03/30/07 3:08 AM
A very detailed dream about being on a Luge course at an Olympic competition. I can remember that I made two timed runs through the course. I can remember very clearly the first part of the course going down a large hill and going very fast. But the weird part is that I was going backwards and that I had to make a 90-degree turn about half-way through the course, which was very tricky. There was a wall there at the turn that I would have hit if I hadn't got it right. I can remember making course adjustment to my sled as I was traveling backwards and approaching the turn that would be to my left as my back was to it and it was a turn that I couldn't even actually see. I can remember that my time was in the range of 13-something, which I guess means the course took me over 13 minutes. I had no idea if that was good enough time to earn a gold medal. Then I was back at the course start I guess to make a third run. But I didn't see any point to it so I went into some kind of nearby building to return my sled. But at that point, my sled was some kind of copper-colored rocket. There were three people in the room and one was Thedia. Another was a woman I remember as Donna, who was friend of Thedia's when we lived in that rented house on Dequincy in De Queen. I don't know who was the 3rd person as he was talking to Donna and had his back to me. I went back outside to make my third and final run and I remember that Donna was announcing my name over the PA but she kept getting my middle name wrong. First she called me Kerry Abner Burgess and then she called me Kerry Charlie Burgess, and she was saying something else but I think at the end, she just like the mike open and wasn't saying anything. I was at the start of the Luge course while she was talking and I was configuring my sled but now it included a chair from a kitchen table. It seemed that the chair would drag behind me on ropes. Instead of having the chair with its back flat to the ice while the legs were horizontal to the ice, the back of the chair was vertical to the ice while the legs were horizontal to the ice. Throughtout the dream, I have the indescribable sense of the blue sky, which I can almost visualize and which I could seen parts of the horizon of the sky and their is some indescribable notion connected to that visualization about jet aircraft.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE:
9/24/2006 4:44 PM
Ah….damn….this must be the reason I have that memory! I was driving off the Navy base in Charleston after I was discharged and I was driving up to Greenville to start my new job with Kettermans. As I was driving off the base across an overpass, I threw my hat, sometimes called a “Dixie cup” hat out the window over the bridge. I think I have thought about that memory at least once in the past few months, but reading over this part about the tradition of the “hat toss” really hit me.
http://www.usna.edu/LibExhibits/Archives/Midlife.htm
The "hat toss," now a traditional ending to graduation and commissioning ceremonies at all of the service academies, originated at the Naval Academy in 1912. Before 1912, Naval Academy graduates were required to serve two years in the fleet as midshipmen before being commissioned as officers in the Navy; thus they had a need for their midshipman hats. The Class of 1912, commissioned at graduation, was issued officer caps. In a spontaneous gesture, the new officers tossed their midshipmen hats into the air, and the "hat toss" has since become the symbolic end to the four-year program at the Naval Academy.
9/24/2006 6:14 PM
And the Kingdome implosion. I remember something someone wrote wondering why the Kingdome was being brought down. I believe it was because of the similar appearance to the Osirak dome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdome
Whoever was behind was also behind bringing out Ray Allen to play for the Sonics because of the similar name to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Allen
9/24/2006 6:43 PM
I’m still thinking I played basketball during my 4th year at USNA. The only detail I can remember though, from my senior year at Ashdown, is about the two successful free throws the coach didn’t think I would make.
Ray Allen is number 34, I just realized. I was writing a while back about my confusion as to whether I had been born on March 3rd or March 4th.
9/24/2006 7:37 PM
Oh, yeah. There was that scene in “Escape From L.A.” where Snake Plissken makes that improbable shot for two points at the buzzer. I wonder if I did something like that while playing for the USNA basketball team.
9/26/2006 2:21 PM
I’m thinking my memory of being on the Sheffield when it was hit is represented by that memory of the water tank I have written of a couple times. I wrote about a damage control exercise on the Charleston navy base where they filled up a metal compartment that resembled an area in a ship. I can still almost hear that metallic clang on the side of the compartment that started the exercise as a symbolic hit by a missile. Then they started pumping in December temperature water from the nearby Cooper River as we were supposed to patch the hole in the side of the symbolic ship. We couldn’t fix it and would have been completely engulfed in that compartment if I hadn’t opened a port hole. I wonder if that represents how close I was to going down with the Sheffield.
9/26/2006 2:32 PM
I must have really gone to Princeton and that is why CG-59 was given that name.
9/26/2006 3:06 PM
As I was trying to go to sleep last night, I had a thought that I have a doctorate in computer science from Princeton. I can’t think of any supporting clues that point specifically to that accomplishment though. There is one memory from working in the lockbox at that bank in Charlotte, but I’m not sure what it means. I also wonder about the B.A. and I had thoughts that I studied music as well at Princeton. I do have supporting memories on that. One is that memory I wrote about a while back of when I returned from the Persian Gulf in 1988. I was writing code on my Commodore computer to randomly produce what I called classical music.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE:
9/18/2006 4:02 PM
I wonder why I was discussing that so-called “Hail Mary” maneuver from Operation Desert Storm with Tom Huston that time. We were at Rich Molck’s wedding, that was 1997 I think, and I remember referring to that event to support my position in some debate Tom and I were having. Tom Huston was a fire-control radar technician in my division on the Wainwright. In the past, I have written that people in that role, such as David Gugel, were F-14 Radar Intercept Officers in my squadron where I was a pilot. How much of that memory of that entire day at his wedding is implanted memory? How much is converted memory, if any at all? Maybe the detail of me speaking about that means I was part of that maneuver, but I have thought several times, quite a few times actually, that I devised that maneuver. I wish I could remember.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
9/18/2006 4:18 PM
Ah. The wiki article indicates that the ground offensive in 1991 was called Operation Desert Sabre. Maybe that is why I wrote something a while back about the Sabre fighter jets from the 50s.
9/18/2006 4:20 PM
That was May 26th when I wrote about the Sabre. That is not long after May 9th and all these new perceptions were arising in my mind.
Damn…I just read through this. I wrote a lot in this May 26th entry but this paragraph really feels like a painless hammer hitting my mind:
Friday, May 26, 2006
Earlier this morning, I started remembering something from long, long ago. I had completely forget about this. For some reason, remembering this memory makes me think of two things. One thing it does is to remind me that I did have an iterest in flying as a kid. For some reason, if someone would have asked me if I had been interested in flying when I was younger, I would have responded that I never had an interest in flying. And the memory was about the Canadian Air Force. For some reason, I wanted to fly for the Royal Canadian Air Force. I have no idea what that means. There was this one jet I liked, but I can't remember which model it is. I have this memory too about the Saudi's flying it as their main fighter. Now I'm thinking it wasn't Canada, it was Saudi Arabia, as in I was associated with them somehow that I can't remember now. I also remembered that Sabre driver from Korea that was something like a hero to my when I was very young. They called him Mac I think, McDonnell or McConnell, would have to look it up. I think he was a triple-Ace from Korea.
9/18/2006 4:35 PM
Aha. Maybe this is why I mentioned something about France’s Maginot Line that day to someone at work, I think it was Mick Das, we were standing outside Laura’s office. I don’t know what prompted me to refer to it.
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/win98/barnetttxt.htm
Gen Khaled bin Sultan commanded joint forces during the 1991 Gulf War. His major force elements were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait.36 During the ground offensive, their mission was to attack from Saudi Arabia directly into Kuwait. This meant attacking into the supposed teeth of Iraqi defenses. The highest number of coalition casualties was expected in this area. Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s “Hail Mary” flanking maneuver far to the west with VII and XVIII Corps was specifically designed to avoid these defenses.
9/19/2006 11:25 AM
I’ve started thinking that it actually was a cut that was made above my right eye. But it wasn’t a scalpel, it was a large blade with a sharp point. Someone made a quick flip of the point across just above my eye and cut open the skin. As I looked closer at the scar, it supports that notion as the scar tapers off on one side. It was damn close to actually cutting my eye.
01/09/07 1:27 PM
6/30/2004 was the day I told Microsoft I wanted my job back. The HR person said something about talking to my "network."
01/09/07 1:34 PM
yeah.....and that letter from Maria Coleman that was dated 4/11/91. I wrote a while back about how that date was when the First Gulf War ended. What does that mean? She "learned so much more than I have ever learned before" or something like that. I remember that part from the letter because of a curious grammar structure in that sentence. She was the assistant to the President of First Federal
01/09/07 2:10 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_the_Gulf_War
Operation Desert Storm was the US name of the airland conflict from January 17, 1991 through April 11, 1991.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE:
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 21:43:45 -0800 (PST)
From: "Kerry Burgess"
Subject: Issaquah
To: "Kerry Burgess"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001966828_whycostco28.html
Monday, June 28, 2004
the former president arrives here Wednesday to autograph copies of his book, his first scheduled stop will be the discount retail warehouse Costco in Issaquah.
When I just read something Bill Clinton read about not wanting to "pile on" to Cheney's shooting incident, I remembered this. The day I went back to Microsoft to ask for my job back, he was at this Costco, which I could see from the window at my cube. I thought that was quite the coincidence, and I hoped it was a good sign, albeit something extraordinary that defied my logic. I remember now too that it was on the other side of the street from that Costco where I went face first into the concrete after my bike slipped on a slick bridge. I had a black eye for a week. I still remember the date for some reason: Feb 1, 2002. I think I remembered it because I had another accident on Dec. 23, 2001, when I was biking around Lake Washington. At the 30 mile point of that 60 mile trip, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard and fast. One minute I was riding along, the next minute I was looking at my feet as I went sliding across the road. Damn that hurt. I dislocated my shoulder because my elbow hit first or right about the same time as my knee. I could barely raise my arm if at all for weeks after that. It was pretty uncomfortable riding the remaining 30 miles back home. And the whole way there and for a time afterwards, I could almost hear something, it was unusal, the way you can feel like there is something on your tongue as that saying goes, but with this, I could almost hear a "thud" sound for a while after, the sound of me hitting the ground. And something else had happened earlier, but I can't quite remember it. I haven't had any accidents since that face plant into the concrete though.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE:
As with these painless bolts of lighning that strike me sometimes, this one clue has been there in front of my face for what literally feels to be my entire life. It is in the form of my 1967 red Ford F-100 pickup. It was Kerry Burgess's first vehicle. The model year of '67' is now obvious for its symbolism.
I think the first clue I had that this vehicle represented a fighter jet was when I suddenly remember something my mother said one day outside our house in the country. She said, "Remember what happened last time you took out the seat" or words to that effect.
I have puzzled over that recently although I am not sure how long it puzzled me. At one point, it struck me: This is representative of an ejection seat. The memory is something about me ejecting from an aircraft, probably an F-16.
In my memory as Kerry Burgess, I had this used Ford pickup that I was very proud of. I thought is was very sleek and cool, although it needed a new coat of paint. I think it is symbolized as red because that color is typically associated with high-performance. It was a pickup to represent how an F-16 can carry ordnance. The engines of an F-16 are Pratt & Whitney F100 models. This 1967 Ford was a single-exhaust engine just as the F-16 is a single engine, with a single exhaust.
This memory of my mom cautioning me about the seat actually occurred when I had my second vehicle, which was a 1967 blue Chevrolet long-bed pickup. It had a V-8 engine with dual-exhaust. I am not sure what it is also a 1967, but maybe just to get me to think more about the symbolism so I can find my way back to my life as Thomas Ray. The other attributes are consistent with the red Ford, in that I think this vehicle represents an F-14 because it is a dual exhaust and the F-14 had two engines. The color blue may be because I was with the Blue Angels. That means it could also represent an F-18. I think Thomas Ray flew with the Blue Angels during two periods. First as a Midshipman, and then for a period in later years.
So the comments from mom occurred one day when I had the '67 Chevrolet. My step-father raised hunting dogs and we regularly attended these organized sporting event called "fox hunting." It is completely unlike the English version with the only exception being that the dogs did chase a fox, but we didn't ride around on horses. I was washing my truck in preparation to go up to the nearby town for the event. I was usually a field judge during the events. This day I was about to take out the seat from the cab of the truck so I could wash out the cab. My mom then called out to remind of what happened last time I did that.
The last time I took the seat out was with my red Ford. Shortly after that, I wrecked it. I was traveling to fast taking a turn on a gravel road and I started swerving and then hit a stump with flipped the truck completely over. I remember a lot more detail to all that, but I think most of those details are there for continuity and to deflect my attention away from reality. I believe that in reality, it represents a time when Thomas Ray had to eject from a F-16. I am not sure of the circumstances that forced him to eject.
01/13/07 10:08 PM
As I mentioned, it was Anthony Bowman that we called Frog. He said he got that nickname when he was small and he was wearing some kind of green jumpsuit-type of outfit. I "remember" something odd about that explanation though; as though he was just making that up and there was some other reason. Anyway, he was camping with us that time on Lake Millwood when I was sleeping in my red 1967 Ford pickup because there were too many mosquitoes in the tent. There were several people there, I "remember" Eric Elkins. I ran my pickup into a ditch and his father had to pull me out. As I "remember" it, I had a reputation for getting my truck stuck in a ditch or something and the chaperone’s for that weekend, I was the only teenager with my own vehicle, were restrictive on how much I could drive and were actually very restrictive when I was actually accustomed to a lot more freedom when I had my truck out in the woods.
01/13/07 10:18 PM
We almost didn't go anywhere on that camping trip though. I was at Anthony Bowman's house and backing out of his driveway when my brakes locked up. It must have been that day when another person with us, one of the chaperone's, explained that it was a problem with the master cylinder. He showed me how to fix it temporarily and I don't think I ever it got it permanently fixed. The problem was that when the weather was really hot, the pressure would build up in the hydraulic lines and cause the brakes to lock. The temporary solution was to bleed off the pressure by using a wrench to loosen a fitting on the side of the master cylinder while pushing the brake pedal down to the floor. At first, it required two people, but since the master cylinder was on the left side of the engine compartment side of the firewall, I could raise the hood and then get back in that cab and stand on the brake pedal while loosening the fitting on master cylinder under the hood. I have also written about how the shifting rod would lock up sometimes and there was that memorable day in particular when I was on my way to pick up Lesa Jewell for our date to the Senior prom, when we were Juniors, and I had to get out in my white tuxedo in the busiest intersection in Ashdown and un-stick the shifting rods under the hood so I could continue driving. I wonder what all that means in reality.
01/13/07 10:56 PM
I have been thinking for a while that one of the scars on my abdomen is from a bullet that hit the bullet-proof vest I was wearing. If left an imprint on the vest which broke my skin.
01/14/07 8:03 PM
All those details from my life that aren't real memories. The morning going outside getting ready for school when we lived in that rented house of the Hatridge's. Those pair of shoes I had when we lived there. It was a brand named Kangaroo’s. Had a little zippered pocket of the side of each shoe. The time Dawn Vaughn was wearing my football jacket in the 9th grade. Moving furniture into that house we rented from Hatridge's. Firing my 20 gauge shotgun into a very strong wind. Planning to take the fins off the bottom of water ski's so I could ski down the hill in front of the house. The time Denzil got drunk, which was the only time I ever saw him drink, after they fixed a train that had derailed at the gravel pit. The log cabin I was trying to build in the woods nearby that house. I was actually using a heavy hunting knife to cut down the trees. I had a pair of headphones with an FM radio in it that I was listening to as I was working.
01/14/07 8:14 PM
The baited hook I used to leave out overnight in that pond that I would check in the morning before I went to school. The time, before I got my first gun, shortly after we moved into that house and I went out exploring in those woods behind the house carrying Michael's BB gun. I "remember" it was pouring rain and when I came back, there was a slight rust coating over all the BB's in the magazine. The time I was fascinated at how the water had receded enough one summer for me to cross to the other side of what had been a creek that was usually a swamp. Out in that peaceful, highly interesting, stand of pine trees, that had been planted years earlier, were two ponds in different locations. I started off one time to dig a trench to drain one of the ponds, for some unknown reason, but it was too much work. That jacket vest I wore that had my FFA pins and one other pin I can't remember the kind, on the collar. The football coach asking me why I hadn't turned in my jersey after the game, and when I told him I was washing it, he told me that this wasn't the De Queen football team, where I played the year before, and that at Ashdown, they wash the jerseys at the school. The cheerleaders who brought us kool-aid that summer and that time that same day that John Ford knocked me on my butt just as I turned my back on him to, I guess, try to catch a pass. That blue Chevrolet 4-wheel drive pickup Denzil had when he and Thedia got married but then sold not long afterwards. The Shurtleff sister's driving their Jeep to school in the 9th grade even though that wasn't allowed and I don't think they actually had driver's licenses to drive without an adult. That "memory" I wrote of earlier where all the girls, or at least a lot of them judging by the teacher talking about it to all her classes, including the one's I wasn't in, wrote about me during some kind of essay exercise for that language class. All of those "memories" I can visualize about Ashdown and Wilton.
01/15/07 7:59 AM
Strange notion about how I regard my "memories" of the life of Kerry Burgess. First, I don't care so much about writing again of the "memories" I have written over the past few years. There is also a collection of "memories" that I don't feel like writing about again either because I have a theory about what those represent in real life and at this point, it will only be an exercise in trying to guess what those "memories" actually represent. What I do feel interested in is thinking about all those trivial details I wrote of. For example, why would I "remember" simply walking somewhere? Why would I "remember" taking a bath? I don't find myself "remembering" as much as that as I would like to, but I think it is something I am going to have to concentrate on a lot. Why do I have so many "memories" of mowing the grass at our house on Hicks Road and at Mills Store? Why do I "remember" those barrels we burned trash in at Mills Store and how the bottom of the barrel would rust out after a while, maybe a year or so. Why do I "remember" being on that tall ladder with spray paint cans as Donald Mills asked me to paint over a sign that advertised a brand of gasoline that he didn't sell anymore? Why do I "remember" all those times of talking to that police officer Donald Mills hired for the city and how the police car was a piece of junk and I had to tow it to the shop in Donald's pickup. Why do I "remember" when Donald Mills fired that police officer for some reason and I had to drive him home. Why do I "remember" sitting in a car some other time in that same area, it wasn't far from Ambrose Chauncey's house, and the temperature outside that night was down to zero degrees? Why do I "remember" such details?
01/15/07 8:09 AM
Why do I "remember" that time I let Billy Parker go hunting with me one summer when it was very hot and he brought iced tea with him to drink instead of water. It may have been that same time he dropped his double-barreled shotgun in the water and I "remember" how the water poured out of it. When he stopped by the house one morning to go hunting, I had been making pancakes for my breakfast. I could only make small pancakes. Why do I "remember" that? The "memories" of being out there hunting and, for example, almost walking over a snake, although I actually saw it well before it was too late, are the kinds of "memories" I wrote of earlier that don't interest me much any more of examining because I can guess on the general nature of the symbolism. That "memory" for example may be about an anti-aircraft missile that was fired at me but I easily evaded it. But what about the time the Jehovah Witness's knocked on the front door? What about when that one teacher let me drive her car so I could go home to pick up something I left at home and needed for class and it was that time those two guys were building that front porch on the house. What about that defect in the concrete foundation of the carport we built before? What about the time Denzil wanted me to take down an old clothesline in the back yard but I told him I could not cut through the cable and he didn't believe me until he went out there and saw that it was some kind of stainless steel cable. I "remember" he had one of the welder's from the gravel pit come out that use a torch to cut it down. That was the time it had been raining a lot and that guy couldn't drive his pickup with the acetylene torch in it into the yard and had to stretch the torch across the yard and the line was just long enough.
01/18/07 2:43 PM
Hey........why do I "remember" that I had burgundy sheets on that waterbed I had in my bedroom in that apartment at Westchase in Charleston? That's when I was assigned to the Wainwright. Why would I "remember" such a trivial detail? I didn't think of that until just a few minutes ago as I was washing my laundry and I realized that I specifically wanted burgundy sheets when I bought them a few weeks ago and that wasn't the first time either. I remember thinking to myself when I was in Fred Meyer that I like burgundy sheets and they are relaxing. The color is similar to the ribbon on the Good Conduct Medal I wrote of the other day, but why I would that be important? U.S. Navy officers don't receive that medal; only enlisted USN sailors receive it.
01/18/07 4:49 PM
That familiar mental-block-feeling is really starting to crank up. God I hate this feeling.
01/18/07 9:38 PM
Why do I "remember" that I was a student Fire Marshall those 3 years of high school? And what about all the details I "remember" about that assignment? I can even "remember" stopping to eat a meal when we traveled to another town for some kind of state conference related to that activity.
01/19/07 8:31 PM
Why do I have specific "memories" about this group? I can "remember" one time quite clearly when I was in that dance bar I used to go to a lot with Barbara Kelly and the rest of our little group. That was in that place named The Phoenix, which was on the other side the airport from our apartments at that place that I read recently is named Preserve at Woods Lake, although I can't "remember" if that was the name when I was there. It probably was. Barbara knew the guy who was the lead performer in the band as he was her hair sylist at his day job. I "remember" he was over at our table when the band was taking a break and I said something about how I liked this band, The Cure. I mentioned at least one other, but I can't "remember" which one it was, although lately every time I think of Depeche Mode, I think of The Cure. As I wrote earlier, when I got out of the Navy, or so my "memory" suggests, I bought that Kenwood CD player and amplifier/tuner, and I bought two CD's from Depeche Mode along with a dual CD set from The Doors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_cure
The Cure are a successful English rock band, widely seen as one of the leading pioneers of the British alternative rock scene of the 1980s. A combination of lead singer Robert Smith's iconic wild hair, pale complexion, smudged lipstick, and the frequently gloomy and introspective lyrics have led to the band being primarily classified as gothic rock.
01/19/07 9:38 PM
Why would I have all those "memories" of me learning to play the guitar and why would I have photos of me with a guitar?
01/19/07 1:55 PM
So many "memories." That time, would have been around 1975, when Thedia's little dog, Taffy, ate all the cookies we had used as Christmas tree decorations, or at least, all the ones it could reach. I "remember" the three of us laughing about that.
01/20/07 1:15 PM
Maybe that room I had in that trailer next to the drive-in theatre in De Queen represented a POW cage in North Vietnam. I was thinking of that place when I wrote a few years ago about shooting rats in the back of the house we lived in later and how that was "one less of those little bastards we would have to listen to scratching on the walls at night," or something like that. The time back in that trailer when I startled Thedia when I was hiding in that room and she was looking for me may actually have been me trying to escape from the NV. Another time when her husband was spanking me for acting out, that may be me being beaten as a POW by my captors. I had been angry as I was riding in the back of his pickup because I couldn't stay at his parents house. We had been over there to visit, which was the house where they lived in the city as opposed to the one they lived in on the outskirts of town where we lived with them and I was playing around cutting the grass with the lawnmower wanting to cut some kind of message into the grass that an aircraft could see overhead. I have been wondering for a while if I knew John McCain when I was a POW in Vietnam, or maybe this is all just imagination.
01/20/07 1:24 PM
They didn't even look for my car when I called the Bellevue police. For three days, it was sitting down on the lowest level of the parking garage as the thieves had not been able to get it started.
01/20/07 4:54 PM
Jim Shea. I have thought many times how those photos of John McCain as a POW remind me of Jim Shea.
01/21/07 3:16 PM
I may have fought in the Vietnam war more than I understand. The thought occurs to me that I was going over there every summer break from Princeton University. It's all jumbled in my mind though. I want to say that I was in that POW camp, but I was also in some kind of civilian re-education camp. They had a large movie screen, just like in "Red Dawn." The thoughts occur to me that I organized the people in that re-education camp and we broke out.
01/21/07 5:47 PM
Was this really my first day - the first day for any human - on the surface of Mars 31 years ago?
