Just Joking / School? / Homecoming

Saturday night

Dream 1: Just Joking

My sister-in-law's dad, Steve W., was always belting out Frank Sinatra songs. My brother, Andrew, and his wife, Susan, found out that a new film about Sinatra's life was coming to a local theater, so they decided to surprise Steve by treating him to some tickets. It turned out that he didn't want them. Steve had never liked Sinatra; he sang his songs in an exaggerated style only to make fun of him.

Dream 2: School?

My wife's coworker, Matt Servitto (Agent Harris on "The Sopranos") heard that I was interested in going back to school, so he gave me a brochure from his alma mater, the University of Idaho. My wife and I looked it over, but found the information to be sobering. It would cost $12,000 annually, and I would be in school 10 months out of the year. She said, "I don't know..." and I agreed; I responded, "Hello, George Mason."

Dream 3: Homecoming

My wife and I were attending a large outdoor picnic at the Parthenon in downtown Nashville. We were seated at one of many picnic tables in a large open-air shed, meaning that there was a roof covering all of the tables, but the picnic area was open on all sides, so people could come and go as they pleased. We were there for the annual Nashville homecoming celebration, and were anticipating the announcement of this year's homecoming king and queen. My wife and I took it with a grain of salt; we didn't really believe in this sort of thing, but attended more out of curiosity.

I noticed that a program for the event was lying on our table, so I picked it up and began reading about the ceremony and its traditions. Homecoming king and queen applicants had to pay a hefty entry fee even to be considered, and the results were shrouded in secrecy until the unveiling at the picnic. Then I got to a paragraph that made me laugh out loud: the Nashville homecoming queen of 1825 was disqualified for having six ears! My wife and I were enjoying the ridiculousness of the situation when I noticed that the guy seated across from us was on the same wavelength. He had a sense of irony, and he found the paragraph and the whole ceremony to be absurd and preposterous, too. We struck up a conversation with him, and he mentioned his wife; he said, "It's just the two of us here," meaning that they had no children, either. I thought to myself, "Maybe we could become friends with these people."

*****

Dream 1: Just Joking

I'm working hard to prepare some discs that are part of my ongoing CD compilation series, and lately I've been searching for "one more" good song that I've overlooked from 1955-1984. I've nominated a few, and tested them, but as of last night, none were found to be "good enough." Last night I was belting out "Misty" by Johnny Mathis (a song that made it onto one of my comps years ago) while buttering bread and getting my dinner ready. I hit so many terrible notes that both my wife and I burst out laughing. She suggested that I should record my own singing, include it as a surprise bonus track, and be done with it. It's a cute idea, but it wouldn't wear well over time, so I'm going to pass.

Anyway, my mangling of Johnny Mathis standards morphed into Steve's mangling of Sinatra tunes last night.

Dream 2: School?

My wife has just gotten a really good new job, so that means that our stay in Nashville will be extended, possibly by as much as five years. We've been having conversations about how I can develop some friendships and really "live" here, as opposed to just existing here, looking forward to moving back home to Virginia. I suppose that last night I was proposing to myself that I could really make something of those years if I decided to go back to school and get a degree. I've thought about it from time to time. It probably came up because yesterday I checked out my friend Ed B.'s page on MySpace, or FaceBook, or whatever it is, and noticed that he'd had several false starts in college, but got degrees later in life, both from community college and Strayer University in D.C. By the way, George Mason is a college in Fairfax, Virginia. I was surmising in the dream that it would be cheaper to attend George Mason than the University of Idaho. I'm quite sure that both would cost a whole lot more than $12,000 a year.

This dream was also influenced by a compilation program of "A Prairie Home Companion" that I heard on the radio yesterday; it culled together skits and songs that pertained to going back to school. One of the comedy bits warned today's 7th graders that they will probably have to work in the mines to pay off their million-dollar college loans.

I have no idea where actor Matt Servitto went to school, or if he did go at all. I'm guessing that I thought of Idaho because scandal-plagued Senator Larry Craig hails from that state, and he's been all over the news lately.

Dream 3: Homecoming

I've had some funny dreams in my time, but it's hard to beat one about an inbred homecoming queen with six ears. When I got up this morning, I told my wife this story, and followed up by saying, "Now I can see why people might think that I'm making these things up while I'm awake." I suppose that this was just a nasty dig at Nashville, but it sure cracked me up. As far as I know there is no such thing as a homecoming pageant at the Parthenon. I probably read something in passing about a homecoming ceremony at a local high school, maybe while flipping through old yearbooks at an antique shop.

I went in to work for a little while yesterday, and as I parked the car in the lot across from the office, I looked over at the old train station building, which was remodeled many years ago into a hotel. My wife and I spent a weekend in that hotel back in 2000. My employer in Virginia was trying to talk me into transferring here, and we stayed there while we drove around and got to know a little bit about the city. Yesterday I was remembering the way the building looked 7 years ago; there used to be a historic train shed adjacent to the hotel, which amounted to a one long roof which covered the trains and protected them from inclement weather. It's gone now, removed to make way for a parking lot. That's somebody's idea of progress, I guess. Anyway, that train shed turned into the covered picnic shed in this dream. There is no permanent covered shed at the Parthenon, although they have events there in temporary tents all the time.

I didn't recognize the fellow who sat across the table from me, but it's clear that he was a kindred spirit. Even while I was sleeping I was thinking about developing friendships with people who are close to my age, and with whom I share some things in common.