Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dreaming a non-existent David Allen column - fiction is sometimes stranger than the truth

On Wednesday night I had a bizarre dream, which included portions of a David Allen column that has, to my knowledge, never existed.

In my dream, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen wrote about a scandal engulfing the city of Ontario. The article reported that "until last week," sportscaster Bob Trumpy had maintained a city office in Ontario.

Allen took great pains to note that the office was maintained in the city's Aviation Services Division.

Incidentally, Allen had learned of the scandal while attending an Ontario City Council meeting.

While trying to analyze the dream afterwards, I became more and more baffled. Yes, portions of the dream are rooted in reality, but those portions are very few.

You will recall that there was a recent scandal in which someone maintained an office to which the person was not entitled. However, Jerry Sandusky's office on the Penn State campus was the least of Sandusky's concerns, and none of the other Sandusky story elements made it into my dream. (Thankfully.)

I'm not sure why Bob Trumpy made the dream. I don't listen to him much; in fact, he may have been the broadcaster that we ridiculed in college for the startling observation "He's an athlete." To my knowledge Trumpy, long associated with the state of Ohio, has no connection to Ontario, California.

I can see how airports made it into my dream. In fact, David Allen's colleague Liset Marquez just wrote about the battle between Ontario and Los Angeles for the local airport (I have yet to read the article; it's starred in my Google Reader account). However, the city of Ontario does not have an "Aviation Services Division." After all, why WOULD it have one? It doesn't have an airport!

Lastly, I cannot see how all of this could be elevated into a "scandal." While public offices should not be given to people not entitled to use them, this does not rise to the level of real scandals that Allen has discussed in the past. Since Trumpy has (to my knowledge) no connection with Ontario, I'm not sure how the office could be seen as an example of undue influence.

Oh well. While the dream is mystifying, I guess it could have been even more bizarre. Perhaps Allen could have turned into a book and read himself during the month of December.

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