So, last night I had this dream.
There was a huge open lawn space upon which someone had scrawled a hasty gridiron and thrown up some rudimentary uprights. It was for football, and I, and some random acquaintances and friends of mine, had the honor of playing the sport of kings with a number of American historical political figures, mostly Presidents.
Reagan's not as good as you'd think, it turns out. Obama runs the ball like crazy, but then so does Teddy Roosevelt. And JFK. Lincoln's a great QB; makes sense, all those years of splitting rails giving him upper body strength and his height gives him reach and command of the field, while the debates with Douglas have instilled in him the quick thinking you need from a team leader. Ford and Nixon can both play, but Ike's nothing special. You've never seen a nose tackle like Taft, though McKinley was right in there. I remember seeing Truman and Grant on the sidelines, chatting with FDR. Alexander Hamilton was keeping score and Barry Goldwater was calling plays for one side. Henry Kissinger and John Madden were doing commentary.
Offspring was playing their half dozen or so songs I know while the game was happening. There was a little raised stage near one of the endzones, and they were set up, just running through this six song set list, over and over. I'm not particularly fond of Offspring.
You think this is a geeky dream, but just wait.
During "Come Out and Play" I was in the midst of trying to tackle Bill Clinton and bring him down before he could score when Al Gore got in the mix for some unknown reason. It was totally illegal - there was definitely a horsecollar in there - and since I already had a pretty good lock on Slick Willie and just needed to put my weight into it I kept with the play, but from within the dream, I began to instantly analyze whether or not maybe this little scrum represented Gore's need to separate himself and his post-Washington legacy from the negative aspects of the Clinton White House.
And then I woke up.