FollowA few nights ago, I had the strangest wildest dreams (plural). First there was a dinner in a cabin with three thirty year racquetball buddies near the Atlantic Ocean. Some years ago, our weekly game in Woodbridge evolved into a seasonal game at each vernal equinox; therefore four times a year. Then, after the gang suffered age related degenerative annoying injuries and responsibilities of family and gardening chores tore up the racquetball playing calendar, we agreed to meet monthly to feed faces instead of cardio-vascular pursuits. We’ll never go back to playing; a distant aching memory of a smooth blue rubber ball (blue men tee shirt group we were) pounding four walls and some of us diving on the shellac wood floor to intercept the ball before it terminated at two bounces. A downstairs mirror once talked to me on a cold snowy morning. “Dorian, you’re not aging, but your racquetball partners are. Welcome to the world of passages. Smile and find ways to adapt and move forward.” ‘Passages’ so I thought were for stages in life. Then over dinner, one racquetball guy announced he’ll be a grandfather in the fall and another said his daughter is getting married and I chimed in, “My son and I watched ‘The Matrix’ last night.” By the way, a wonderful mind expansive movie. And I got it without help from my 25 year old son.
No passages for me; just a wise mirror in a downstairs bathroom. Us guys shook hands and said, “Next month.” On the drive home through drizzle rain and dark sky, I drifted away from my central Jersey surroundings. No cars were on the roads I travelled; no lights in any of the farm houses and small general stores I passed; no people or signs of human life; no hitchhikers; no garbage cans waiting for pick-up; no nothing but abstract shadows and trees bending in the wind. I was really alone. George Washington slept near where I was. Suddenly, a headless horseman jumped a fence and disappeared into a field of growth; did it wave at me; it was hard to see in the dark. Time passed and still no humans or lights. What if I was the last person left on Earth? What if I were ‘On the Beach’ waving goodbye to Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck? What did I think of in the middle of Kansas; all the king’s men and all the air traffic controllers (5 of them now?) who fell asleep alone on the job while planes with humans aboard fend for themselves? No wonder why I love buses and long distance runners.
Henry Krakowski, who oversaw the air traffic control system, just resigned from the FAA. He was responsible for operations, planning and maintenance of the air traffic control system; the resignation comes after a series of high-profile embarrassments in several states and Washington, D.C., where controllers have fallen asleep while working overnight shifts. At least five controllers have been suspended in recent months, and the agency has moved to increase the late staffing from one person to two. Oh wow, could it be budget cuts that made them go with just one air traffic controller at night? I must look into getting one of those bus passes for perpetuity. Back to my wildest dreams; I’m back on busy Route 9 with its plethora of sodium and fast food palaces. Soon, I’m in a dark bedroom; just the cable box clock telling me its 4:44 AM. I call out names and no one answers. Am I alone again? Am I awake? No one really could foresee a nuclear war over there. But it happened. We helped by giving money and looking in different directions. Appeasement at Munich happened. Now hundreds of millions of people are affected. No one thought it would happen. It just did.
the Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst NJ
“Oh the humanity,” I whispered thinking about Herbert Morrison’s famous radio commentary of the May 1937 Hindenburg Disaster which took place just down the road from me at Lakehurst. I almost woke up. But I was stuck sitting around a campfire with a group of NASCAR guys talking about a recent relevant North Carolina race. I was out of body but almost awake; resolved to avoid extra raisins in my midnight bowl of bran flakes with added packet of artificial sweetener (real poison). Then I thought I was awake but not; still stuck in the mud trying to escape the cops in my late Model T. GEe, I wonder how a mammoth company gets away with making billions of profit and paying no corporate taxes. The clock on the cable box still reads 4:44 AM. I’m climbing a small mountain in Essex County and a man is chasing me with a menacing stick. He looks like Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, except this stick man has a tiny moustache and military boots that pass over his wounded knees. I see a bright light now and I think it’s a good light. A long line of people, dressed in white togas (I hear John Belushi yelling, “toga”) are waiting for hours for a glass of orange juice and a round cracker. The sun is so bright I squinted.
Now I’m a cop in Los Angeles and was just informed that Lenny Bruce bought bad heroin so I hopped in my squad car and saved him before it was too late. Nearing the end of this wildest dream (nightmare if you’re so disposed) is rapid eye movement stage, where I’m in Washington at a secret meeting; the gang is laughing uncontrollably about the imaginary American oil crisis. Then I jumped up and got out of bed (this really happened) and started outlining a story about the gang at the secret oil meeting. The story even had a title, borrowed from an old street in Princeton. Wouldn’t it be great if I had a long colored pencil that I could just reach up and draw or write on the ceiling instead of jumping out of bed? Wouldn’t it be lovely if some of these dreams came true and some didn’t? A perfect segue to ‘Peak Oil.’
peak oil chart
A long time ago, as in a fairy tale, when I jumped out of bed after a wildest dream, I began to write and research the world of oil. I’m clueless where the inspiration came from but it was there. I honestly don’t know how a central Jersey, former Newark guy, comes to the world of oil; don’t even use oil when I put vinegar in my salad. Maybe the universe brought me to the oil. The Hubbert Peak for World Oil says oil is a finite resource. There are basic laws which describe the depletion of any finite resource. Production starts at zero and rises to a peak which can never be surpassed. Once the peak is passed, production declines until oil is depleted. These simple rules were described in the 1950’s (when my ‘dream’ gang met in secret) by Dr. M. King Hubbert, whose graph predicted that oil production would “peak” in 1970, and that it would taper off from there until 2050, when we would have used up all the oil that ever was. I love all the debates whether the ‘peak’ is true or not.(maybe the same gang that insists global warming is fiction) However the good old Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that we have 1.28 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves worldwide, more than ever before in human history, despite decades of increased usage.
At the World Petroleum Congress held in Johannesburg last September, another old friend, ExxonMobil admitted that world oil resources are so huge that they cannot be fully estimated. ExxonMobil offered their best guess (cackling all the way to the future bank); estimating the level of conventional oil reserves today between 6 and 8 trillion barrels, plus an additional 3 trillion barrels in oil shale deposits (Hooray for Canada and Hollywood). This doesn’t sound like we’re going to run out of oil anytime near soon. However, we consume about 4 barrels of oil for every one barrel that’s found today. This cannot continue forever. Plain logic is that production and consumption have to decline in the very near future.
Gilda Radner
From Gilda Radner’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ character, Roseanne Roseannadanna: “It’s always something–if it ain’t one thing, it’s another,” which puts all this oil rhetoric in perspective. I miss Gilda Radner an awful lot. I’d love to say, “Nevermind” to all this oil talk. What happens to me here in central Jersey if peak oil is real? I saw a sign on my local ExxonMobil station yesterday; $3.59 a gallon and rising. I think there are 157 different conspiracy tainted theories with respect to oil and reserves. Please watch the following Youtube video on Peak Oil (10 minutes long). The chart pokes fun at the correlation of diminished American oil and rock music production and was created by Mark Lee, a bureaucrat, a blogger, and a rocker.
American Rock Music and Oil Chart thanks to Mark Lee
(PEAK OIL VIDEO 10 minutes)
Wednesday morning I got up at 6AM, showered and dressed for rain showers and left the house at 6:30AM, arriving at Rutgers University at 7AM. Two deep breaths to ameliorate the drizzle of the rain, and I walked from a parking lot to a small line of seven people waiting outside Nicholas Music Center and the eventual Eagleton Institute program
“A Conversation with Rachel Maddow.” There was another wildest dream; I was back in college, getting up at dawn and waiting in line to hear the UN delegate from South Vietnam talk about the impending crisis in Southeast Asia. By 8:30 AM, the line snaked around the building and the doors opened to airport security screening. I looked to see if a little girl would be subjected to a body search. No little girls, mostly students of American government. Jesse Ventura is on the warpath (law suit) with body searches at airports. Did I tell you all how much I love bus travel and getting up 6AM; a guarantee of first row seating.
Rachel Maddow
At 9:30 Rachel Maddow sat down for a conversation with Ruth Mandel from Eagleton Institute. Now, I don’t profess any political party affiliations; I always seek out reason, rationality, practicality and humanity. It was quite refreshing to listen to Rachel’s soaring intellect, humor and levitating liberalism. Yes, I was mesmerized and that happens rarely. She was worth the 6 AM rising of the soul. Knowledge is good. What I really love these days of imagined pulchritude is shoving as much knowledge and information into the old brain; a healthy undertaking is to learn and be motivated. Rachel Maddow has a new loyal listener at 9 PM and at midnight for a second dose. She even wondrously scared me by reinforcing one of my wildest dreams as hers also (not for discussion now). What a gift to live near a major University! Wednesday night I returned to the lecture circuit; a local Chiropractor talked about toxic burdens; bad chemicals which accumulate in the body from the environment and food. I took his survey and because I’ve had no red meat since 1975 and have been environmentally aware (bad fish and bad plastics in microwaves), I have virtually no symptoms of toxic chemicals but am thinking of doing an internal body cleansing of some type. Remember, I do work at living to 150 and still playing meaningful doubles tennis.
I often listen to Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech from August 28, 1963 (thanks Youtube). I should’ve been there live; the fact that I wasn’t has haunted and motivated me to jump into the rabbit hole of life ever since. Sometimes you can’t get to where you’re supposed to be without tripping around the passages of the past.
Walter Breuning, oldest man in the world
The world’s oldest man, Walter Bruening died yesterday in Montana (where I dream of going one Christmas Eve) at 114 years old. Here are some of his keys to long life: Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. Eat two meals a day (“That’s all you need.”) Work as long as you can (“That money’s going to come in handy.”) Help others. Accept death. “We’re going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die,” he said. ABC canceled two of its three soap operas on Thursday, consigning “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” and Susan Lucci, daytime’s most famous actress, to television historical passages.
And the human race is slowing down. When the U.S. space shuttle completes its final flight in June, mankind will take another step back from its top speed. Space shuttles are the fastest reusable manned vehicles ever built. The shuttles’ retirement follows the grounding over recent years of ultrafast people carriers, including the supersonic Concorde and the speedier SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. With nothing ready to replace them, our species is decelerating, perhaps for the first time in history.
My dreams are not decelerating. An accountant, who hardly knows me, said a few weeks ago that I dream too much. If he only knew that my dreams are wild, plentiful, and confusingly energizing. I never dreamt of being an author, bloggist, centenarian or knowing that an angel has been hanging around me since I crossed the canal. Here’s a link below to a ‘Moody Blues’ song called “Wildest Dreams.” As long as I can feel warm sunshine on my face, I’ll keep dreaming creatively and wildly. I dreamt a few weeks ago, I’d be invited to Kate and William’s wedding in London because I’m an ‘up and coming’ novelist, bloggist and I love England. Then I found out this morning that the men’s shoes you need to wear cost $4000/pair. Now I’m going to round up the usual suspects and have a nice day.
‘Wildest Dreams’ The Moody Blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmmPFrkuPq0
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Hey, youre the goto expert. Thakns for hanging out here.
Comment by Darvin — May 5, 2011 @ 7:33 am
Thanks for the share!
Nancy.R
Comment by Nancy — September 30, 2011 @ 4:07 pm