One reoccurring skit featured Ruth Buzzi as a dowdy old woman. She wore an unattractive hairnet pulled down on her forehead, a long black coat and a scowl. Arte Johnson was an old man with a bushy gray mustache. He wore a long black coat and hat and had a twinkle in his eye. Johnson would amble in, sit next to Buzzi and mutter something off-color. She would become outraged and smack him with her purse.
I had a dream recently. Most of my dreams are compilations of stuff I did or saw or talked about during the previous day. They’re like Laugh In skits, but all jumbled up and patched together into weird plots and bizarre environments. They often deal with being late or lost. I’m at school on the first day and I can’t find my classroom. Or I need to get some place quickly, but I don't know the way or I haven't enough time.
Sometimes I remember these dreams and write them down.
Recently, I dreamed I was on a long train. A big black engine puffing smoke is pulling dozens of black Pullman cars. Most of my friends and family are on the train. I recognize some women I play pickle ball with, two of my daughters and some neighbors.
The train stops at a gas station. (Figure that one out!) Lots of people get off, presumably to use the bathrooms, as people do when riding long distances in cars. I get off.
After a while, the train starts up and chugs away, leaving me behind. I see the engine and all the attached cars filled with friends and family far ahead of me -- too far away and moving too fast for me to catch. There is no way I can get back on that train. I am devastated. Lost. Left in the lurch. I start to cry.
Somebody (I can’t remember who) comes along in a car. I get in the front seat and the driver chases the train. We catch the train and I get back on, but I’m angry. I start working my way up to the front where the engine is and where the engineer presumably sits. I want to berate him for forgetting about me, for leaving me behind at the gas station.
When I reach the front of the train, I see that Donald Trump is the engineer. I hit him with my purse. I beat him about the head and shoulders with my purse. Over and over. Again and again. And this purse is not the soft black drawstring cloth bag that Ruth Buzzi used to smack Arte Johnson. My purse is a big leather Coach messenger bag with a brass buckle and a long strap and it’s chockfull of heavy items like bricks and soup cans and library books.