Published Nov. 1, 2023

I’ve been having dreams with dead celebrities in them. Before I explain what John Spencer has to do with boxing, let me tell you a story that might make you laugh.

Or make you wonder about me. Or both.

A recent dream had me walking next to someone who apparently looked enough like Rodney Dangerfield for me to ask, “Are you Rodney Dangerfield?” He said yes, although upon waking I thought, “That didn’t look anything like Rodney Dangerfield. But, kind of, in the way that almost nothing in dreams is itself and only itself but sort of resembles itself.”

Anyway, he said yes, and I was off and running, telling him about a joke I made to a priest during my seminary days. I was in a philosophy class taught by a priest I’d been told was a big Rodney Dangerfield fan. This priest was making a point in a spirited way, not combative but challenging us to apply critical thinking in evaluating it.

I saw my opening.

“Save your breath, fella, you’re going to need it to blow up your inflatable date,” I said, doing a Rodney Dangerfield line in my best Rodney Dangerfield voice, which was probably so bad that seeing me adjust my non-existent necktie was the best clue as to who this was supposed to be.

The priest said four words that I can still hear today.

“See me after class.”

Half the room said nothing but turned to look at me. Half the room made an “oooh” sound that had me thinking I’d been set up. (Oh, sure, he’s a Rodney Dangerfield fan. Now you’ve done it.)

The moment of truth

When class ended, the other students filed out of the room, looking over their shoulders, moving slowly, hoping to hear the conversation. I started to get up and walk to the front of the classroom, but the priest came over to my desk.

“Did you see him at the Saenger?” he asked me, smiling. “Were you there?”

I knew right then that he had gone. I knew right then that I was not in any trouble. I knew right then that I’d made a connection with someone I’d love to see tug on his collar the way I’d done to mine. There’s probably something in Canon Law forbidding it, I decided.

Relieved though I was, I saved my impressions for outside the classrooms after that.

Dream-world Rodney Dangerfield seemed to enjoy the story but did not break stride and seemed in a hurry to get where he was going. Maybe he’d heard thousands of similar stories from people who conjured him in their dreams.

Now, on to John Spencer

Within days of that dream, I dreamed I was walking alongside John Spencer (what’s with these dreams where these dead celebrities are always on my right as we walk along?). I told him I’d just re-watched “WarGames” and spotted him in the opening sequence. I don’t remember his reaction.

Today is the 43rd anniversary of my dad’s death, which has me thinking about funerals and memorial services and the things people say after someone close to them dies. I remember going later that day with my mom as she did the things one does. I remember being floored that people were going about their business as before. For the first time, I felt “why do the birds go on singing” lyrics in every molecule. Don’t they know?

The time I spent with him was such a relatively miniscule part of my life that at times he feels like a mythical being to me rather than someone who was real and existed in the same spaces with me. I know otherwise, but I have not heard his voice in 43 years and I think that makes a difference.

He has come and gone in dreams over the years, the most satisfying being the one where he referred to me as his daughter in a conversation with someone else. Few dreams have ever brought me that kind of peace.

The John Spencer dream didn’t have a dramatic moment or a punchline, but I remembered something about him, tracked it down and listened to it again. Richard Schiff, who played Leo on “The West Wing,” wrote a tribute to Spencer some 18 years ago for his memorial, which he couldn’t attend. He had castmate Bradley Whitford read it on his behalf, but later he voiced it on “The West Wing Weekly.”

“John Spencer came at you with love, like Joe Frazier came at Muhammad Ali with fists. Think about it. John Spencer would come at you, short and powerful, forehead first, with fiery eyes and loading that left hook with compliments and adoration and admiration, respect, and absolute and pure love — and throw them at you with ferocity and determination and grit, and he would not let up no matter how you ducked, bobbed, weaved and sidestepped. And sure enough, he’d catch you with that left hook and buckle your knees. He had the spirit of the boxer, you see. He was a fighter. He fought his demons that way, and day in and day out, he was triumphant over them, batting them down as they popped up, like so many jacks-in-the-boxes trying to divert his focus, his drive, his will to be the best human being he could be. And his great weapon was acting.”

It made sense to me that Schiff, having been born in 1955 and growing up a passionate sports fan when he did, would describe Spencer that way. As someone who watched every episode of “The West Wing,” I could see it with every word.

There’s no good ending for this post, which is becoming customary. It’s just time to stop. But I wanted to share those words. And as a callback to my days as a reporter transcribing quotes, I listened to it again and again to make sure I wrote it here the way it sounds. There’s something therapeutic about that, and as tedious as it can be, I sometimes miss it.

Oh, and before I go I should confess that Dream Carly blew it. I missed my chance to say to John Spencer, “Hey, we’re doing a walk and talk!”

Maybe next time.

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