an unpleasant scene. We had pulled into our motel in Kalispell, Montana and were preparing to get off the bus and go to our rooms. In front of us stood a few people, and one of the girls was sobbing uncontrollably on the shoulder of a bearded man who I later learned was her father. Word trickled through our group that some sort of plane accident had occurred. The next day a newspaper account explained it more fully. The girl's sister had been a passenger on that plane, and a flyover by another plane determined that all four passengers were dead. Tragic! Then, a few days later another news report added a turn to the story: two of the passengers were alive, and since they'd been given up for dead, they had to walk out for help by themselves, a happy ending for a couple families involved. That story made an impression on me and I wrote a poem about it, even though I took some poetic license with the facts.

The Crash

Headed north to Kalispell
I pass crows
picking and bickering
over this savory prize:
the ribcage of a road-killed cub.

Ignorant of an obvious portent,
I drive on to the Flathead.
Autumn surrounds me -
gold leaves of mountain ash and poplar
dance with evergreen needles of the fir.

Woods and rocks climb above the road
and beyond: wilderness
where the Forest Service spends
its energy and dispenses
self-proclaimed wisdom.

At my cabin, heavy sky shrouds
treetops and rare patches of blue
open, then flow closed in the fluid
clouds. A plane flies across
one opening in a clear instant.

A government plane, I think,
then all that remains of this fleet
moment is the drone of the prop
screwing through the heavy air.
I hesitate to hear its pitch change.

My ears know that sound of overload,
the loss of power when an engine
fights to gain altitude. Inevitable,
I await the impact of plane and trees,
then the eerie, immediate absence of sound.