Me & George

I had a great time with President George W. Bush last night. It was in a dream, of course.

I've hardly had a kind or admiring word for the man in waking hours, so I was rather surprised at the positive impression my subconscious mind seems to have of him. He was patient, avuncular, attentive, and told great stories. Just like the right has always said of him: a guy you'd want to have a beer with.

The setting was a cottage on a big lake somewhere on a grey day with a dishwater sky. At first the place was buzzing with with folks in autumn weather cottage garb... caps, lumber jackets, creek waders. A casual excuse for some kind of political get-together. Somehow I ended up talking with Dubya, and I get the impression that in the dream, he was the current president. At the start of things, he was the life of the party (no pun intended), getting people laughing, breaking the ice. Somehow, eventually, he and I gravitated together and it was like he was new to me, but he had known me for a while. That doesn't make sense but that's how it felt. The crowd never really vanished but it kind of stopped being relevant.

I was particularly intrigued with an elaborate fishing rod he brandished. It allowed him to expertly cast three lines at once, a long, long way. As well, he could cast from inside the cottage, looking through the closed sliding glass doors overlooking the lake. (I never figured out how. Such is the "logic" of dreams.) He was baiting the hooks with bits of some kind of shredded poultry dipped in a gourmet sauce. I don't remember if he caught anything but I got the impression that the activity of fishing itself was sufficient.

At some point we were sitting down near a Franklin stove and I was trying to work up a polite way to ask if there were some way he could change the US Constitution so that Canadians would also be considered US citizens. Boy, that comes from a long way back. I guess you never really lose some yearnings. Damn you, Schoolhouse Rock. :)

That was the extent of it, pretty much. Not the strangest dream I've ever had, or the most memorable or the most profound. But surprising, pleasant, and maybe a note-to-self that I need to look a little deeper at some of the big-note folks I've written off. I dunno.