Dreams or Reality

           Was it a dream or was it real?   Have you ever woken and in a hazy half-wakeful state wondered if what you experienced  was real?  As the sleep state wears off and consciousness gradually returns to the dreamer,  sometimes this question is pondered for a moment or even longer.  As years pass by we may retain vivid memories of things that may never have even really happened.  Likewise we may supress the memories of things that did happen to the extent they become dreamlike or pushed into the realms of forgetfulness.  Was it the real life or was it just fantasy?

           Last Friday I recounted a childhood dream about finding a baby skeleton.  I told how when I awoke I checked to see if the baby skeleton was where I had put it in the dream.  When I realized it was only a dream, I was disappointed, but the memory of the vivid dream remained with me.  This week I am offering a guessing game for you.

          To follow are four childhood memories that I have that seem very vivid to me.  One I know is real, one is definitely a dream, and the other two I seem to remember as real but I don't know for sure.  I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.

THE BIG TREEHOUSE

     It was 1957 and I was in the first grade. Beside the school I attended,  Garfield Elementary School in Cleveland, Ohio, there was a wooded area.  One day I was exploring the woods with one of my young friends--Jimmy Wolfe as I recall-- and we came upon a very large house that was built above the ground in the trees.  It was an actual dwelling that was mounted into several trees.  It was painted a very glossy tree leaf green, had a screened in porch, and had a wooden staircase leading up to the house.  Jimmy and I immediately left when we realized we were in someone else's yard.

THE LIGHTNING STORM

      There had been a huge thuderstorm with a great deal of lightning.  I do not remember the actual storm occurring, but only the aftermath.  I went outside in the front yard.  The air felt clean and fresh and everything seemed new.  People were walking by on the sidewalk that passed in front of our house.  I was surprised to find large jagged shards of lightning pieces in the front yard.  I gathered them up.  They were smooth and solid as though they were made of glass.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

       My sister Joy and I were going to downtown Cleveland with my mother.  It was 1955 and since my mother did not have a car to drive we had to take the bus.  We had to walk a few blocks from our house on West 143rd Street to the mainline where there was a bus stop.  As we waited on the bench a chilling breeze swooshed over me and with it a smell.  I looked across the street to what I had seen before but always tried to avoid seeing.  It was a large old abandoned house that I always referred to as the haunted house.  The unpainted wood was now weathered gray and a odor that made me think of foreboding history, mustiness, and perhaps even death exuded from the building. I was glad when the bus came and took us away from that frightening place. At the next stop two nuns boarded the bus.  Not knowing what a nun was I thought they were ghosts.

A CONFUSION OF WORDS

       It was very dark that night in the backseat of my parents car.  I was probably about 4 or 5 years old.  We were coming or going, I don't remember.  I only remember that I felt scared. My parents were talking in low tones, probably thinking I was asleep.  I heard them say something about a "tornado" and my fear increased.  But then I remembered them having also mentioned a city called "Toledo" in times past.  Since Toledo was near Cleveland, where we lived at that time, we would sometimes go there.  I then thought perhaps we were going to or passing near Toledo.   But my fear returned as I looked out into the darkness beyond the car window.  I was certain that they were talking about a tornado.  In the darkness, I could see the cornfields with the cornstalks leaning in the wind.

     So which was in the real life?  Which was just a fantasy?  Which two are questionable memories of a child's mind?

       Or what about you?  Do you have a particular childhood dream that stands out in your memory?  Do you seem to remember something that you are sure happened but nobody else can confirm?  Do you remember much from your childhood at all?
        

**FREE!***This Is Your Lucky Day!*** FREE!

           Yes indeed!  This is an extraordinarily lucky day for all readers of this blog!  You are going to reap the rewards of being one of my highly intelligent readers.  I am giving away valuable prizes today-- all free at no charge.  Don't miss out on this extraordinary opportunity.  You won't want to be left out on this one.  All you have to do is be a follower of this blog and read it every day of your life for the rest of your life.

           And now for the prizes:  Everyone wins wisdom, entertainment, information, and food for thought.  No real food, just food for thought.  And if you think I've misled you by my opening, then I achieved my goal. Did you come to this post because you thought you were really going to get something free?

            We see it everyday.  The advertising technique of offering something for nothing is used in all media. It's a sucker approach that I'm sure we all have fallen for at some time in our lives.  I have no real problem with contests and promotions as long as the parties offering them are delivering what they promise and not cheating people with the outright intent to defraud.  I do have a problem with sneaky tactics and two approaches particularly fit this category.   First we have the false billing approach and second is the official looking correspondence approach.

           The false bill looks like a bill in every way except somewhere there is the statement "This is not a bill."  The statement is sometimes in bold letters and sometimes it is noticeable only after careful scrutiny.  However, one could easily mistake it for a bill and send in the requested amount.

           When I was managing a business I would sometimes get these types of bills from various telephone directory companies.  In every way they would look like statements billing my company for a certain amount for one year's worth of directory listing.  We did not advertise in any directories so I was not fooled.  But what about companies where many bills are received and just paid as they arrive.  In the L.A. area there are as many as five or more directories and a business may be paying for advertising in directories that they have not requested to be listed in.

          Once, when I was quite busy, a uniformed man came into my warehouse and said he was there to inspect the fire extinguishers.  I did not question this because the fire department and the landlord both sometimes sent out people to inspect fire safety equipment. When he finished, the man came back to my office and had me sign a statement that he had been there to check the equipment.  A couple of weeks later I received in the mail a copy of the paper I had signed that had been filled in with services and charges with a due amount in excess of six hundred dollars.

          After checking the other businesses around me I found that not only they too had received the same sorts of bills, but that some of them had actually paid them.  I checked with the Better Business Bureau website and found that this particular company had numerous complaints against them over several years of operating in this manner.  I didn't pay the bill, but how many thousands of dollars had they made from unsuspecting businesses who just accepted their bill as legitimate.  The company had been gettting away with this scam for years, while also operating their regular business.

          The other deceptive practice is the official looking document or advertisement.  Many of you have probably seen the mortgage adjustment television advertisements that feature the clips of Barak Obama speeches.  I have never watched one of these in their entirety, but I can see the deception.  It looks like an official news or informational broadcast, but it is just another way to take advantage of people who are in trouble already by taking their last dollars and perhaps their homes.  The advertisements play upon desperation and greed.  Wasn't that how most of these people got into trouble in the first place?

          Then there is the official looking letter that you get in the mail that appears that it is coming from some government agency or some other official sounding entity.  Just yesterday I received a somewhat important looking letter that was labeled "IMMIGRATION POLICY INFORMATION".   There were urgent sounding warnings on the envelope about not forwarding or destroying the document.  At first glance it looked important, but it was a donation plea from Americans For Immigration Control.  This is not as threatening or advantageous as other pieces of mail I sometimes receive--- some seem to indicate that I need to send money or something bad is going to happen while others suggest that I will be benefited in some way if I send money.  I'm not sending money to any of these creeps, but how many unsuspecting individuals send money because of greed, intimidation, and plain old ignorance?

          There are so many scams operating in our country and out of the country directed toward American citizens and their wallets.  One has to wonder why these businesses are allowed to continue operating in this manner.  This has been and continues to be one of the major reasons that so many Americans are in financial trouble.  The education and warnings are out there, but apparently they don't reach the people who need this information the most.  My question for today is this:

Should the government--federal, state, and local--treat these deceptive types of practices as crime and vigorously investigate and pursue the businesses operating in this way to shut them down or force them to operate in a more acceptable manner?

          Deception will probably always be around, but it's a shame that those who can least afford it are frequently victims.  Businesses absorb the cost of fraud and we all pay for that.  It can even hurt the wealthy who are victimized.  But most of the time it's the average folks who are working hard who lose money to the charlatans of the scamming business.

           Have you or anyone you've known ever fallen for one of these types of scams?  Have you ever taken action against the perpetrators of these scams and what happened?  Can you defend any of the methods that I have described?   Were you lured into my blog post by my opening come on?

My Mom's A Dancer: More Photos and More Story

        This week I am continuing with the photo story that I began last week .  If you would like to start at the very beginning of this saga then you might want to look at my first post on the topic of Lois Kay Trevillian Jackson .  Today's story begins after the birth of Lois's first two children, Lee and Joy.

     In the idyllic 1950s, the veterans of World War Two were busy building their dreams and their families. Television was rapidly taking it's hold on the popular culture, but vaudeville desparately tried to hang on. Variety floor shows were common in night clubs and fraternal organizations like the Moose  and Elks Clubs. On any given weekend in a large city like Cleveland, Ohio, hundreds of performers and bands would be playing in the local venues as adults went out for dinner, drinks, dancing, and an evening of live entertainment. Variety acts that were not circus were having their heyday.

        Bob and Lois Jackson -- The Juggling Jacksons-- were among those performers taking advantage of the entertainment boom.   Lois learned to juggle after she became pregnant with her first child.  She had to take a break from dancing for obvious reasons. Juggling came easy to her since it is a physical art much like dance and involves rhythm and patterns.  Once she had learned to juggle the clubs (the correct term for what some refer to as bowling pins), she and Bob began practicing team juggling, also known as passing. 

      Even after the births of her first two children, Lois continued her acrobatic and tap dance act while she and Bob practiced their team juggling and began putting together their juggling act.  When the act was ready, they began shopping it around to the Cleveland-based theatrical agencies.  Eventually, the juggling act was what the agents were booking since it was a flashy fast-paced visual novelty.  There were plenty of dance acts and comedians, but slick juggling duos were different.  The Juggling Jacksons were working every weekend.

        Show business was not a full time occupation for the Jacksons.  Bob, who was a trained accountant, worked for an industrial contractor during the week.  Lois played the role of stereotypical June Cleaver style housewife and mother.  Busily attentive to her two young children and her husband's needs, she kept house and prepared the meals.  However, she also would take the bus into downtown Cleveland, with two small children in tow, making rounds of agencies, costumers, and prop houses as she did the work of maintaining the show business as well as the home front.  She was always on the go.

           In 1955, Bob took off from work for an extended vacation which allowed the Juggling Jacksons to go on tour with the FOLLIES OF 1955 stage show which was part of the Gooding's Carnival Midway.  They played dates throughout the southeastern U.S. at fairs in places like Knoxville, TN and Atlanta, GA.  The carnival revue show played according to audience demand and the Jacksons performed up to sixteen shows per day in a full stage production that included comics, singers, and burlesque dancers.  This is where the Juggling Jacksons really polished the act to perfection.  It was very different than the types of vacations that most families would take.

Mama's a Juggler-- Joy, three years old, and Lee watch as Mama Lois Jackson of the Juggling Jacksons practices her act for the Follies of 1955 on Gooding's Midway at TVA & I Fair.

(Article from a 1955 Knoxville newspaper)

               After the tour with Gooding's, the Jacksons had a juggling act that was one of the best in the business.  They had proven themselves under grueling working conditions, but they loved every minute.  The next few years saw continued bookings as the act remained in strong demand.  However, Bob Jackson's desire to maintain stability made him keep his day job even though the young couple would have loved to take the show on the road.  Then, in 1959, a new development put another roadblock in the show biz aspirations for the the Juggling Jacksons.

          In the summer of 1959, the company that Bob Jackson was working for transferred him to San Diego, CA and at the same time Lois Jackson gave birth to twins, Jay and Joni.  The show biz scene in San Diego was not as active as it had been back east.  The juggling duo worked much less frequently, but continued to practice and polish their act.  Lois was active in her children's activities: PTA, Cub Scouts, etc.  She was frequently bustling about carting Joy to dance lessons and Lee to violin lessons while tending to the twins at the same time.  Lois had a whole new juggling act going on.  Eventually Joy and Lee both learned to juggle and the family had an even more spectacular act to offer the public.  But in San Diego the show business jobs were slow in coming.  In 1963 a new development came about that would change all of that.

         Lois had her last child, Jeff, in 1962.  In the following year, Bob was again transferred, this time to Gary, Indiana, which is near Chicago.  A new era for the Juggling Jacksons was about to begin.  Now the act had four members and had a strong appeal for the Chicago theatrical agencies.

       It did not take long for the new improved Juggling Jacksons to start working steady dates again.  The show business scene of the 60s was not as vibrant as it had been in the 50s.  Television was now the entertainment staple and floor shows and stage shows were more uncommon.  Nevertheless the exciting Juggling Jacksons act was an easy sell to the clients that were out there looking for that kind of a show. It was still a weekend and summer vacation gig for the Jacksons, but Bob kept his job and Lois's work with the kids and the house was never done. There was always the temptation to go into show business full time, but it remained an unfulfilled fantasy.

The Juggling Jacksons @ 1964

Bob, Lois, Lee, and Joy

Below are a couple of pictures that appeared in a feature story in a Gary, Indiana newspaper circa 1963.  The photos were taken in the Jacksons family room, which served as their rehearsal room.  That's Lois Jackson who was still performing her signature split on the backs of two folding chairs while juggling.  The photos on the back wall were of various other jugglers and  acts with whom the Juggling Jacksons had worked.  In the full family picture, from left to right, is Bob, who is holding Jeff, Lee, Joy, Lois, and on the floor is Jay and Joni.

         

           In 1966, Bob Jackson was faced with another business transfer: this time to East Tennessee.  Now far from the Chicago booking agencies, the show business jobs for the Juggling Jacksons became less frequent. However, jobs still did come and the juggling act remained active.  At times Lois would go out on her own with the now teenaged Lee and Joy and work circus and fair dates with a three person act.  Lois proved quite the trooper travelling about pulling a travel trailer behind her car.  They even returned for a short tour with the Gooding's carnival show that she and Bob had toured with in 1955.  Most of the time,however, the Juggling Jacksons performed with Dad at the helm.  They would often perform an entire show package with Bob doing a comedy solo routine, Joy performing a magic and acrobatic act much like Lois used to do, and then the big now seven person juggling act.

          In the 70s the act mostly disbanded as Joy and Lee moved on to their adult pursuits and  Jay and Joni became deeply involved in high school basketball.  Jeff, who had become a highly skilled juggler, continued to perform with his parents.  Then by the 80s the Juggling Jacksons was back to the original duo of Bob and Lois Jackson.  They continued to perform almost up to 1990, when Bob died of pancreatic cancer.

        Lois Jackson continues to live in Maryville, Tennessee where she now shares her life with George Lechelt, a very dear and kindhearted man she met in 1997.  Lee and his wife Betty live in the Los Angeles area and tries to get home to Tennessee at least once a year, but he hopes to be able to increase the frequency of his visits.  Joy lives in New Jersey.  Joni resides in Phoenix with her husband Jack.  Jay and Jeff remain in the Maryville area and are fortunate enough to see their mother on a regular basis.

         Lois Trevillian Jackson was a dancer.  But she was also a juggler.  And to this day she remains a great mother, cook, storyteller, and a person that people around her love very much.