Please don’t tell my wife about my daydream from hell.
I was supposed to be working—or doing the dishes. For that matter, anything else would have sufficed.
But as a writer, even of the uncompensated variety, daydreaming is a prerequisite for rolling the pen on paper.
And on this particular day, the thoughts took on a life of their own.
December 2, 1859. Charles Town, West Virginia. The place was still part of Virginia, whose western cousin didn’t exist yet. That’s when the abolitionist John Brown was hanged for raiding a federal armory in Harpers Ferry. So much for the slave rebellion he was trying to incite.
Wait, whatever happened to Angie Everhart? Remember her—the redhead model who was in that Schwarzenegger movie Last Action Hero (and a ton of other stuff)?
I briefly looked at the blank computer screen and noticed the song playing in the background.
Chrissie Hynde did have a fantastic voice.
That show Providence was pretty good. I wonder what Melina Kanakaredes is up to these days.
I looked back at the still-blank screen.
How cool would it be to win a Pulitzer Prize? Rita Dove won the Pulitzer for Poetry. I think she was the United States Poet Laureate or something.
She must have been like the LeBron James of poetry.
Man, those NBA Finals between LeBron and Steph Curry were so good.
I stared at the computer and noted the music again.
The Black Keys weren’t very good live. I still like them though.
That was nuts in second grade when we all huddled around the TV in the classroom to watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. And then they just ushered us out of the room without saying a word. Poor Judith Resnik.
James Harrison was undrafted?! He was such a dominant linebacker for the Steelers.
My wife called and asked what I was doing.
“Uh, making money online,” I blurted out, hoping she wouldn’t check the bank account any time soon.
I sat back and wondered.
Had I just had the daydream from hell?
Or was it from Akron, Ohio?*
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*Everyone mentioned was born in and/or spent spent significant time in Akron.
