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Tommy Zimmerman was the coolest kid in 4th grade.

Zimmerman!

Zimmerman.

Zimmerman.

More Zimmerman.

By the second one there hangs a tale.

When I started getting into triathlon last year, I was really wishing I could buy a fancy new road bike, but budgetary constraints meant I raced on my old hybrid. However, that spring I had a dream that my brother and his wife made me a gift of a beautiful, brand-new, silver, sleek, fast, light shiny racing bike. When they presented it, they said "It's a Zimmerman!"

So that was the dream. When I woke up, bemused, I wondered if there was any such thing as a Zimmerman bike. I'd never heard of the make. So I went to the trusty web and found out that there was once a Zimmerman bike, a top-of-the-line racing cycle. And the eerie part? The factory was once located in my home county, about 20 minutes from my hometown.

Now, I don't think it's supernatural or anything. Obviously, at some point growing up I must have encountered a newspaper article or museum exhibit that talked about the Zimmerman company. But the funny thing is, my conscious mind would never, ever have been able to dredge it up. I still have no memory of ever seeing anything about it. BUt the dreaming mind found it -- it was in there somewere. The brain is weird!