Some places are more uncomfortable than others are. I was obviously attending a conference and I was aware that it was in a parochial prep school location and my coat and other belongings were in the back row of a chapel.

The attendees were earnest, quiet, bustling types and I was disoriented partly because I did not know the lay of the land. Everyone else was wearing a shirt, tie and jacket while I felt out of place and further confused. The meeting was interminable with no one speaking for I seemed to spend my time in the midst of milling about with all these earnest, quiet bustling types earnestly and quietly hustling from here to there with me in their midst. There was very little talking and much activity.

This state of affairs seemed to go on endlessly when the meeting concluded without a conclusion. People were beginning to absent themselves and I sort of got the impression that I should go and collect my belongings and leave.

I thought I knew where my stuff was left and went to that chapel but found that there was praying going on. I tried to be quiet but could not find the pew where my coat was. I could not remember what my other belongings consisted of so I looked for something that looked like my coat. This was a fruitless task because the whole chapel now had a different look about it, particularly because there was this praying and the pews were different.

I noticed that there were absolutely no females present and I concluded that I was the only Jew there making me feel conspicuously out of place. But, since no one spoke to me and they were solely occupied with bustling about and hustling from here to there, they were quite happy with the meeting – such as it was. I then woke up thinking this was very strange.

Life is like that sometimes. We find ourselves in a dreamlike situation where we are a stranger in a strange place. I have found myself in places like that in bars, casinos and houses of worship where I know I am the odd-man out. Sometimes I felt this way in my work when students found themselves in their classroom and I just knew I was out of place. Speaking up in meetings also caused the sensation that I was a stranger in a strange place.

Dreams are often as incoherent as the speeches I delivered in meetings sometimes seemed to be. I wonder how some of our Democratic candidates felt at times in their own country but in States in which they did not live.