When daughter Abby was young, we had a full house. Besides human beings and a cat, there were Squirrel Friend, Spider Friend, and Toothbrush Friend. You could say they were Abby’s imaginary friends, but for a time they seemed quite real.

I am a big fan of imagination and willingly engaged with Abby’s pals. We talked about what they were up to and what they thought about certain things. Squirrel Friend was Abby’s favorite, and I got to know him well. He regularly joined us for snacks with a plate set for him. If I wanted to encourage Abby to do something, Squirrel Friend was a ready role model. I still find myself talking to Squirrel Friend when I have a particularly vexing problem on the farm.

Way back in my own history my mom talked about my imaginary friend, New Mouse. I dragged a string behind me, as New Mouse was apparently on a leash.

At some point, all of these creature-friends went to join Puff the Magic Dragon, wherever it is that Puff sadly slipped away to. I have wondered about those years when the Friends were real to Abby. How does a small child see and hear her imaginary friends? Where did they come from? Their genesis probably is something like the way our brain creates dreams, amalgamating a bunch of things in our world into something that seems very real in our sleep.

Now, if an adult starts hearing voices from unseen folks that can be a problem. Short of that, adults do have ways of “escaping” the real world. Burying oneself in a good book or movie can be an escape from the rigors of a hard day on the job. The theater world has long referred to the willing suspension of disbelief as a necessary part of the experience. We know the “room” we see on stage is not in a real house. But for two hours we let our mind accept that it is.

Those are healthy ways to escape the world such as it is. I suppose alcohol or drugs are ways to do so, but can easily slip into a problem. If I have a few beers, part of the attraction is relaxing and becoming comfortable. I might feel a little funnier, a little smarter, and even a little better looking. That would be deceptive, and the more I drink the more deceptive it becomes.

Somewhere between healthy flight from reality and not-so-healthy is a particular obsession of mine. I have to confess here to playing fantasy baseball. If you are not familiar with that and I described it to you, you would think that it was perfectly fine thing for a group of ten year old boys to do. Each of us picks a make-believe team by “drafting” real players and then competing against the other make-believe teams in our league.

I would much rather tell you about my playing baseball with a real bat and ball. Playing fantasy baseball is, I suppose, like going fishing for pretend fish or hunting for pretend deer. Now that I’ve laid bare this perplexing behavior, I have to report it reaches into the highest levels of government and business in Brown County. Men with important jobs and responsibilities sneak looks at box scores to see how their players are doing. Movers and shakers like Mike Schmid and Bob Skillings of Southpoint Credit Union, and Dave Schnobrich, longtime New Ulm city official, “play” in the Boxscore Baseball League. Even The Journal is not immune; columnist Jim Bastian is a practitioner.

We compete for a small amount of money, but much more for bragging rights to say we have the best make-believe team. My wife tolerates this, as long as I don’t talk to her about how Chris Sale is doing for me. I have tried to convince her that it is a perfect stress reliever. I tell her that I could be doing worse things. Admittedly that is a low bar.

So, there are all of these ways and methods to escape reality. You’d think there would be some consensus about what it is we’re escaping. I have always suspected reality was more elusive than assumed. We all know that two people can be at some event and have a totally different interpretation of what happened. Siblings can be raised by the same parents and have wholly varying experiences.

So what is real? Surprisingly, that question itself has become an important part of our national debate. If we can’t begin a conversation with an agreement that the sky is blue and that the sun rises in the east, it’s going to be difficult to solve a problem. In that scenario, one person’s flight from reality can be another person’s rush into it.

Personally I might have trouble believing that: Our previous president was born in Kenya, he wiretapped certain buildings, millions of illegal votes were cast, including by voters arriving on chartered buses crossing state lines, Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assasination, Mexico is going to pay for a wall, Hillary is going to jail, etc. Etc. And etc.

But who am I to say the sky is blue and that the sun rises in the east? We all must don a cloak of humility and accept that our eyes and ears are flawed. If tomorrow our president announces that he is bringing Squirrel Friend to the White House to work as an Economic Adviser with a special focus on our nation’s nut balance of trade, we now know that 30 per cent of Americans will think that is a wise decision.

It’s enough to make me want to go have a few beers with New Mouse.