The interesting coin was a dime, and I found it on the sidewalk. I was in San Francisco during something called the San Francisco Expedition. (I googled and I couldn't find anything in real life called the San Francisco Expedition.) The Expedition was an annual event where people gathered to discuss the city's history, and other things.
At first the dime appeared to be fairly new, so I was surprised when I saw that its date was 1948. Also, just inside the edge on its reverse (the tails side of a coin is also sometimes called its reverse), there were two gold-colored near-semicircles, one on top and one below, nearly meeting on the left and right, forming a near-circle. Just inside this gold circle in the upper-left quarter of the reverse were raised in relief the words "SAN FRANCISCO EXPEDITION." I think the rest of the relief looked more or less like the relief of a regular FDR dime, maybe made a bit smaller to make room for the gold near-cirle and the extra words, but I don't really remember for sure.
I looked the dime up in a Red Book,
and saw the 1948 San Francisco Expedition dime listed as just slightly more valuable than a regular 1948 dime in uncirculated condition. Google Shopping shows 3 1948 uncirculated dimes for sale, priced $12.50 to $37.50. And no 1948 San Francisco Expedition dimes because they only exist in this dream.
As I was looking in the Red Book, a man said that a friend of his had lost the dime. I gave him the dime and he headed toward his friend, and I followed. The man regarded me suspiciously. He asked me if I expected some kind of award from his friend, or if I might even try to charm his friend into giving me the coin outright.
I pointed out that I had just met him a moment before, and immediately gave him the coin when he said his friend had lost it. I said I didn't know if he was telling the truth about having a friend who lost the coin, but was giving him the benefit of the doubt. I said that the only thing I knew for sure about him was that he was insulting me, assuming right away that I was some kind of crook.
We got to his friend, who was in from out of town for the Expedition, and had a large amount of Expedition-related things: posters from previous Expeditions, various items with "San Francisco Expedition" written or painted or stamped upon them. This collector thanked me profusely for finding his lost dime, and immediately offered to give it to me. I said that I didn't want to take it. "I don't want to break up your collection," I said.
Then the collector's friend and I went out of the collector's earshot and he mumbled something about how he was sorry he'd assumed right away that I might be a crook, and I mumbled something about how I could understand him being very protective of a friend who was so generous toward complete strangers, some of whom, no doubt, actually were crooks, and we shook hands and slapped each other on the shoulder in a very manly way as we mumbled.
Then I was away from those 2 guys, and on a sidewalk, half-straddling a red 12-speed road racing bike I owned in the 1980's. Nicole Kidman walked by and made some remark about the bike. In the dream in appeared that she knew an awful lot about bicycles. I said I had owned the bike since it was new over 30 years ago. (In real life I crashed it and totalled it when it was a couple of years old.) Ms Kidman looked at me and said something to the effect that, yeah, I looked old enough to have owned the bike for 30 years. That hurt my feelings, but I reminded myself that I actually do look like I'm in my 50's, which I am, and that there was no reason to assume that Nicole Kidman was trying to be mean. On the contrary, she was very nice. It was just quite clear that she didn't find me attractive, and that it didn't occur to her that that might hurt my feelings. (This was much more realistic than a bunch of other recent dreams I've had in which movie stars have found me irresistable.)
Anyway, pretty soon she had to go -- understandable, since she was Nicole Kidman and most likely had a busy schedule, and had not fallen hopelessly in love with me -- and she said, "Well, I guess you want to take a selfie with me." That was understandable, too: most strangers who meet Nicole Kidman probably want to take selfies with her. Like I said, she was being very nice.
I, too, was trying to be very nice and to make it clear that I appreciated that she was being very nice, but that, unlike most people, I really didn't care about selfies, or autographs, or any of those celebrity-related things.
I really don't. I know which famous people and other bigshots I've met, and I don't need to keep physical evidence of it to impress others. I just don't feel the need, one, and two, I know that the famous people get way too many requests for those things as it is without me piling on. I have never in my life asked for an autograph or a selfie next to a famous person.
That's not true: I've done it once in my life. One time, when I was much younger and more susceptible to peer pressure, I was at a reading by a poet in a bookstore in Germany, and since everybody else bought the poet's latest paperback and waited in line for him to sign it, so did I. The experience made me very uncomfortable. Well, here's to growing out of the susceptibility to peer pressure!
Anyway, before we got to the point where I was about to take a selfie purely for Nicole Kidman's sake rather than keep on trying to explain that I didn't need one, although I really thought she was being very nice -- I woke up.
No comments:
Post a Comment