To Wake, Perchance to Dream

Famed New Yorker humorist James Thurber was an incorrigible daydreamer. His wife disturbed his reverie at cocktail parties on more than one occasion by spitting out an expletive and commanding him to "stop writing." Fortunately, he didn't, and we got some of his funniest stories as a result.

My wife Judy is an accomplished daydreamer, too. She hates to shop for groceries, so when I go into Kroger's to pick up a couple of items after work, she prefers to stay in the car. It's not unusual for her to open the conversation when I return with something like,

"See that broad-shouldered fellow in the red plaid shirt and cowboy boots? He was abducted from the banker's family when he was a child and they refused to pay a ransom so they never saw him again. The story came out years later, when he married that mousy woman in the gray flannel coat, who proved to be his sister. Her parents died long before she met him, and they'd spent her inheritance trying to find him..."

I'll never lack for a good plot while we have these parking-lot moments!

One other thing about Judy: When she turns out the bedroom light, she'll often roll over and say, "Tell me a story!" That flustered me until I began to cultivate the art of daydreaming. If she asks me now, my first thought is, What people did I see today? And what might be their stories?

__________________

Joe Allison and his wife, Judy, live in Anderson IN, where Joe serves as Editorial Director of Discipleship Resources & Curriculum for Warner Press, Inc. Joe has several nonfiction books in print, including Swords and Whetstones: A Guide to Christian Bible Study Resources. He's currently writing a trilogy of Christian historical novels set in the Great Depression.

Visit Joe's blog at http://southernmtns.wordpress.com