Monday dreams

I went back to bed and laid there thinking about how much time I've spent the past few weeks wallowing in emotionalism, memories and self-pity. And I got to where I felt kind of queasy and sick to my stomach about it – like I'd overdosed on banana caramels again.

So, I've got to stop.

After I went back to bed, I had a couple of strange dreams. One was something about boats at the Hefner Marina being auctioned off for a fraction of their value because their owners had abandoned them and not paid their slip fees. I was with someone else and we were looking at pictures in the newspaper of some of the auctioned boats.

In the second dream, I was sitting with my father somewhere - like in a living room or something. He stood up and stretched and said, "Well, I think I'm going to bed now."

I noticed he looked great - healthy and happy. He was wearing a light blue cardigan over a white button-down shirt, and some sort of casual slacks. His hair and beard were trimmed and his face was free of the burst blood vessels and capillaries he had in his cheeks and nose from about age 60 on.

I was doing some mental math, trying to recall how old he actually was - let's see, I think he was 22 when I was born, so that would make him - and then I remembered: he's dead. I was there when he died.

So I stood up and I put my arms around him, and I said, "Dad, it's always great when you can come around. Seriously." And I put my arms around him and held him - more like I'd hold my own child if I had one than the way I ever hugged him in life.

"I know, son," he said.

And then I woke up with tears in my eyes.

But this wasn't my real father. This was some idealized fiction - the way my dad would have looked if he'd been cast in the lead of "Father Knows Best.'

I hope he doesn't actually decide to start showing up all the time.