These Dreams
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I woke up this morning to one of the most horrifying experiences the human mind will ever have to endure, Ethel Merman singing ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ was echoing through the empty corridors of my mind. We all get earworms every now and then. Sometimes they are just simple little melodies but often they are full operatic arias that pop up out of nowhere and don’t leave for hours on end. We can stand them and even enjoy them, but Ethel?
Most of the old geezers who read my columns know who Ethel was, young folks not so much, but she was one of the great Broadway stage musical stars of the 1950s. Ethel had one of those immensely powerful voices that could flatten buildings. In fact, it was that very power that destroyed her 32-day marriage to Hollywood sex symbol Ernest Borgine. Right in the middle a passionate love-making session she burst into “Everything’s coming up roses for me and for YOOOOU” destroying his ear drums, collapsing his burgeoning rose bush and blowing away Fred Astaire’s $10.00 wig at his house two blocks away.
And that dear friend and gentle hearts leads us to our philosophical discussion for today, ‘Do we awaken someone from a dream?’
Let us assume you we are lying beside your wife, husband, friend with benefits or just a friendly neighbour and we hear moaning, sighing, or giggling and we realise our bedmate is still asleep and likely dreaming. It is my belief that we don’t remember 99% of our dreams, so even if it appears to be a nightmare your partner won’t remember it anyway so let them sleep.
*However, should your snoozing friend happen to mumble the name of some long-ago boy or girlfriend, one might hurry to the laundry room to grab a pail of ice-cold water, stopping only to call a divorce lawyer on the way.
There are loonies, (I’m sorry I have been cautioned about using that word before) and there are intuitive persons who claim to have the ability to interpret our midnight reveries and not only can they calm our troubled minds, they are also able to predict the future based on our sketchy recollection of a nocturnal journey into the subconscious.
There are several cases in the Old Testament of a Biblical hero who did just that. A case in point is Joseph of Technicolor Raincoat fame who conned (I’m sorry there I go again), who convinced Pharaoh that he could predict the future and on the strength of his prognostications became a powerful man in the Egyptian court. For example, he predicted a famine based merely on the fact they hadn’t had rain for 27 years.
(It should be pointed out here that Joseph’s Pharaoh was not the brightest lad on the throne of Egypt since he repeatedly spelled Pharaoh with an ‘F’. Nor did he appear to have a name in the Genesis story and a Biblical scholar discovered a cuneiform affidavit signed by Hatzy Tatzy, a high priest king of Urik, confirming dealings with Joseph, a Hebrew Prime Minister of Egypt, under Pharaoh Rutin Tutin 111. If Rutin Tutin is good enough for Hatzy then it’s good enough for me.)
I will pause a moment here to give the Baptists and Evangelicals time to shut down their computers.
Why is it that the best dreams, the ones with Sophia Loren for me, and Hugh Jackman for Mary, never seem to remain in our minds for very long after we wake up? By the time we finish our first coffee Sophia in her negligee and Hugh in his jockey shorts have become fuzzy and disappear into the toast and peanut butter. Life is cruel sometimes. However having had two triple bypasses, perhaps it’s for the best.
I read somewhere that we should keep a notepad beside the bed and once we awake we should immediately jot down our thoughts. I tried that one night but it didn’t work. I forgot what I woke up for in the first place and wet the bed, then I had to wake Mary up to help me change the sheets.
Believe me I will never hear the end of it.
