Rico’s recurring dreams are a continual source of concern for him during most of Historic Dreams. Instead of just describing his dreams, I decided to have readers experience the dreams as Rico experienced them. The eight dreams in the story are based on goofy, distorted historical situations that are intended to be frustrating for Rico (and readers too). The dreams have no special meaning and don't provide any clues to what will happen later in the story. They’re nothing more than stand-alone tales meant to entertain, inform, and of course, frustrate. I tried to select controversial and obscure moments from history that I hoped would only be vaguely familiar to most readers.
I chose the Declaration of Independence dream to begin the book because it was sort of the inspiration for the story. This dream originally appeared in Part 3 of Historic Opportunities and gave me the idea for Rico’s recurring dream problems in Historic Dreams. This dream contains a few interesting facts, along with a few made up parts too. For example, 56 men did sign the Declaration of Independence, but probably not all at the Pennsylvania State House on the same day. Most of the 56 delegates actually signed the historic document on August 2, 1776, not on July 4 as many people might assume. Some of the other specifics in the dream (desks, feather pens, powdered wigs, etc.) were created in Rico’s mind, and may not be confirmed facts.
Project A119 is a somewhat controversial topic, since the United States government denies it ever existed. But information has leaked out over the years and most historians now believe it probably happened. Renowned astronomer, astrophysicist, and author, Carl Sagan, (may have) disclosed that he was part the ten-person team that assembled at the Illinois Institute of Technology to study the viability of Project A119. Obviously, the events that take place in the meeting room during the Project A119 dream are entirely Rico’s interpretation.
This dream was based on popular rumors that JFK sneaked “guests” in and out of the White House via an underground tunnel. To tell the truth, it’s none of my business if these rumors are true or not. They just provided our hero, Rico Calderon, with another frustrating historic dream to experience.
The mystery of the famous aviator, Amelia Earhart, is still popular today. She disappeared on the second-to-last leg of her journey around the world. The obtuse details I provided about her airplane (and the engines) were meant as a joke. I thought those ridiculous details would be fun and quirky in this dream. Of course, the descriptions of the island’s terrain, the local natives, and the interior of Earhart’s airplane were fabricated.
Let me start out by admitting this is my favorite dream in the book. Ruth Wakefield’s story is a good one. She invented the chocolate chip cookie in the 1930s, and then sold her recipe to Nestle after they decided to produce and sell chocolate chips commercially. I read somewhere that Ruth received $1 plus a lifetime supply of Nestle semi-sweet morsels in exchange for her recipe. Nestle has included Ruth’s chocolate chip cookie recipe on their bags of Nestle semi-sweet morsels ever since. The rest of the dream is classic frustration. I hope you felt somewhat uncomfortable when you read this dream.
I got the idea for this dream after I heard a joke told on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. One of the characters in the show referred to Judge Crater and I didn’t get the joke. I had never heard of Judge Joseph Crater. I immediately looked him up and found out about his mysterious disappearance in 1930. I was surprised that a popular 1960s television show used a 1930 reference and expected a laugh. I realized then that the Judge Crater story must have been widely followed for decades, but eventually forgotten by most of us. That made it a perfect choice for one of Rico’s dreams.
This dream is the only one that I can say is similar to one of my own personal recurring dreams. For years I’ve had dreams where I feel cramped on a tee box, with some large object hindering my golf swing, or the tee box is inside of some building (like a barn), and I have to aim my shot through an open door or window. My dreams are never about St. Andrews and are not as detailed as Rico’s dream, but they're just as aggravating as his St. Andrews dream. I selected the 1964 Open Championship because it was Tony Lema’s lone major championship win, and after reading about his story, I wanted him to be the focal point of this dream. I thought the eerie similarities between Lema's tragedy and Ben Hogan's tragedy were rather chilling and felt I should include them in the wrap up of the Tony Lema story.
This short dream happens after Rico’s brain apparently begins to cycle back to normal. In the Lewis and Clark dream, Rico is apparently lost with two other members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Except for the general premise, this entire dream is made up. I just assumed that small scouting parties may have become temporarily lost from time to time along the way. I followed the Lewis and Clark dream with fragments of the Papua New Guinea dream and the White House tunnel dream to suggest that Rico’s dream problems might be improving after his time-travel visit to Rhonda's house.