Another Dream

It was a dark snowy winter evening. The sun was setting and I was armed with an old, bent aluminum snow shovel. I had cleaned off all of Elberon Avenue's sidewalks and made my way on to the Expressway. 

I wound up in the neighborhood I grew up in and began to shovel off all of the sidewalks around my block. I shoveled my Mother's driveway. I could see her in the bedroom window and she looked busy, so I didn't go in the house. I was on a mission to shovel snow. I got up to the highway and began to shovel snow as I attempted to return home. I never made it.

Instead I found myself in a store that sold beer and lottery tickets. Some guy had come in and was grabbing tickets out of their boxes. He would scratch off the ticket and discard it over and over again. I was selling beer and liquor and trying to watch him and keep count of  how many tickets he had taken. 


In the midst of a big order of beer, the lottery ticket man left the premises. I finished selling beer and then determined he had stolen $4,000 worth of tickets. I was upset. Someone relieved me and I went to the back of the store and began to work replenishing the stock of beer. But I kept being interrupted by people asking me how much was this pack of beer or that one. I was extremely frustrated. I had all this work before me and I had been robbed of $4,000 in lottery tickets.

The following night I found myself once again in downtown Cincinnati. I am not at all certain why I always seem to wind up here, since I have not walked through the city's streets since the mid 1990's. But here I was in Cincy and I was shopping at Shilitoes department store. This store has not been in business for around 30 years. 


When I was young and before shopping malls proliferated the suburbs, stores like this could be found in every large town. Macys is one of the few that still remain.


I was in the store and thinking, should I tell my old friend Tennie about a dream I had over a year ago? That is bizarre! A dream about a dream!

I ought to say something about Tennie. As a little girl, she lived across the street from my home. Tennie was what was called a Tomboy. She was more interested in play activities of boys, than playing with dolls. We were fast friends and spent our childhood together. When she got older, our goals changed. I became a Jesus Freak and a born again Christian and Tennie got into things I considered occult. It scared me at the time. I was young and what did I know? She and I went off in different directions. However for the past 3 years we began corresponding.


So in my dream, she had comeback for a short time to live at her parents home. I really wanted to see her, but she seemed to be coming and going. I walked up to the end of the street I grew up on. It seemed to be a cool October day. 

The leaves were falling. The wind was blowing. It was in the gloaming. I walked up to Tennie's house and knocked on the door. No one was at home, but the door opened and I went in.  The living room was empty of furniture. The walls were painted dusky brown and the floor was made of hardwood. I realized the center wall had been removed, so the living room, dining room and kitchen were just one large space. The kitchen was gone. In the center of this space was a strange hexagonal structure, reminiscent of a recording booth. 


The six walls were made of 7 foot tall glass panes that were held together with aluminum struts. I could not see a door. In the center was a tall wooden stool. Track lights shown down into the booth. She was not there. So I left. That was the dream.

I desired to leave the department store, but there were no exits to the street. Instead, Cincinnati had put up connectors between buildings. These connectors were large dark tunnels that were lined with brightly lit stores, much like those found in an enclosed shopping mall. In the center of this causeway was a train. 


Not a large train, but one like those found in children's amusement parks, but big enough to accommodate adult passengers. The cars were opened, which was OK since everything was indoors. The train would take you all over the city as it wound through each of the above ground tunnels.

I was trying to get back to Kentucky, so I needed to find my way to the street so I could either walk or ride over the bridge. I finally found some concrete steps leading down to Walnut and Fifth Street passed the Fountain Square garage exit. However Fountain Square was no where to be seen.  I was lost. 

Somehow, I found myself on some of Cincinnati's mean streets on a wide cobblestone road. The buildings were old redbrick warehouses that had been shut up for years. Most were in disrepair. As I walked though this city, hoping to find the river, I saw the farther I went, the better shape the buildings were in. 


Obviously, people had purchased these for living quarters. I found some steps under a tall automobile bridge and began to walk up them. What I found at the top was a maze of entrance and exit ramps. These were like miniature freeway ramps, but were built for walking. 

I had never seen such a tangle of pathways that were all going in differing directions. I decided to take a chance and found myself walking up a steep narrow cement hill. It led to a restaurant, that was similar to the ones contained in most department stores. They sold club sandwiches, soup and coffee. 


I ran into a friend, but I do not know who it was at first. The friend eventually turned out to be my wife. 

We were not hungry, but continued up the road and came to this old lady's apartment. Now by apartment, I should say it was more of a small room with a few chairs and a bed. There was no kitchen or bathroom that I could see.  There were a myriad of these structures along the roads. 


Apparently if someone was hungry they would walk down to the restaurant, which also contained the toilet facilities. 

As in many of my vivid dreams I was trying to find my way over the river. In this case the maze of streets were so confusing and I had no idea which way to turn. So I kept walking until I woke up.