Dream of: 29 August 1997 "Rising Water"
Early in the morning, my father and I were sitting in the living room of the Gallia County Farmhouse, watching a program on a financial channel on the television. The commentator was Mark Haynes. The markets hadn't yet opened, but my father and I immediately noticed that the Standard and Poors futures were already up 50 points, an enormous rise. I had never seen the futures up so much. Clearly the stock prices would be going up when the market opened. The prospect of rising stock prices disturbed me because just the day before I had sold short quite a bit of stock, in anticipation that the market would go down.
My father soon stood and left, but I continued watching as the futures continued to climb. In the background was a picture of the New York Stock Exchange with a few people milling about, waiting for the market to open. I sat in amazement as the futures soared past 100, 150, and finally to 250. When the futures hit two hundred, the machine (which looked something like a digital clock) which showed the futures numbers, blinked off. The commentator, Haynes, picked up the machine and looked at it. Apparently the machine was broken and Haynes didn't know how to fix it. But when he set the machine down, it began registering again. The numbers started with one and continued going up. I thought I simply needed to add two hundred to the present number on display and I would know what the actual figure was. But I wondered what the machine would say if the futures dipped below 200 again.
I finally stood and walked into the bedroom. Carolina was lying in the bed. I sat down on the bed beside her and told her that she would never guess what the futures were doing. Finally I told her the futures were up over 200; she said she couldn't believe it. I had a short discussion with her about how bad this was for us. I told her I had been expecting the market to turn upward (the market had been going down recently), but I hadn't expected the market to turn upward so dramatically. Now I was uncertain what to do. I didn't know if I should buy to cover the stock that I had sold short, or whether I should just wait. Now might be the worst time to buy when the market opened at its high. I mentioned that at least we did have some long positions. I had just purchased some RIT the day before and we still had MLIN and DSH. Perhaps those would offset the short positions. Besides holding stock in my regular stock account, I also traded stock in my IRA account. Unfortunately, I also recalled that I had just sold my long holdings out of my IRA the day before; so I had nothing in my IRA with which to benefit from the rise in the market.
Carolina rose from the bed. We walked into the kitchen together. My pet Dalmatian Chaucer and my pet Dalmatian Picasso were in the kitchen and Carolina asked me if they could stay in the House. I suddenly realized the dogs had been in the House while my father had been here and that he was allergic to them. I wasn't supposed to have them in the House while he was here. I immediately told Carolina that the dogs couldn't stay in the House and I led them out to the back porch.
I also stepped out unto the back porch and looked around. What I saw astounded me. The creek was rising, faster than I had ever seen it. I knew it had rained recently, but I hadn't expected the creek to be rising like this. The fields were already covered and the water was almost up to the milk house. The height of the water gave me pause because I had stored some possessions in the bottom of the milk house and I might need to move them. Also I had a white BMW automobile sitting at the bottom of the hill and I didn't want the water to get into it. I needed to move car. These concerns were putting pressure on me because the stock market was going to open in 15 minutes and I needed to be at my computer to determine what to do about my stock. But if I didn't move the car and move the things from the bottom of the milk house (comic books in particular), everything might be ruined.
My father, who had been down at the bottom of the hill, walked up to me. Together we walked up a little further on the hill above the House between the House and the tobacco barn so we could look out at both sides of the hill at the rising water. If the water rose enough to reach the House, we could always flee further up the hill. The water, of course, had never risen so high before. As we surveyed the surrounding area, I told my father about the stock market and how the futures had reached 200 and maybe more. He seemed surprised but not particularly concerned. I asked him if he had much stock now and he said he didn't. But I knew he had some stock that I had recommended to him such as MLIN. But apparently it didn't make much different to him.
I finally left him and went back into the House. I needed to do something fast about the things in the milk house and my car. It was almost time for the market to open, and the water was still rising fast.
Copyright 2001 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
