In my dream, I am "assisting" someone on supervising a project.
We are a block or two north of the main business district of West Chester at some heavy-industry site which, of course, never existed in the waking world.
The person I'm supposed to be assisting is a man in his mid-40's or so, dressed in business attire. I, on the other hand, amd waring a tee shirt and shorts. And no shoes. Barefoot. I like this guy and admire his work. And am happy to support him in any way I can.
He is supervising the mating of two massive pieces of metal -- both round -- with bolt holes to allow the two plates to be bolted together. I can see the two pieces of metal -- both upright -- facing each other at a distance of several feet. The ground is marked with lots of loose pieces of metal, dirt clods, etc. It's not place to be walking around barefoot.
My guy seems to know exactly what he's doing, and really doesn't need me to do anything. It feels as if I'm there strictly pro forma. Maybe I could go get coffee for him if he asked...
Since I seemed to be unneeded here, I went back to the main street in West Chester to get a pair of shoes. My dream took me through several different stores which might have had shoes... but didn't. Each store took a considerable amount of dreamtime and each store was quite different.
I returned to the project site and was informed that the mating of the two pieces of metal had to be postponed, as folks couldn't put all the bolts in to finish the job (whether is was a lack of bolts or holes or supporting brackets to line the pieces up wasn't clear to me.)
Leaving the site (not knowing whether I was properly shod or continues to be barefoot was not clear), I came across Charlie Pelot, a fellow I worked with many years ago. I think, but am not sure, that he wanted me to play baseball with him and one other person, whom I saw only at a distance.
I told him thanks for the offer, but I really wasn't interested in doing that. As I recall, I decided not to point out to him that we only had three people, and you couldn't do much in the way of playing baseball with a crowd that small.
He was clearly disappointed and tried to change my mind. And as he talked on and on about how important baseball (if that was, in fact the sport he was suggesting) was to our national identity and pride. And the more he talked, the louder and more angry he became. Fairly quickly, he was simply yelling at me.
I woke up.
