Nightmares

My wife Jerre and I have noticed that in our older ages we tend to have different types of dreams. Call them "retirement dreams". In my younger days I did a lot of discjockey work at various commercial radio stations and the the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. No matter where the work the routine was generally the same. You grab a bunch of records (no digital world then), you cue them up and you play them. My recurrent dream -actually more a nightmare- is that I am slowly running out of records to play and I don't know where to find more. The anxiety increases until I get to the point where I have no music at all to play... and then I wake up. I think the Freudian implications of this might be fairly obvious. My wife also has dreams relating to her former occupation: librarian. She is in a huge library and is faced with the task of organizing and cataloging many volumes. The work becomes increasingly more burdensome and harrowing until she feels she will burst. She then wakes up. What happened to the beautifully sensuous dreams of yesteryear? The dreams of making huge amounts of money and becoming enormously successful and, even, famous? Apparently the physical and conscious worlds of the retiree are not the only parts of those worlds subject to erosion.

The Ideal Gainesville

It is Saturday and there is no home game for the University of Florida Gators. This a day that is coveted by many people in this town. It means that the student population is reduced by at least half and, subsequently, so is the traffic. People that have chosen Gainesville as a town in which to spend the rest of their lives can experience a relaxed ambiance that does not exist when the Gators are playing football in town. There are no drunk alumni stumbling and vomiting their way to their cars. There is no cacophony of sophomoric obscenities bombarding one's eardrums during a drive around town. There are no long lines at stores and restaurants. It is the ideal time to be in a college town and, as a direct result, away from Bream Lake.

Irony

That's the only way to describe this blog. It is my first at this site and I will not be at Bream Lake for at least two weeks. Our little house by the lake is our bolt-hole, our retreat, our spa, our Golden Pond. The reason for my not going to Bream for the next several days is that we are hosting an evacuee from New Orleans and the destruction wrought by that god-awful hurricane. Our guest will be staying at Bream until he can safely return to that poor ravaged city. We are very lucky in this North Central portion of Florida. We have yet to experience the ferocity of a really strong storm. Having said that I expect one to blow in momentarily. I will try to give you, on a more or less regular basis, my thoughts on this fantastic part of our world. It could be of use to someone not able to access such a place on a regular basis and perhaps, if only vicariously, give him or her some of the marvelously therapeutic aura of the place. I interview writers about their books (on a radio program) and I talked with a wonderful man today. His name is Monty Roberts and he trains horses. he is probably one of the best horse trainers in the world today in that he is able to take a horse from a virtual untamed state to one of complete docility in 30 minutes or less...and he does it in a superberly humane fashion. If you want to find out more about this man go to his web site at www.montyroberts.com .