The Plant (John Dotson’s dream of October 14, 2010)

I’m in Tennessee where I was born (the present time-frame is uncertain). We are a party of three. You [Steven Rosen], another (who is at turns a man, at turns a woman), and I. I am conducting a tour of the big Eastman Kodak plant where my father worked. It is a rather labyrinthine walk among the industrial buildings, pipelines. I am very wary that we will venture somewhere we are not allowed–in fact, the whole venture feels edgy, as if we could be “caught” at any moment.

We make a turn among the corners and suddenly find ourselves in a fantasy area, all elaborate stone structures, evoking the castle-forms of Disney’s Fantasyland, except these are more “real”–a Swiss feeling, elaborate masonry, evolved architecture, and detailed craftsmanship. These structures had previously been hidden from access. Beyond them, as we meander toward the river, appear more primal structures, clearly medieval, very large stones–something of brute forcefulness. We turn around.

Our path leads on into the cafeteria where employees, and on Sundays their families, would dine. Here I describe with some detail how my family would gather there after church when I was a child. While we are there, and there are others there, there is also the sense that this is an archival sequence. We are observers and the whole scene is at this point staged and acted. I am still nervous that we will be “found out”–and I am ready to explain that my father was a long-term Kodak employee and that my understanding was/is that it was permitted for me/us to revisit these locales. I am also doubting that my argument will be strong enough, and worried that we will be escorted out.