Last night I had the strangest dream...

With apologies to the late Ed McCurdy, last night I had the strangest dream.

No, it wasn't peace on earth, but it was peculiar. The scary part is it is a recurring dream. Happens about once every six or eight months.

I am sitting in a concert venue -- last night, it was Stokely Athletics Center -- waiting for an Elvis Presley concert to begin.

The TCB Band and the Joe Guercio Orchestra launch into "Also Sprach Zarathustra." The climax varies, but it usually ends with Elvis not showing up or someone appearing on stage who isn't him. Last night was the latter.

I can remember saying in my dream, "Please, Elvis. Please show up this time." 

Now, look. Y'all know I am an Elvis Presley fanatic. But I don't get this one. I have never, for example, dreamed anything similar about Frank Sinatra, my other favorite singer, or Grace Kelly, no explanation needed.

Part of last night's dream makes sense. I saw my first concert (The Oak Ridge Boys) at Stokely. In the dream, I was eating cotton candy, which I think I did at the Oaks show and know I did at the circus 30-some years ago, which here is held at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. This meshes with the fact that, in a departure from usual, I was around five- or six-years old in the dream last night.

Maybe the dream is exactly as it appears -- that I wish I could have seen Elvis in concert. Maybe it is because Elvis' music has gotten me through tough times, including my grandmother's death this summer.

Maybe it means I fear something is not all it appears. Maybe I ate something I shouldn't have before bed.

Maybe I'm just nuts.