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I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I heard voices calling for me. They kept repeating over and over, “Come with us, we’ll lead you to a better place.” I followed the sound of the voices through the darkness until I began to see some light.
The voices continued to beckon but I couldn’t see faces, only forms and shadows. I was never afraid because the voices sounded familiar to me, but as hard as I tried I couldn’t place them.
As I drew closer to the light I could see a ladder ascending into a misty fog that floated just a few meters above the ground. There was a long line of people waiting to climb the ladder.
One by one the people, each with a broad smirky grin, would firmly grasp the rungs and hastily start their assent.
The voices, now from above the fog, kept encouraging “Climb up, you’ve earned it.” Something about the voices made me feel secure. They sounded strong yet benevolent. I wanted to trust them.
I tried to speak to the others in line but no one was interested in talking to me. They all seemed totally self absorbed and noticed nothing going on around them. They just kept moving forward in line with those vacant grins on their faces.
Then it was my turn. I grabbed the rungs and started to climb into the fog. The fog was cold and there were weird sounds that I had never heard before. I couldn’t see anything as I climbed and everything felt strange and clammy.
As I approached the top of the fog I could hear the voices that had beckoned me clearly now. I knew who they were. I looked up and I saw our Nation’s leaders. They were yelling out “Hurry, climb the ladder we’ve built for you. This is a better place.”
Now that I was out of the fog I could see why the ladder felt so strange. I had one hand one the back of an old man and the other on a young mother with a baby. My one foot was on a sick child and the other was on a shivering homeless man. The strange sounds that I had heard during my climb were the moans and cries of their misery and suffering.
I recoiled in horror and fell back through the mist, bolting awake just before impact.

As I was taking my walk today I saw a very young boy riding his tricycle in the driveway at his house. He was being closely supervised by his big sister. The boy was about 4 years old and his sister looked to be about 10. She was watching his every move and made sure that he didn’t venture too close to the street. You could tell that she loved her little brother very much and the little guy seemed to have much respect for her.
When I saw the two children I thought about my big sister. I call her my “big” sister when in fact by the time I was 10 years old I outweighed her by 5 pounds and when I was 19 I was twice her weight. Never the less I will always think of her as my big sister.
My sister was 7 years older than I was. She was always very protective and concerned about my welfare. She almost always included me in her activities and was never ashamed of me or resented my tagging along. She was really a great sister.
When we were children we usually spent our summer vacations in Tennessee. During our stays we would spend most of our time at my grandmother’s house in the country. We both loved the time we spent there and later in our adult lives we would reminisce about our many adventures in the woods, streams and cave around grandma’s farm.
One of our cousins lived about 1/4 mile down the road. His name was Edgar Ray, and he was about 3 years younger than my sister was. He would always hang around with us during our visits. We were inseparable, like the Three Amigos.
On rainy days we would often play in the barn. We would climb in the rafters and jump into the piles of hay or pretend that we were driving the old rusty tractor. Sometimes we would pester the cow or the old mule. Occasionally my sister would tell scary stories hoping to frighten me but she usually would end up scaring herself more. (more…)

If you like those old “Cry in Your Beer” country songs, here’s a great one.

It was written by Stephanie Rodriguez. She wtites lyrics from all genres (country to rap).

Entertainers or agents interested in working with Ms. Rodriguez can reach her through this site via email at: gtempleton2@hotmail.com

Here is “Mama in His Eyes” Enjoy….

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It was unusually warm for the beginning of November, a perfect day for any outside activity. It was one of those days that you were sure would be the last of the season. Of course all the old-timers were complaining that global warming was finally catching up to us and we were somehow going to end up paying for all this unseasonable mildness. But Milfred didn’t care, he was going to soak it all in while he could. What the hell, it’s November in Indiana. It could be snowing tomorrow.
Milfred has Mondays and Tuesdays off from his job. He’s the assistant manager at the “Electronic Shack” at the Green Ridge Mall. He’ll have eight years under his belt come January. When he’s not working at the store he spends most of his free time tinkering with gadgets that he’s made or surfing the web.
This day was different though. He was determined to spend some time outside at least until the postman came.
He piddled around in the yard for awhile. He raked a few leaves. He checked the oil in his Escort and made small talk with one of his neighbors. He was starting to get a little antsy and thought to himself, “when the hell is the stupid mailman going to get here?”. He had had enough of the nice weather crap already. There were some web sites he wanted to check out and a rented DVD that he needed to watch. Well as luck would have it his wait was nearly over. At that moment he looked up from his wristwatch and saw the Postal Service jeep coming down the street. (more…)

Here is the first episode of the classic radio show

“The Great Gildersleeves”.

First aired 10/19/1941.

Length: apx. 29 minutes.

If you would like to hear more let me know.

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Three of my beautiful little grandsons went to the dentist today. There checkups were not good. Between the three of them they had more than a dozen cavities.

Their mom doesn’t make enough money to provide health care insurance so she receives Medicaid.

The dentist at the clinic decided that all three children needed all cavities (even the most minor ones) drilled and filled, several teeth capped and for the oldest (age 6), two front teeth extracted.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that my grandchildren are able to get good medical care, but we’re talking baby teeth that are all going to fall out in the next few years. None of the boys had tooth aches, problems chewing or any other complaints. Their mom only took them to the clinic to get their teeth cleaned and to make sure they were developing properly.

Her visit probably ended up costing at least $2500.00 if not more. For baby teeth that are going to fall out on their own.

Now consider this: Those boy’s uncle, who is 25 years-old, Has suffered for months with several bad teeth that he can’t afford to have taken care of. All the dentists that he has gone to tell him that they need to be paid in advance because he has no insurance. He had only enough to fix one tooth so that’s all they did. He left still suffering.

If the system was running right my grandsons could have gotten the treatment that they NEEDED today AND their uncle could have gotten his tooth ache taken care of and there would have still been a little left for the Tooth Fairy.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

I can’t recall who wrote it.

During my walk today I started thinking about the earliest thing in my life that I could remember. Recently my girlfriend and I had discussed it. I told her that I was sure I could remember back to an event that happened when I was four years old. I had the mumps and my mom wanted me to stay in the house and not to be too active (back then they thought any activity at all would cause the disease to settle in your scrotum and make you sterile). I wasn’t going for it though and decided to get out for a little adventure. Of course it wasn’t long until mom missed me and started searching.

To make a long story short I hid up under the dashboard of my dads old ‘47 Chrysler and listened as the calls from mom, my sister, dad and the neighbors became more frantic. I finally was spotted by a neighbor boy who turned me in.

I think I remember that so well because of the impact it had on my mom. I don’t think she ever hugged me that tight again.

As hard as I tried today I still couldn’t remember an earlier event in my life. I know about earlier thing but only because someone told me. With the mumps episode I really recall it all, the sounds, the smells, the heat of the day and that wonderful feeling when you know someone cares so much about you.

“fascism - A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.”

The American Heritage Dictionary, 1983

I went to the bank this morning to make a small deposit (I also wanted $40 cash back) and the teller told me my drivers license were expired. I thanked her for being observant and for alerting me of that fact. Her reply was a polite “you’re welcome” but she added “I can’t accept this as ID”

Well I thought “no problem”, I’ll just show her my visa bank card. No, that didn’t work because even though it had my signature and my name embossed on it, it lacked a photo. OK. How about my Sam’s Club card. No, that didn’t work because even though it had my photo on it, it was not considered a piece of primary identification.

I had never realized before that if you don’t go to college or work at some big corporation that issue photo IDs you will find it hard to come up with 2 pieces of picture identification.

I was getting frustrated, then I thought, “WAIT A MINUTE”. I had emptied my wallet. I had an American Express card, a Visa card, a Master Card, a Blue Cross insurance card, a Sam’s Club card (with photo), a Social Security card, a video store card, a check cashing card from the grocery store and a driver’s license (which the bank had accepted for identification twice since it expired). I asked, “with all this stuff that shows my name, address and signature (as well as photos), you don’t believe I am the person on this account”? Her reply was, “well sir, you could have gotten that stuff anywhere” I said, “yes, I stole all these documents from a guy that looks just like me and has the identical signature so I could steel $40 out of his checking account”.

Other waiting customers were growing inpatient and I really hate to demand to see the manager but I just had to do it this time.

The manager quickly came to her side, looked at my driver’s license and said go ahead and complete the transaction. The teller processed the deposit, gave me my $40 and said, “sorry for your wait”.

I reminded her that she had waited on me many times before. She said that yes, she remembered me but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I didn’t have the proper identification.

Jerry Seinfeld had his Soup Nazi and now I guess I have my Gestapo Teller.

Copyright 2006 gary@listentomelater.com