Dream a little

It’s amazing how our dreams change over the years. When we are young we dream about sex. When I was in college my roommate, Ken Robertson, said, “Phillips, you have more fun when you’re asleep than most people do when they are awake. You love your pillow.” Now that I am much older I dream about work. Work in days gone by. Last week I had a triple feature, a mashup of three newspapers I worked in over the years. People from all three papers were in my dreams. All three dreams ended the same way. It was close to deadline and not only did I not have my story written but I hadn’t begun putting the paper together. That’s a nightmare in any newspaper employee’s book! I’ve also dreamed of churches to which I belonged. All of them were country churches and in one of them, a funeral director we all know and love continued pushing a hospital gurney up and down the streets of that rural town. Presumably there were no bodies on the gurney -- I didn’t stop him to look. Then, last night, I dreamed of my old boss, Dick Munro, who recently passed away. Dick was sales director and more recently, general manager, of a radio station where I used to work. Not only had he done news and sports but he was the most creative radio person I think I ever worked for. I knew how sales were going by the number of ads in my newscasts, which were the most popular shows on our stations. As the end of the month drew near and I saw the number of ads dwindle each day, I knew Dick would come up with a sales promotion and sure enough, the number of ads would pick up, revenue would increase and the station would have a good month. That was not lost on the station’s owners who praised him for his outstanding leadership. He really gave me good, positive guidance when I was news director. In my dream, he was organizing a radio station in Heaven. In one of the scenes, he was writing an audience call-in trivia contest. The answer was “fried pork.” That may have been caused by the bacon I ate for dinner. My reaction to bedtime lately reminds me of that episode of “MASH,” when the characters all had weird and wild wicked dreams. I hope my dreams either end or I’m not able to remember them when I wake up.