I awoke from the dream smiling and wished it not to be over. It is so rare that the vivid details of a dream remain with me upon waking that when they do, I’m always pleased. And despite the utter strangeness of it all, what follows is real – well, a real dream anyway…
I dreamt that I was chosen from a crowd, together with four or five others, to stand before all and create something from nothing but a small scattering of tools and pictures. The tools were a black marker, a large seemingly blank piece of paper, and a grouping of random photographs. And our creation was to show a link between present day and the 1950’s.
Sadly I only remember a few of the photos – an unwrapped snickers bar, a bottle of beer and a huge bowl of Fruit Loops.
The moderator was a cantankerous young woman whose job, so it seemed, was to praise each of the chosen “contestants” except for me. I was to be ridiculed. Thinking back she reminds me of Nurse Ratched – the somber and cold bitch of a battleaxe nurse who avenged the defiance of asylum patient Randle McMurphy in the 60’s novel and 70’s movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Our moderator was truly nurse Ratched-esque except that she was more like a school teacher - a cranky bitter substitute teacher. Yes, that’s more like it. She was not nurse Ratched; she was her evil twin “Miss Ratched”.
And so there we stood pens in hand, in a broad line facing the crowd. Our respective drawing paper and photographs were tacked neatly to an easel behind us. Then the moderator barked her orders to begin our creations.
I remember looking at my paper in fear as the many eyes watched from the crowd in eager anticipation of the creativity about to unfold. And I was inspired with nothing. Then I noticed that the paper was not blank at all. On one side there was a jagged line running vertically from near the upper left corner down the page and then turning to disappear off the left edge of the sheet near the bottom. And there was also a similar line that formed a crooked oval shape near the upper right corner of the page. The rest of the sheet was indeed blank. Thoughtful, I took my marker and drew a small “x” between the jagged vertical line and the edge of the sheet near its lower leftward curve. Then with marker still on the paper, I began at the “x” and draw a sweeping elliptical arc whose trajectory curved upward to its climax before turning downward to its conclusion at the center of the crooked oval. Next in the empty space below the ovalness of my line’s destination I drew two tall parallel trees with opposing ends of a hammock firmly tied high within each tree. The next thing I knew I was laying comfortably within the swaying easiness of my newly imagined berth. And there I stayed on my back in my hammock, hands tucked gently behind my head looking upward into a starry night.
Then I became aware of Miss Ratched beginning her inspection at the end of the long line of contestants. The beginning is fuzzy. One was a man and one was a woman. They were explaining the hows and whys of their drawn creations which, being distant from them and relaxing upon hammock, I failed to remember. And as Miss Ratched praised them, the crowd applauded.
The third contestant I remember vividly. It was Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. His creation was a written recipe for chicken. And as he read it aloud, the aroma of fresh fried chicken wafted through the auditorium. This was quite an impressive feat but I managed to remain in my hammock ignoring the applause.
The next contestant was equally awesome. It was Tiger Woods. He had drawn a rudimentary diagram of a stick figure that actually moved like a cartoon. It showed the perfect arc of a swinging club. Again praise. Again applause.
I remained relaxed in my imagined shade as Miss Ratched approached the contestant to my immediate left. For some reason this one got my attention. Perhaps it was because he was right next to me. This proximity certainly signaled the inevitability of my upcoming disastrous explanation of an unimaginative single line exacerbated by the laziness of my current repose. Or perhaps the attention getter was the fact that the contestant to my left was Ray Charles. He was playing the piano and singing "Georgia". "How did he get that piano?" I thought. The applause was thunderous.
I remember a sinking feeling as Miss Ratched approached me in my hammock and stared at my miserable drawing of a single elliptical line and a couple of trees. Where is your creation she barked? As I pointed to the line she scolded me for my laziness. She said "That is just a line!" She was incredulous.
Still laying I tried to explain that it was more than a line. I reached up with my marker and traced the drawn arc. This simple line I explained was travel. It carried me away from the “x” and this stage to the faithful steadiness of my shady rest on Oval Island. The crowd moaned in anticipation of Miss Ratched’s certain rebuke. But instead, Miss Ratched said “What about the photographs? You were to incorporate these into your creation. You were to begin in the 1950’s and tie them to current day.” I had forgotten this. And apparently so too had some of the other contestants. Still I was not deterred and I remained in my current state of relaxation. Then I drew a deep breath and told my story…
In 1958 the only thing available to me from these photographs was the beer. The items in the other photographs had yet to be invented. (This was not really true but Miss Ratched seemed to buy it.) And so naturally having no other alternative I reached out and grabbed one. I opened it and found it to be cold and refreshing. I picked up an empty from the stage floor and held it out for her inspection. It was Pabst Blue Ribbon. This is of interest because I was born in 1958 and I do not recall liking PBR in my youth. But never the less it was all that availed itself to me at the time.
I continued…after lazing in this very hammock and consuming beer after beer I began to enlarge. I got larger and larger and the hammock dipped under my increasing weight. Soon the trees began to bend inward. Downward the trees bent towards each other as the hammock strained at the tension of my increasing largeness. Soon I became nothing more than a beer guzzling blob precariously perched within a tightly stretched canvas that tugged mercilessly at the two quivering trees. And they were bent nearly to the ground under the enormity of my being. They seemed to bow as if in reverence to my wretched gravitational disfigurement.
Then inexplicably the beer was gone - all of it. With nothing to sustain me I quickly shed the extraneous girth and within days became suddenly slender. But the hammock within which I reclined remained stretched tight as it had adhered itself to the earth under the enormous pressure of my previously ballooned self. And the trees remained bowed inward, still yielding to the former tension like an armed slingshot. It was then that I heard the terrible sound of the hammock releasing itself from the ground. As it peeled itself away from the earth the trees straightened to their natural upright posture. The equal and opposite reaction to the tension having equalized itself, was to catapult me into the air. I found myself propelled, hammock in tow, like a missile. Higher and higher the hammock and I sailed until we found ourselves in a steady and continuous orbit around the earth.
My tale was ghastly I know but Miss Ratched and the audience seemed still to be interested. And so I continued. The best minds on the planet determined that the only way out of this predicament was to increase my weight to drag my current orbit into a declining pace where the earth’s gravitational pull would overcome my waning velocity.
With my trajectory thus eroded, they theorized that I would fall back to earth using my hammock as a parachute.
And so a plan was devised. I pointed at the photographs. The beer was gone so the world needed to create an alternative filling snack and a means of delivery. The Snickers was first. Then came the Fruit Loops. Boldly I said “Do you know what came next Miss Ratched?” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established in 1958 to deliver Fruit Loops to me as I orbited the planet! As payload after payload was delivered and devoured my drag did indeed increase as my body reached my current normal size. And as predicted my orbit eroded, my velocity slowed, my trajectory changed and I returned to earth under the billowing canopy of this very hammock.
"And so you see Miss Ratched", I explained, "What appears to you as a line is in fact my means of travel from this stage to my Oval Island and back. And what you see as laziness is in fact responsible for creating Snickers, Fruit Loops and NASA!" Still reclined in my hammock, I eagerly awaited her response and the inevitable applause of the crowd. Had I thought at the time of Miss Ratched’s vengeful nurse of a sister I would have surely expected a few minutes of shock therapy followed by a quick lobotomy!
Then came a voice – distant yet familiar. “Mike. Mike. It’s time to get up. We’ll be late for church.” I opened my eyes and realized that I was in my bed resting comfortably. And there I stayed, on my back hands tucked gently behind my head looking upward at the ceiling, as if in a hammock. Damn. I guess I’ll never know if Miss Ratched bought it. But as I lay there in bed I smiled. Secretly I sensed that I had at least beaten the Colonel, Tiger and Ray Charles.
I dreamt that I was chosen from a crowd, together with four or five others, to stand before all and create something from nothing but a small scattering of tools and pictures. The tools were a black marker, a large seemingly blank piece of paper, and a grouping of random photographs. And our creation was to show a link between present day and the 1950’s.
Sadly I only remember a few of the photos – an unwrapped snickers bar, a bottle of beer and a huge bowl of Fruit Loops.
The moderator was a cantankerous young woman whose job, so it seemed, was to praise each of the chosen “contestants” except for me. I was to be ridiculed. Thinking back she reminds me of Nurse Ratched – the somber and cold bitch of a battleaxe nurse who avenged the defiance of asylum patient Randle McMurphy in the 60’s novel and 70’s movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Our moderator was truly nurse Ratched-esque except that she was more like a school teacher - a cranky bitter substitute teacher. Yes, that’s more like it. She was not nurse Ratched; she was her evil twin “Miss Ratched”.And so there we stood pens in hand, in a broad line facing the crowd. Our respective drawing paper and photographs were tacked neatly to an easel behind us. Then the moderator barked her orders to begin our creations.
I remember looking at my paper in fear as the many eyes watched from the crowd in eager anticipation of the creativity about to unfold. And I was inspired with nothing. Then I noticed that the paper was not blank at all. On one side there was a jagged line running vertically from near the upper left corner down the page and then turning to disappear off the left edge of the sheet near the bottom. And there was also a similar line that formed a crooked oval shape near the upper right corner of the page. The rest of the sheet was indeed blank. Thoughtful, I took my marker and drew a small “x” between the jagged vertical line and the edge of the sheet near its lower leftward curve. Then with marker still on the paper, I began at the “x” and draw a sweeping elliptical arc whose trajectory curved upward to its climax before turning downward to its conclusion at the center of the crooked oval. Next in the empty space below the ovalness of my line’s destination I drew two tall parallel trees with opposing ends of a hammock firmly tied high within each tree. The next thing I knew I was laying comfortably within the swaying easiness of my newly imagined berth. And there I stayed on my back in my hammock, hands tucked gently behind my head looking upward into a starry night.
Then I became aware of Miss Ratched beginning her inspection at the end of the long line of contestants. The beginning is fuzzy. One was a man and one was a woman. They were explaining the hows and whys of their drawn creations which, being distant from them and relaxing upon hammock, I failed to remember. And as Miss Ratched praised them, the crowd applauded.
The third contestant I remember vividly. It was Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. His creation was a written recipe for chicken. And as he read it aloud, the aroma of fresh fried chicken wafted through the auditorium. This was quite an impressive feat but I managed to remain in my hammock ignoring the applause.The next contestant was equally awesome. It was Tiger Woods. He had drawn a rudimentary diagram of a stick figure that actually moved like a cartoon. It showed the perfect arc of a swinging club. Again praise. Again applause.
I remained relaxed in my imagined shade as Miss Ratched approached the contestant to my immediate left. For some reason this one got my attention. Perhaps it was because he was right next to me. This proximity certainly signaled the inevitability of my upcoming disastrous explanation of an unimaginative single line exacerbated by the laziness of my current repose. Or perhaps the attention getter was the fact that the contestant to my left was Ray Charles. He was playing the piano and singing "Georgia". "How did he get that piano?" I thought. The applause was thunderous.
I remember a sinking feeling as Miss Ratched approached me in my hammock and stared at my miserable drawing of a single elliptical line and a couple of trees. Where is your creation she barked? As I pointed to the line she scolded me for my laziness. She said "That is just a line!" She was incredulous.
Still laying I tried to explain that it was more than a line. I reached up with my marker and traced the drawn arc. This simple line I explained was travel. It carried me away from the “x” and this stage to the faithful steadiness of my shady rest on Oval Island. The crowd moaned in anticipation of Miss Ratched’s certain rebuke. But instead, Miss Ratched said “What about the photographs? You were to incorporate these into your creation. You were to begin in the 1950’s and tie them to current day.” I had forgotten this. And apparently so too had some of the other contestants. Still I was not deterred and I remained in my current state of relaxation. Then I drew a deep breath and told my story…
In 1958 the only thing available to me from these photographs was the beer. The items in the other photographs had yet to be invented. (This was not really true but Miss Ratched seemed to buy it.) And so naturally having no other alternative I reached out and grabbed one. I opened it and found it to be cold and refreshing. I picked up an empty from the stage floor and held it out for her inspection. It was Pabst Blue Ribbon. This is of interest because I was born in 1958 and I do not recall liking PBR in my youth. But never the less it was all that availed itself to me at the time.I continued…after lazing in this very hammock and consuming beer after beer I began to enlarge. I got larger and larger and the hammock dipped under my increasing weight. Soon the trees began to bend inward. Downward the trees bent towards each other as the hammock strained at the tension of my increasing largeness. Soon I became nothing more than a beer guzzling blob precariously perched within a tightly stretched canvas that tugged mercilessly at the two quivering trees. And they were bent nearly to the ground under the enormity of my being. They seemed to bow as if in reverence to my wretched gravitational disfigurement.
Then inexplicably the beer was gone - all of it. With nothing to sustain me I quickly shed the extraneous girth and within days became suddenly slender. But the hammock within which I reclined remained stretched tight as it had adhered itself to the earth under the enormous pressure of my previously ballooned self. And the trees remained bowed inward, still yielding to the former tension like an armed slingshot. It was then that I heard the terrible sound of the hammock releasing itself from the ground. As it peeled itself away from the earth the trees straightened to their natural upright posture. The equal and opposite reaction to the tension having equalized itself, was to catapult me into the air. I found myself propelled, hammock in tow, like a missile. Higher and higher the hammock and I sailed until we found ourselves in a steady and continuous orbit around the earth.
My tale was ghastly I know but Miss Ratched and the audience seemed still to be interested. And so I continued. The best minds on the planet determined that the only way out of this predicament was to increase my weight to drag my current orbit into a declining pace where the earth’s gravitational pull would overcome my waning velocity.
With my trajectory thus eroded, they theorized that I would fall back to earth using my hammock as a parachute.And so a plan was devised. I pointed at the photographs. The beer was gone so the world needed to create an alternative filling snack and a means of delivery. The Snickers was first. Then came the Fruit Loops. Boldly I said “Do you know what came next Miss Ratched?” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established in 1958 to deliver Fruit Loops to me as I orbited the planet! As payload after payload was delivered and devoured my drag did indeed increase as my body reached my current normal size. And as predicted my orbit eroded, my velocity slowed, my trajectory changed and I returned to earth under the billowing canopy of this very hammock.
"And so you see Miss Ratched", I explained, "What appears to you as a line is in fact my means of travel from this stage to my Oval Island and back. And what you see as laziness is in fact responsible for creating Snickers, Fruit Loops and NASA!" Still reclined in my hammock, I eagerly awaited her response and the inevitable applause of the crowd. Had I thought at the time of Miss Ratched’s vengeful nurse of a sister I would have surely expected a few minutes of shock therapy followed by a quick lobotomy!Then came a voice – distant yet familiar. “Mike. Mike. It’s time to get up. We’ll be late for church.” I opened my eyes and realized that I was in my bed resting comfortably. And there I stayed, on my back hands tucked gently behind my head looking upward at the ceiling, as if in a hammock. Damn. I guess I’ll never know if Miss Ratched bought it. But as I lay there in bed I smiled. Secretly I sensed that I had at least beaten the Colonel, Tiger and Ray Charles.
Relieved to have completed the reading twice, I turned my attention to testing. The actual testing is a computerized exam comprised of 80 randomized questions administered over a two hour period. You must empty your pockets, remove your jacket and deposit everything in a locker. You are given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, a computer monitor, mouse and keyboard. Out of a possible 200 points, you must achieve a score of 170 or better to earn accreditation. Since some questions are more difficult than others, each question is weighted according to its respective level of challenge.
And so it was that I resolved to study the practice tests themselves. Winter was turning to spring and our weather was improving. And thanks to this springtime global warming phenomenon I did much of this test studying in a chair on our deck. As you can see in the picture below, this task caused me to sport the rare yet stylish double glasses attire. Sunglasses and a spare set of reading glasses are always in style. After the exam review I reviewed summaries and web links and more sample questions on various study blogs. And then I formulated some memorization tables and vowed to memorize everything on several pages of hand written text.
On March 31 I walked into the testing center, emptied my pockets and sat down at a computer terminal. I finished the exam with 15 seconds to spare and scored a modest 183. Whew, I had passed. I spent the rest of the afternoon with a Guinness or two at the 
