Test

Friday night

Kevin W., a former post-doctoral fellow where my wife used to work, was a youngster again, about 17 or 18 years old. He was sitting in the corner of a classroom, taking an American citizenship test. Surprisingly, his hair was completely white.

*****

Kevin is in his 30s now, and he and his family live in Knoxville. He came through Nashville last weekend to see a concert, and we were supposed to hook up for dinner, but my wife had a cold, so we canceled. I thought of him again yesterday, however; Kevin is a huge Ohio State fan, and his family gave out buckeyes as favors at his wedding. Yesterday, one of my coworkers, apparently another huge fan of Ohio State, walked around with a tray of edible "buckeyes," made of dollops of peanut butter smothered in chocolate. They were sinfully good, but I had to have three of them to make sure.

Anyway, Kevin's hair is black, but is rapidly going prematurely gray. The strange conceit of this dream is that it supposedly reveals that he started out with white hair, which gradually became streaked with black.

Kevin was born in Ohio, by the way, and has never needed to take a citizenship test.