DREAMIN' MACHINERIN

I've been watching too many World War II shows lately...but the 12 hour Ken Burns Documentary is pretty good.

There is a story a man from Waterbury Conneticut tells.

"We had captured about 20 German prisoners and as we stood outside the compound waiting to lead them in one of them asks me, in perfect English without any trace of German accent, where I am from.

'I am from the United States of America" I say.

"Where in the United States"

"I am from the Northeast" I say.

"Where in the Northeast? He persists.

"I am from Conneticut" I say.

"What part of Conneticut?" he asks.

"Waterbury" I reply.

"Ah, yes, Waterbury, at the confluence of the Naugatuck and Mad Rivers" he says knowingly.

Now the Naugatuck is a major river, but the Mad is nothing more than a small stream that any boy could jump across so I asked him how in the world he could possibly know this.

"Because I was trained to be an Administrator" he says

"An Administrator of what?"

"An Administrator of that Territory" he says.

And my blood just ran cold... to think that Hitler had Europe and was mad enough to think he could take America as well, and had actually set about training people to do a job like that.

OK, Ric-O Shay, watch out for this part...

Later that night, after falling asleep on the couch, there came a knock on the door. I woke up and answered it. Standing at the door were four German Officers; they looked like they had just Goosestepped off the set of "Hogans Hero's" with their polished black jackboots and caps with skulls on them and carrying lugers for sidearms.

One of them steps right into my apartment and his right arm shoots out in a Nazi salute:

"Heil Hitler!" he cries!

"Whazzup?" I ask, rubbing my eyes and making sure my Johnson is not poking through my boxers; its all I have on.

"Thees ees the Invasion of zee Mastah Race; you must Prepare to evacuate!" he commands.

"Aw, dude, I just got to sleep...what time is it?"

About this time my daughter wakes up and shrieks and goes running out the front door.

I yell behind her :

"Aubree'! You better get some shoes on girl....it was a long march when these guys hit Poland...a long march all the way to the death camps"

"OK Daddy!" and she goes running back into her room.

I turn to Colonel Klink, who is casting his monocled eye around my very messy apartment.

"Say brau, you don't suppose I could get a pass on this one do ya?" I ask.

He gives me an officious smile that lasts about a tenth of a second.

"That vood be impossible" he says

I glance out the door and I see columns of Panzers coming down my street, flanked by Stormtroopers. There is even a big 88mm Gun. Its quite a sight. In the sky are formations of Stukas and Fokkers and stuff.

I try a new approach.

I flash him my best smile, put my arm around his broad german shoulders, giving him a little hug, and say

'Thats a really good looking Wehrmacht you guys got there"

I woke up before they could pull me out to the street and execute me.

I had thought that Wehrmacht translated literally to "War machine" which lends a certain humor to this dream, but I'm not sure that is correct.

Or that there is anything funny about this dream.