• Introduction to Ann’s Dreams (How do we know which Reality we are in?)
• Childhood Memories, Friends in High School, Neighborhood Friends, Boys at School

Perhaps I should begin with an apology.  Having posted my first page about five years ago, I guess I had that proverbial writer’s block, which I thought would last a day at the most.  Frankly, readers, I didn’t really know what I was doing, although my head was filled with ideas. I guess Life itself distracted me.. That happens to us old timers quite often. Let me begin again.

I’d like to share my thoughts from over the years, and I think a lot, about everything. Not the usual normal things like most people, but about deep, unknowable things, like where do we come from? What is a soul, or what is the difference between a soul and a spirit, oh yes, are ghosts real?  Who am I? What is Magic, is it Real? Now that’s a really big one.  But where do I begin?  Now, let’s see?  The beginning?  That’s usually a good place to begin.

Some people say you really shouldn’t write in the “I.”  But heck, this is about me, isn’t it, or is it?  Perhaps I should try by writing about Ann, this alter ego, that resides somewhere within me, the illusive I that I have been searching for.  So I’ll begin with The Dream, pretty typical of dreams Ann had over the years, and the switch to other important memories.

Ann awoke, to find herself back at work, not the job she remembers from her waking state, but the job she has when she becomes awake in her dream. We’ll get more into that later.  Anyway, Ann is just continuing a number of experiences in this building owned by a group of pathologists, who have formed a company amongst themselves, for the purpose of making money, using their medical skills learned many years ago, most of them being old men, ready for retirement, but who just love making money, doing what they do.. It seems quite natural to Ann that she doesn’t remember how she got there, or even waking up that morning, and getting ready for work, but here she is, and she goes about her duties just as she always does, when she finds herself here.

Usually, it is much more interesting than this when she awakes in the dream.  There is so much unusual lab work going on here in this building, and she is thrilled to be a part of this group. Usually, they trust her with some electrophoresis, which she is adept at, and requires much more dexterity and concentration than someone just observing her would think. There are other parts of the job that are not as interesting, like just cataloging body  parts, but even that requires a lot of presence of mind, and making sure each part is labeled appropriately.  But the job she is really looking forward to is running the blood chemistry analyzer.  Ann is quite adept at running the usual analyzers in hospital laboratories , like the Smac24, the Olympus, or the Beckman analyzers, but this analyzer runs whole blood, rather than serum, and spits out values that she is just biting at the chomp to learn more about and become adept at.

But today, she has finished her work, and is cleaning up her work station, and she sees Mary Ellen, her supervisor, bending over one of the children that has been brought into the waiting room to be picked up by their Moms on their way out.  It’s almost time to go, but Mary Ellen looks pleadingly at Ann, and asks if she can give a quick vacuum over the floor before she leaves.  Ann smiles, sure, she doesn’t mind at all.  She knows how busy Mary Ellen is.  The maids don’t come in until near midnight, and there is to be a meeting of the board members tonight.  It’s no small task to vacuum the large room with toddlers and young children here and there, but she gets it done quickly.  At one point, she falls asleep, and realizes she is just about to vacuum the shoes of one of the sale’s reps sitting in the corner, waiting for an appointment with Dr. Noland, the chief pathologist of the group.  He smiles at her, lifting an eyebrow at her.  “Had a bad day eh?” Ann apologizes, “So sorry, I guess I fell asleep on my feet.”  The handsome black man grins at her, and replies, “No problem, anytime.”  With that Ann decides that’s enough for one day, and puts the vacuum back in the closet. She is used to the many men working and visiting there flirting with her, and she’s trying to break through this resistance she has of flirting back at them.  Nodding her head, she looks out through the screen door and sees the van just leaving with outpatients, a service the group provides to their clients, since their building is almost in the boon docks, way past the business areas around Orange Park.

Suddenly, Ann awakens a third time, this time sitting in the van, that is just getting ready to leave the premises.  She shakes her head, wondering, how did I get here?  “Hey, stop,” she cries, “I’m not supposed to be here! Let me out!” Usually the driver will pay her no attention, but she looks at Ann, and states calmly, “You know I can’t stop once the van has started.”  “But my car is back there,” she continues to plead as the van takes off down the country road.  By the time they are up to Roosevelt Blvd. Ann realizes she can’t possibly walk back to the building now, she’ll just have to let the driver take her home.  Then she sees the skyline of Jacksonville, her home town and old stomping grounds.  Its been a while since she’s been to Jax, she’ll have to do some exploring around. By this time the driver is making stops to let people out.

That’s when she realizes that’s her cue, being in the van, or bus, or train, or whatever, where the driver won’t stop and let her out,  the clue that tells her she is in a dream.  “I’m dreaming!” she shouts.  “You are all in my dream!” She thinks to herself that she can fly home if she wants, and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have her purse or her keys!  Then she finds herself sitting on a high stool in a store. There are two women watching her to make sure she gets back in the van.  She realizes she needs to get down, but it is as though she is paralyzed, or does not have the strength to move her muscles.  She so wanted to explore Jacksonville again!

The first years in this new neighborhood went by quickly, and then she finds herself at Terry Parker Jr/Sr High, which still took seventh and eighth grades at that time.  She excelled in her classes, loving the curriculum she had picked out for herself, preparing her to enter college, if all goes right.  After the first year, she found herself in advanced math and history classes. Her life was mainly going to school, studying, and things went fairly well for her.

After school Ann helped at home taking care of her younger sister, and once she had finished her Home Economics classes in her seventh grade, she even started dinner, for her Mom, who gets home about six in the evening after her day at work..  Her “chore” was washing the dishes after supper, and although Elaine, her younger sister was supposed to dry them, and put them away, Ann usually ended up doing that too, if she wanted to go outside for the evening. Her Mom was a clerk who worked in a bank, and her father was a truck driver who was out of town twice a week, and usually her Mom took her sister and her along to see a movie in  downtown Jacksonville.  Sometimes they would shop at Penney’s or May Cohen’s, or go to dinner at Morrison’s before they came home.

There was one time when Ann was only six years old, in the second grade, her mother had to be downtown, for some unknown reason, before Ann got home from school, and since she rode the city bus home from school, all she had to do was stay on the bus and get off in front of the Krystal on the corner.  Ann understood that her mother would meet her there.  But she didn’t.  Ann knew she was going to the Palace Theater, but she had been told never to cross streets by herself, and she couldn’t bring herself to take that first step off the curb and walk a half block down the street.  So an hour later, the bus driver returned to see Ann still standing there, and knowing where she usually got off, he convinced her to take the bus back home.

That probably was meant to happen for a reason that I’m going to tell you, but now a days, thinking back, I cannot understand why my mother did not meet me in front of the Krystal. I can’t imagine any mother just going on into the theater, when her child did not show up, whether in front of the Palace Theater, or the Krystal, but she did. She didn’t miss her movie.

Of course, by that time Ann was crying, so the sympathetic bus driver had her sitting right behind him. As fortune would have it, another young girl, three years older than Ann, was coming home from the Catholic School, and saw her sitting there.  Her parents were good friends with Ann’s parents, and sometimes Ann had been left to play with her. I say this thing was meant to be, because that little girl changed my life right then.

As you can probably tell my parents were young and not educated at all, but this girl’s parents were more caring and observant about their daughter, and taught her well.  She asked Ann if she had gotten her Report Card that day, and Ann showed it to her.  It was all “Satisfactory’s,” what was given then for grades.  The only other options was “Very good” and “Not Satisfactory.”  Ann had no idea what any of it meant, but when Catherine, I think that was her name, told her she should be making “Very goods,” Ann got the idea that it meant she should try a little harder to do “good.”  Such a simple concept, but one that could have made a difference.  From then on, Ann made “Very Goods” until she was in higher grades that gave A’s.  Because a friend showed she cared about her how she did in school.

She had a few close friends during school, and since she was on the shy side, usually they came up to her to make friends first.  Her best friend was Susan across the street, whose parents were friends with her parents, but later she was replaced by an even longer-lasting friend Cindy.   Cindy was a year older, but they were at about the same maturity level, and got along fabulously.  Cindly was like a real live Cinderella.  She lived with her Dad and her (evil) stepmother, who made her clean the whole house everyday after school, while her stepmother came home and ate chocolates in bed. Once both their chores and Ann’s homework was done, they hung out until sundown. Cindy’s two step-sisters, who were 3 to 5 years younger than Cindy never had to do a lick of housework.  However, Ann and the older sister shared a love for Nancy Drew and Ann later sold her collection to her for a quarter per book.

In the twelfth grade, Ann found herself in a class on College Algebra, with some of the boys on the Football team, who were all headed for college after graduation, as Ann hoped to be also. Ann always had her head in a book, and really never paid attention to the guys at school.  To her they all seemed so immature.  When Danny, who was number one on her lists of “Desirables,” walked up and asked her to a dance, she was floored. All sorts of things went through Ann’s mind, like “Is this adorable, cute guy really asking me out,” then, ” oh, my God, what will I wear? ” And “Is this dance a formal?” Then she glanced over to a group of boys who were all huddled together and kind of chuckling to themselves as they watched the scene between her and Danny, so Ann did what any red-blooded American girl would do.  She kicked Danny right in the shin, which probably ruined it for any other guy there thinking about asking her out.  But of all things, that is the one thing she had done in her life, Ann regretted the most, once she began to age, and think back on her life.  How different her life could have been, if she had just gone out with Danny, or at least apologized for kicking him. Later that day in class, she caught him looking at her longingly. “I’m so sorry, she could have mouthed to him, but then she thought of his friends, huddled together and laughing at her, and her pert little nose went up, and she looked away.

Not that she didn’t have boyfriends.  There was another Danny.  She found him one day on the Beach, drunk, and dancing under the Limbo stick.  Ann could not believe her eyes.  He had curly dark brown hair, muscled chest and abdomen, hairy muscular legs, and he was the sexiest thing she had ever seen.  Ann was only sixteen, and it was to this Danny that she lost her virginity. Unfortunately, his motto was: “Words are cheap, woman.” But Ann wrote an excellent reply to that statement, which he had told her when she asked him if he had feelings for her.  Well, everything about Danny was cheap, his words, his car, his dates on the beach dunes, in the car, or a marshmallow roast at the beach.  But he was damned sexy.

Of course, he did take Ann to the Fair that came every year in front of the Coliseum in Jacksonville. And to the top of the double Ferris wheel, which Ann swore she would never get on again in her life. Naturally, it stopped at the top, and while Ann was clutching wildly to the side of the chair, Danny laughed.  But finally he did notice she was as white as a ghost, and took her in his arms, and stopped rocking the seat, which was swaying back and forth, horrifying Ann into absolute panic.

Another time he just came over while Ann’s folks were across the street visiting with Susan’s parents.  Her Dad walked in on them, (just making out, thank goodness), but he didn’t say a word.  After he left, Ann got the feeling that her Dad knew something about Danny. So she asked him, and sure enough, he did.  He said that he knew Danny’s father, who was a policeman. Ann’s father had come to meet many policemen due to driving a liquor truck for so many years, and had even earned himself a Deputy’s badge and a pistol.  He said that Danny’s folks had had a lot of trouble with the boy, he had stolen a car, and had been taking drugs.  Ann knew there was a wild streak in that boy, probably what attracted her to him , so she decided she would have no more to do with him.

However, neither of those boys had been Ann’s true First Love.  That is more of a story, so I will have to wait until next time.  But that gives you an idea what it was like to grow up in Jacksonville in the Fifty’s and Sixty’s, and we’ll get more into Magic, as we go along, I promise.