by Dr David, Editor / Publisher
Hartford, where I'm from, is like Avis to New York's Hertz; "We try harder." Not New York, but still in the neighborhood, Hartford has something to prove. This particularly applied to my father's generation. Children of immigrants growing up during the Depression, they were a tough crowd. We, their children, brought up in wealthy, suburban West Hartford, are a lot softer.
Last night I had a dream about one of us suburban "children," a man I knew back up in West Hartford, George by name. Our fathers grew up in the same neighborhood. His father, Sam, was a friend of Dad's youngest brother, my slightly daffy Uncle Joe. Dad told me that when there wasn't enough food in Sam's house to feed everyone in the family, Sam's father would take it into the bedroom and eat it there himself.
Sam told George that he had almost married Dad's baby sister, my Aunt Esther. Dad laughed when I mentioned this to him and told me, "I said to my sister, 'You know why this guy keeps coming by the house, don't you?' She exclaimed, 'Ewwww!'"
Dad
***
In the dream my friend George and I are together in a comfortable, homey, smallish community center. George was the owner of the facility. It was big enough to house two thermal pools, a small theater, a dining area and a large multi-purpose recreation room, just in what I saw of it, as he was showing me around.
We pass five festive folks eating and drinking vodka at a poolside table. In their bathing attire, it has the air of a picnic. They are Russian immigrants (common in West Hartford)..
We arrive in a large recreation room, where there is another group of festive people; this time 15 or so. Everyone sure is having a good time. Everything is welcoming and entertaining, especially George. Everything he does is magnanimous. The perfect host, charming, graceful, attentive, he really has it together.
Taking it all in while seated on the couch, I notice that the show playing on the television set is cataloging the secrets of existence. Right there on the tube esoteric and scientific mysteries, everything I've always wanted to know is being clearly, leisurely presented "in living color." I'm sure that there is even a rewind function.
L. Ron Hubbard
***
Looking down I notice a thick book on a coffee table in front of me. It is an illustrated guide to the spiritual cosmology of the universe, by L. Ron Hubbard. I open the book to a section revealing the two master codes of the universe. These are written like the hashtags people use on social media (the search tags we are using, in waking reality, on my Lokkal project, see below this article), phrases, words without spaces between them and with a hashtag before them, #verymuchlikethis.
Coming back from making his rounds, George lets me know that it is time to leave, then interrupts himself to suggest that we have a meal first. Could I be any happier?
Later, outside the building (now morphed into a farmhouse) it is a pleasant summer night. The property is large, several acres at least, a homestead from an earlier epoch with suburbia grown up around it. This George has inherited from his father. There are stately old trees, lawn and gardens. In the shadows I can see that the yard is a very homey space.
Then, George is driving us slowly down the driveway. Close to the gate is something blocking our way. George declines my offer to get out and move it, assuring me that we can get by. There is very little room for maneuvering, but the car moves nimbly around the obstacle, as if steered with both its front and back wheels.
End of dream
In real life George and I never spent a lot of time together. Still, our interactions were always meaningful. Ours was an easy communication, culturally, familially and personally. We laughed a lot; what should we do, cry?
We have a lot in common, and while he's not my twin, in a dream, he's an excellent stand-in for me. I follow the school of dream interpretation where everything in the dream is you. If someone is chasing you with a knife, you are also that someone and the knife.
When Sam died, George and his brother, fully took over their father's money-lending business. They lowered interest rates and generally acted more humanely than Sam had. The greater autonomy and responsibility added to George's self-respect. Being free of his father's physical presence and having more money didn't hurt, either.
Bogart
***
I also struggle to come to terms with my paternal influence. My father was a wiseguy. He had the lines, the banter, the repartee. Think of one of those Film noir anti-heroes types, independent to a fault. Like Humphrey Bogart, Dad had his softer side, but, as with Bogie, you didn't very often get to see it. He was a good provider. My sense of Dad taking care of things has remained with me. But then, in a more neurotic way, so too has my sense of Dad screwing things up.
