Gangsters!
Austin is unique in that it has very tall street lights. I think they are about 296′ tall, with a cluster of lights at the top. These lights are four-sided towers with triangular reinforcement all the way to the top, beginning at the ground with a single post for about twenty feet. They are spectacular! And beautiful! Paris, France was the only other city in the world with these street lights. Sometime in my adult life, Austin bought Paris’ lights when they removed them, enhancing the number in Austin.
When we moved to Austin in 19[??] I was fascinated with these lights. From my bed I could look out the window at night and see at least one of them. One night as I looked out the window, for some reason the street light frightened me. I stared at it for a long time. I was in a strange city and was still getting used to new things, including those lights. I fell asleep and dreamed the following: Mother and I were in downtown Austin where there were some of those tall lights. It was dusk. Some men drove up in a black car, got out and tried to force Mother into it. It was a kidnapping, though they ignored the kid. I woke up yelling loudly, “Mother! Mother!” Dad came into the bedroom (he was never quite with it when awakened from a deep sleep) and asked, “What do you need?” Ashamed at waking him, and realizing I had just had a bad dream, I asked meekly, “Can I have a drink of water?” He mumbled something unintelligible and brought me some water, saying that I could have gotten it for myself. What he never knew was the comfort I had in knowing that in that time of great crisis, MY DADDY came to our rescue, and had there been a real kidnapping, Dad would have saved us.