Dream of: 24 July 1995 "Cherry Tobacco"
When I was in the ninth grade of school in 1967 in Portsmouth, I met a fellow named Greg who went to the same Junior High School that I did. We were friends and hung around together for a week or two, but then for some reason we stopped being friends.
Carolina and I had now gone to Greg's house to visit him. His mother, a tall, thin, black-haired woman (about 40 years old) invited us into the dining room where we sat down at the dining table. She said Greg was upstairs and would be down shortly.
After a while Greg's sister came in the room. She was a pretty girl with long dark hair, probably in her late teens. I recalled that I had gone with Greg and his family on a camping trip when I had known him, and that the sister had gone along. I told her it had been so long ago that she would probably not remember, and I held my hand out about a meter off the ground to indicate how tall she had been at that time. She acted as if she might vaguely remember me but she wasn't sure.
As we continued to wait, I began to grow impatient. I talked with Greg's mother and mentioned that when Greg and I had known each other we had had a metal detector and had tried to find things with it. I couldn't remember whether we had been successful, although I did seem to remember having found a rusty old lock.
I finally stood and walked into the living room, where I saw several boxes of comic books on the floor. Greg's mother explained that Greg had collected the comic books for years and now was planning to sell them. I recalled how I had also collected comic books when I had been young but I had sold them many years ago. I regretted having sold them because their value had gone up considerably since then. I thought maybe now I could buy Greg's comic books. I glanced through the boxes to see what kind of comic books he had, but saw nothing of great interest.
I was growing increasingly impatient. I was sure Carolina and I had been there at least a half hour already. Finally I decided to leave. Obviously Greg didn't want to come down for some reason. Perhaps he had grown fat over the years and was ashamed of how he looked. I didn't know, but I surely wasn't going to wait any longer.
***
As Carolina and I rode around in a car in Portsmouth, I decided I wanted to smoke some tobacco in a pipe which I had with me. I couldn't remember the last time I had smoked any tobacco – in fact I couldn't remember having ever smoked tobacco in a pipe. But now I had decided I wanted to try it.
We stopped at a small store which had a carry out window on the street. I stepped out of the car, walked up to the window and told the man there I wanted some tobacco. He hesitated then handed me a small jar about two centimeters tall with some clear liquid in it. I picked it up, looked at it and asked him what it was. He said nowadays this liquid was used instead of tobacco. I hesitated, then told him that I wasn't interested in the liquid, that I wanted some real tobacco. He took back the bottle, rummaged around in his shop, then finally handed me a cellophane pouch which said "Cherry Tobacco" on the front. I could see real tobacco inside the pouch. I thought it would probably be sweet and smell like cherries when smoked. Thinking that was acceptable, I decided to buy it.
Copyright 2001 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
