Jim Reed's Blog, page 10
December 24, 2023
JUST ANOTHER FRABJOUS DAY
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Life, actually…
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JUST ANOTHER DAY FRABJOUS DAY
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Here at the center of my little universe, I busy myself sifting through all Mortal Confusions, in search of sweet moments of pure human goodness.
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Looking for small kindnesses is not as hard as it sounds. It’s simply something you decide to spend your time doing. Or not.
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Two things I do on days when I am at my best: 1. Listen to visitors who pop in and out of my life; 2. Sort out the best parts of what they say and do, leaving aside what can at first glance seem negative and wasteful.
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As I conduct this unscientific research, I find that basically what is happening is that I am trying to cheer myself up.
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Being of good cheer is nice in any season of the year.
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For instance, I listen intensely to a longwinded orator whose every word causes his long nose to reveal more of itself. Later, I try to recall what he was talking about. Since his streaming verbal delivery is so tumbleweed random, I notate his accentuations and flourishes and digressions and usages and gestures and volume…they are more memorable than the content of his monologue. I mainly visualize the content of his characteristics.
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Next time, I’ll record his ramble so that I can actually hear what he was saying.
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A visitor to the shop asks where the “classic” books are, causing me to jokingly retort, “All our books are classic.”
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To me, I’ve spoken a truth. To the browser it’s more important to tell friend and family he just obtained a work of “classic” literature.
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All I’m really wondering is whether he will display the book or actually read it.
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Using my pseudoscientific philosophy, what I should be doing is focusing on the positive—if the customer purchases a book, he’s doing the world a favor by not ignoring it, by making sure it isn’t tossed, by showing it off to others who might want to read it, by contributing to my income so that I can pay the rent and continue offering books classical and nonclassical to future perusers.
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And so on and so forth.
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Judging a patron by appearance and performance is just as dangerous, just as fun, as judging a book by its cover. Customers carry within them hundreds of stories and wisdoms. I like to turn their pages and appreciate their contents, before they are remaindered and forgotten.
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Come judge my books by their interiors. While here, appreciate all the unclaimed unconscious baggage each peruser carries down the aisles.
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Maybe on your good days you will reminisce about the marvelous tales that can only be known and appreciated by those who cruise slowly, carefully listening to the paginated whispers
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
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https://youtu.be/MpNLH6n0c1M Jim Reed Podcast - https://jimreedbooks.com/podcast/Direct Link - https://jimreedbooks.com/podcast/media/2023-12-24_justanotherfrabjousday.mp3
December 16, 2023
The Last Christmas Tree in Pinellas County
Hear Liz Reed’s Christmas memory: https://youtu.be/dTgwJ163jdM
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Life, actually…
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THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE IN PINELLAS COUNTY
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It was the year we remodeled the house and because the contractors worked until the last possible minute, we waited until Christmas Eve to buy a tree. Not usually a problem. But the year before, merchants had over-bought, and this year, they over-compensated.
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Our father fared forth in high hopes of finding the perfect tree. First he went to the lots in our hometown, then in the next town, then on down the road a piece, then nearly to the county line. He finally found a tree, at this point settling for any tree remotely shaped like Christmas. As he was paying for the last Christmas tree in Pinellas County, a distraught man came running into the nursery. With tears in his eyes, he explained he was visiting from Michigan, his little girl was three years old and this would be the first Christmas she’d remember and there wasn’t a tree anywhere to be found.
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“Here,” Daddy said as he handed over the last Christmas tree in Pinellas County. “Merry Christmas.” The grateful visitor bustled the tree into his car, shouting his gratitude and wishing Daddy, his family, the nursery worker and anyone within earshot a very happy holiday indeed.
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Now what to do? Daddy turned back to the nurseryman and scratched his head. All the cut trees were gone, all the burlap-balled living trees were gone. “Well,” said the nurseryman, “How about a Podocarpus?” And so Daddy bought a small, green sort-of-conical-shaped tree in a ten gallon can. The can was bigger than the tree. We decorated it with one strand of lights and selected the smallest ornaments. We wrapped the can in red foil paper and set our tree in the middle of the dining room table. After Christmas, we planted the tree at 513 Scotland Street where it still grows, some 45 years later.
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When I think back on all the Christmas trees in all the years, that’s the tree I remember best.
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© 2023 A.D. by Liz Reed
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December 9, 2023
ANGEL LITE
Life, actually…
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I share this true-and-actual story every decade or so, just in case you weren’t there when it happened…
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ANGEL LITE
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HER STORY:
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I’m walking along the sidewalk near the St. Vincent’s Hospital
parking deck and I just plain topple over something. I don’t know
exactly what’s happening, but all of a sudden I’m flat on my back
and my head is cut and hurting and my eyes are closed because
I’m dizzy. I keep squinting, and I’m afraid to look around because
I don’t know whether I’m dead or dreaming, or what.
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I hear this deep voice saying, “Just lie still, you’re going to be
all right.” I want to see who is talking, so I open up and everything
looks dark red and I think maybe I’m blind.
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“I can’t see,” I say to the voice. I think maybe I really am dead.
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The deep voice says, “You will be fine. Just be calm. Just be calm.”
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I try to take a deep breath and hold on. I feel a warm hand touching
my forehead and soothing me.
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It isn’t long before I wake up in the emergency room and learn that
I really will be all right. The nurses have cleaned the blood out of my
eyes and I’m just fine.
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I’ll always wonder how my deep voice angel knew how to comfort
me at just the right moment. I wonder if I’ll ever need him again.
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HIS STORY:
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I’m walking along, near the St.Vincent’s Hospital emergency room
near Christmastime, absentmindedly trailing behind a large woman
who is in a hurry. Suddenly, she trips over a partially off-center manhole
cover and falls flat to the ground, her head gushing blood. Her eyes are
closed, and I lean over to see whether she’s conscious.
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She moves and squints, but the blood from her cut fills her
eyes so that she probably can’t see. I don’t want to cause further
damage, so I figure the best thing to do is stick by her till somebody
comes from the emergency room.
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I sit down beside her so that she will know that she’s not alone out
here. I lean close to her ear and quietly speak so that she won’t be
startled. “Just lie still, you’re going to be all right.”
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She turns toward me and says, “I can’t see.”
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All I can think to do is reassure her whether or not I know she’s
going to be fine. “You will be fine. Just be calm. Just be calm.”
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She responds and seems calmer. I remember the comforting healing
power of my father’s large hand when he touched my forehead so
many years ago, hovering over my sickbed and worrying. I reach
over and my hand becomes my father’s hand and warmly touches
her forehead.
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She lies quietly, almost smiling.
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Within minutes two casually-moving ER employees show up with
a wheelchair and escort the woman away. Even though her eyes
are still closed, I feel she’s going to be taken care of.
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I walk toward my car and go about my life.
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And I often wonder what this unknown woman thinks about when
she remembers her Christmas blindness near a hospital parking
deck. Does she wonder who I was? Does she know that I gave
the only Christmas gift I knew how to give
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(c) Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
December 2, 2023
THE HEAVENS DECLARE THEMSELVES
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All you need in order to listen to the stars late at night on a roof is a ladder, a quilt or blanket, a notepad, a pencil, maybe some binoculars or a small telescope, perhaps a penlight, possibly some long sleeves and pants to deter the biting and stinging critters..If you can’t find all these objects, you will discover that you don’t need them at all..All you have to do is find a way to the roof and hope against hope that ambient human-made lights won’t occlude your view..Just lie flat on your back face-up, cradle your head in your hands, and spread yourself open to the immediately viewable universe..Don’t expect to be overwhelmed at first. It takes a couple of dozen minutes for your eyes to adjust to the night..Then, hold on to the sky and traverse the heavens with ears and eyes and all operating senses..There will be color. You will see every fine shade of color you can imagine, colors you never knew were there all along..If you lie still long enough, you’ll see meteors—tiny instant streaks of literal stardust that etch the view. Now and then a lone and steady aircraft will arc from horizon to horizon. On really lucky nights, you may glimpse an earthling-crafted satellite scurrying above to the nearest available rabbit hole..During special times, you can spot a comet floating solid against the turning sky..Sometimes the Moon grins at you, its mystic reflection of the Sun often so bright you can’t see the surrounding sister suns. Once the Moon has gone away, on another night, the points of light will reappear, even though they never went away at all..If you’re fortunate, an hour or two of this ancient practice of staring up will set everything in life in proportion, make daily annoyances seem petty and time-consuming, make you humble and grateful all at once—humbled by the incredible expansiveness of it all, grateful that you bothered to stare somewhere besides at the consistently pervasive abuse of the spirit caused by activities of daily living on the small planet..Once your eyes begin accepting the handiwork of the heavens, you’ll begin to hear the stars. They will speak to you, tell you stories, impart their philosophies and ideas, cause you to grin ear to ear, make you shed a tear in wonder…and maybe, if you are among the fortunate few who are not afraid of words, you will want to start taking dictation, becoming the scribe of the night, passing forward your wonder and wizened knowledge..Maybe you will write down something so ancient and perfect that some reader somewhere will be inspired to sneak outside on a clear evening and play hooky to life….On a roof under the dome.© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.. https://youtu.be/DhP2v7ScuA8 .LISTEN: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/heavensdeclarethemselves.mp3
November 26, 2023
THE JOYFULLY ANNOYING HOT DOG TRUCK
Life, actually…
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THE JOYFULLY ANNOYING HOT DOG TRUCK
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Now you just have to be patient for a moment here and listen to my true tale about THE JOYFULLY ANNOYING HOT DOG TRUCK.
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It goes like this:
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More than a couple of decades ago, my two-year-old grandson Reed received from friends of the family a beautifully crafted bright yellow purple-tired red-hubcapped red-fendered battery-operated toy HOT DOG TRUCK.
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Now this is not just your regular run-of-the-toys-r-us hot dog truck. This hot dog truck is nine inches long and nine inches high and has clear-plastic display panels on each side which display six small hot dogs (wieners to you, weenies to us Southerners).
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In the open front cab of the truck sits a pink-faced mustachioed guy with a blue hat, orange shirt, white pants and white gloves—not to mention blue eyes… shaped like this: + +
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The green headlamps, bright green bell and slogans animate everything—”Happy Hot Dog” on the front hood, “Yum Yum” on the side doors, “Chili Cheese Dog 99 cents Mustard Dog 59 cents Deluxe Combo (fries and drink) 99 cents.”
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Behind the six vertical hot dogs (no mustard) is a sign, “Happy Hot Dog Dancing for You.”
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Did I mention the fact that atop the hot dog truck is a great big hot dog (with mustard snaking across the top) that looks almost real if you squint or if you’re two years old?
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Now this hot dog truck toy is pretty cute and quite unusual looking, but what makes it really fun and annoying is what it does. When you throw the switch on the bottom of the hot dog truck, it suddenly begins playing loud, rhythmic and unidentifiable music, and the front purple wheels begin walking (not turning) the front of the truck in time with the beat.
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The truck walks!
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Then, after the tune goes on for a few seconds, the hot dog truck driver yells, “Hot Dog! Hot Dog!” in a clipped accent of some kind—could be Brooklyn, could be Hispanic. Part of the mystery, you know. While he’s yelling, his upper body shakes back and forth, he rings the green bell, and the six hot dogs (three on each side) start dancing! Then, the truck repeats this routine until an annoyed adult turns it off or stomps it.
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A most wonderfully annoying toy!
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Well, two-year-old Reed was afraid of that hot dog truck and wouldn’t have anything to do with it, but I loved it. It was just the thing every kid dreams of having—a toy that makes you laugh while annoying all adults within hearing distance. Even after you turn the truck off, you can still make it yell, “Hot Dog! Hot Dog!” twice by pushing a rose-colored button next to the driver, or you can make that funky music go on for a couple of seconds by pushing the violet button.
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Gosh, did I have fun with that hot dog truck! Nobody else did.
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As we were leaving my daughter’s home after the Christmas weekend, she presented me with the bright yellow hot dog truck. “No,” I said. “This belongs to Reed!” She looked at me for a second and said, “Dad, I want you to have this toy.”
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The steel in her voice made me realize that she not only NEEDED for me to remove this toy from her home, but she knew that it would make me a lot happier than it would ever make her or Reed.
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I grabbed this gift and drove the five hours back to Birmingham, occasionally annoying my wife and granddaughter by pushing the rose-colored button. And, once in a while, by pushing the violet button. What fun!
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Now, the Happy Hot Dog truck sits atop my bookloft counter (I’m at least smart enough not to take it home) for me to show off to annoyed customers and annoying little kids.
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If you know anything about other annoying toys made by the Metro Toy Company in the Philippines, please let me know. My joy may be your pain, but what’s wrong with making an old guy happy
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© 2023 A.D. by Jim Reed
November 18, 2023
THE VACANT THANKSGIVING DAY CHAIR
Life, actually…
THE VACANT THANKSGIVING DAY CHAIR*.*.*.
Listen to Jim’s podcast:*.*.*.http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/thanksgivinghappiestsaddest.mp3
*.*.*.
or read on…
*.*.*.
Here is a true story I re-tell every Thanksgiving, just
to remind myself and you that everything that really
matters is right before us, all the time. Here ‘tis:
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THE EMPTY THANKSGIVING DAY CHAIR
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The saddest thing I ever saw: a small, well-dressed elderly woman dining alone at Morrison’s Cafeteria, on Thanksgiving Day.
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Oh there are many other sadnesses you can find if you look hard enough, in this variegated world of ours, but a diner alone on Thanksgiving Day makes you feel really fortunate, guilty, smug, relieved, tearful, grateful…it brings you up short and makes you time-travel to the pockets of joy and cheer you experienced in earlier days…
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Crepe paper. Lots of crepe paper. And construction paper. Bunches of different-colored construction paper.
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In my childhood home in Tuscaloosa, my Thanksgiving Mother always made sure we creative and restless kids had all the cardboard, scratch paper, partly-used tablets, corrugated surfaces, unused napkins, backs of cancelled checks, rough brown paper from disassembled grocery bags, backs of advertising letters and flyers…anything at all that we could use to make things. Yes, dear 21st-Century young’uns, we kids back then made things from scraps.
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We could cut up all we wanted, and cut up we did.
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We cut out rough rectangular sheets from stiff black wrapping paper and glued the edges together to make Pilgrim hats. Old belt buckles were tied to our shoelaces—we never could get it straight, whether the Pilgrims were Quakers, or vice versa, or neither. But it always seemed important to put buckles on our shoes and sandals, wear tubular hats and funny white paper collars, and craft weird-looking guns that flared out like trombones at one end.
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More fun than being a Pilgrim/Quaker was being an Indian—a true blue Native American, replete with bare chest, feathers shed by neighborhood doves, bows made of crooked twigs and kite string, arrows dulled at the tip by rubber stoppers and corks, and loads of Mother’s discarded rouge and powder and lipstick and mashed cranberries smeared here and there on face and body, to make us feel like the Indians we momentarily were.
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Sister Barbara and Mother would find some long autumnal-hued dresses for the occasion, but they were seldom seen outside the kitchen for hours on end, while the eight-course dinner was under construction.
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There was always an accordion-fold crepe paper turkey centerpiece on display, hastily bought on sale at S.H. Kress, just after last year’s Thanksgiving season. It looked nothing like my Aunt Mattie’s turkeys in her West Blocton front yard.
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And for some reason, we ate cranberry products on that day and that day only. Nobody ever thought about cranberries the other 364 days! And those lucky turkeys were lucky because nobody ever thought of eating them except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were home free the rest of the year!
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Now, back into the time machine of just a few years ago.
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It is Thanksgiving Day. My wife and son and granddaughter are all out of the country. Other family and relatives are either dead or gone, or just plain tied up with their own lives elsewhere, doing things other than having Thanksgiving Dinner with me.
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My brother, Tim, my friends Tim Baer and Don Henderson and I decide that we will have to spend Thanksgiving Dinner together, since each of us is bereft of wife or playmate or relative, this particular holiday this particular year.
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So, we wind up at Morrison’s Cafeteria, eating alone together, going through the line and picking out steamed-particle-board turkey, canned cranberries, thin gravy, boxed mashed potatoes and some bakery goods whose source cannot easily be determined.
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But we laugh at our situation and each other, tell jokes, cut up a bit, and thank our lucky stars that this one Thanksgiving Dinner is surely just a fluke.
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We’ll be trying that much harder, next year, to not get blind-sided by the best holiday of the year, Thanksgiving being the only holiday you don’t have to give gifts or reciprocate gifts or strain to find the correct gifts.
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Left to right: Tim Reed, Tim Baer, Jim Reed lining up for Thanksgiving.
Don Henderson is behind the camera.
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On Thanksgiving holidays ever since, I make sure I’m with family and friends, and now and then I try to set a place at the table of my mind, for any elderly lady or lone friend who might want to join us…for the second saddest thing I’ve ever seen is a happy family lustily enjoying a Thanksgiving feast together and forgetting for a moment about all those lone diners in all the cafeterias of the world who could use a kind glance and a smile
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© 2023 A.D. by Jim Reed
*.*.*.
November 12, 2023
LIVING WHILE STAYING ALIVE
Life, actually…
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LIVING WHILE STAYING ALIVE
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In the quiet pre-populated morning hours of this Down South neighborhood, a sole grocery-cart pilot rattles his descent.
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He steers downhill, relying on gravity and momentum to transport the cardboard-and-doodad-laden vehicle to the next street.
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The momentarily barren and foggy incline blends with his gray coat and gray helmet and the gray asphalt. He fades into the distance and becomes part of the landscape of the gray and muted-green village.
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I am his silent witness as I prepare to mount my metal steed and wend my way through morning errands. During this one second of time, no other member of my species is present. It is up to me to transcribe the existence of this rattletrap man so that there will be a record. A record of attention paid to a gossamer life
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A one-syllable dog barks his presence and is satisfied until the next bark.
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A neighborly neighbor materializes and beeps open trunk and door, loading schoolkids up for the rote journey. A green next-door scrub-suited med heads to work, silently nodding in my direction and receiving a return nod.
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There is just the right humid chill in the air. Not too warm, not too cool. Perfect for this miracle jiffy of activity.
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Just above me, a dispassionate cast-iron statue gazes east to the sunrise and prepares to warm its innards when new rays visit the pedestal beneath his sandals.
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I work my way around a humongous city-enforced plastic trash pail, check for leavings in the grass (dogtritus), click the doors of my dew-slicked car, and descend into its small man-capsule for a two-mile workaday journey toward commerce.
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NPR entertains me with news of the wretched and forlorn activities of nations and bully leaders, adds a dash of anecdotal humor to give me 2 1/2 seconds of hope, then re-enters the sausage machine for more, more…then asks for donations.
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I parallel park next to my parallel universe of a bookstore. I gather my sheaves and enter a daytime of bliss, a day of challenge, a day of opportunity, a day of variegated personalities and quirks.
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I have an aha! moment and realize that I am always safely at home wherever I go on this lonesome village-by-village planet.
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I realize that living within paradise requires examining carefully each passing blink…double-checking to make sure I don’t miss the pure, the simple, the beautiful, the inherent teeming lives that surround me.
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Living here is a privilege and a gift. It’s up to me to reciprocate and spread the message
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
November 5, 2023
The Solitude of the Long-Ago Diary-Keepers
Listen to Jim:
http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/TheSolitudeoftheLongAgoDiaryKeepers.mp3
or read on…
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Life, actually…
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THE SOLITUDE OF THE LONG-AGO DIARY-KEEPERS
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The small worn leather-bound diary on my desk offers up clue after clue about its owner, who lived way back in 1919. Whether I truly understand these clues is something that cannot be determined. So, I weave my profile of the diary-keeper, unfettered by fact and evidence.
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Here it is. The title page of this century-plus old diary says much, reveals little:
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Bought at “Fowey”
Dec. 6, 1918
U.S.S.C. #352
Ray P. Rogers
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The facing blank page states:
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Belonging to Ray Rogers
U.S.N
Radioman
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The first day of the calendar, January 1, 1919:
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Stayed on boat all day
Stood 10 to 12 watch
Wrote some letters
turned in
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An action-packed day for a man at sea
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Skipping over to February 6, 1919:
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Loaded depth bombs all day on Lake View
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Skip to April 7, 1919
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At sea between Lisbon and Azores.
At last I am able to give my thoughts
full sway. My friend has been at home with my girl
and pals all day. I seem to be bursting open with
pleasant thoughts of the things I am to do when I
reach the best place in the world—home in Alabama.
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You can imagine the rest, since the actual diary is in safe but unknown hands by now.
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What intrigues me most about forgotten letters and diaries and scrapbooks is the economy of words, the shorthand thoughts and, mainly, the unwritten reflections that rest between the lines.
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As I read the words of people long gone, I begin to get an image of what they must have been like. The astounding revelation is that no matter how blustery or humble the entries are, each diarist winds up sounding like you and me.
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Just folks alone with themselves, writing down what their fingers dictate.
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The poet Rilke called all of us Solitudes.
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We diarists and poets and authors are all solitudes, no matter how many people surround us. When it comes to recording thoughts and feelings, each of us has to do it alone. Each of us has to face our own solitude as squarely as possible.
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Each of us makes the Journey hand-in-hand with ourselves
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
October 29, 2023
TICKLE ME JIMBO
Life, actually…
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TICKLE ME JIMBO
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When I was a kid, people often called me Jimbo. It’s what they did to guys named Jim back then.
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This was OK with me, since I found it funny.
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Speaking of funny:
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I’m sitting and talking and listening and eating, which is just about the most fun you can have clothed or unclothed—at least, sometimes.
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My friend Jo is sitting and talking and eating and listening, too.
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This is an opportunity to learn something new, so, as is my wont, I pop out a spontaneous question, “When you are alone, do you ever laugh?”
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Jo’s eyes grow wider than usual and, instead of answering, she exclaims, “Why, what an unusual question to ask! Why would you ask that?”
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This gives her time to ruminate and come up with a reply, I suppose.
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I say, “Just something I wanted to know—you don’t have to answer it.”
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But Jo does answer, “Well, yes, I do laugh when I’m alone.”
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I can believe this, since Jo has a wicked sense of humor, thus I’m satisfied.
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So many people I’ve met through the eons don’t seem to have the ability to laugh at much of anything, much less at themselves, much less with themselves. I try not to hang with these folks, since I do like to laugh—especially at myself.
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Just me observing me is sometimes hilarious, particularly as I grow older. Added to that is life, which is increasingly hilarious as well.
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I grew up as a question-asker, which scares some people and intrigues others. When very young, I determined that the best way to find out stuff was to ask questions. I also learned that not asking questions can lead to a very dull time, since lots of people don’t ever think to ask me a question.
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Either they don’t want to know anything about me, or they are content with being quiet and somber.
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When I don’t receive an answer to a question, I learn twice as much as I’ll ever learn from a stiffly proper answer. Either way, I’m going to learn something new in the process. It may not be what you hoped I would learn, but it will be a learning experience.
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Myself when young naturally gravitated to activities that required question-asking, and I therefore learned a bunch—a bunch of primarily useless information, but information that was interesting and exciting and funny and scary, regardless of its uselessness.
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So, I became a child actor and performer and teacher and reporter and writer, all of which require the asking of questions and, further, the listening to answers.
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I’m never bored. I’m often in the presence of others who are bored, but just asking them questions to get their reaction sometimes makes them forget how much pleasure they are deriving from being bored. It’s like shock therapy.
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As I learned from H.G. Wells and the Pet Shop Boys, people who are bored are people who are being boring. Both states of mind frighten me, so I just go on my merry way, asking and listening and treading the maelstrom that threatens all of us—the maelstrom that wants to bore us to death.
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Tell me something funny and uncruel and I’ll have a good laugh. If you can’t think of anything funny to say, just say whatever comes to mind.
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Don’t worry—I’ll find something funny in it
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© 2023 A.D. by Jim Reed
October 22, 2023
A MOM FOR ALL SEASONS
Life, actually…
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A MOM FOR ALL SEASONS
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“Get ready for the Holidays,” a deep-down voice intones.
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“Why now?” I reply to that deep and deep-down inner voice.
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“Get ready for the Holidays, because that is where your Mother resides.”
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I snap awake. I’m half-dreaming, on my morning journey from sleepland to up-and-at-’em land.
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Why am I cloaked in holiday memories on this particular day? Maybe it’s the almost-Fall nearly-Winter feeling in the air. Maybe it’s just dusty old memories shaken but not yet stirred.
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For whatever reason, I’m remembering the way Christmas and Holidays used to be. We village elders have earned the right to jump back and forth from past to present and back again.
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Here’s a Christmas memory that won’t go away. It’s true and actual:
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Christmas comes but once a day!
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Really, Christmas does come but once a day! I can’t keep it out of my mind.
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You see, my mother was a Christmas mother.
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Every holiday provided the excuse Mom needed for bolstering her own spirits and the spirits of those around her.
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Our little family on Eastwood Avenue in long-ago Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was a Christmas family because of Mother.
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You see, Christmas was the very thing our family needed most to counteract the dead of Winter, to bring light to the longest nights of the year, to give us a chance to once again believe in the idea of Spring. Without the idea of Spring in mind, how could we possibly survive the Winter?
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We kids and Mother decorated everything that didn’t move, and some things that did. Our pet dogs Brownie and Sissy might be seen running through the house decked in wreaths or gossamer aluminum icicles. The windows would be sprayed with fake snow. The plastic candles with big red bulbs shone through the fake snow to provide just the right glow to passersby.
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The Christmas tree had to be somewhat democratically selected by the entire family as we trudged through the cold woods near Uncle Pat McGee’s home in nearby Peterson. It wasn’t really a Christmas tree if it didn’t have to be lugged through what seemed like miles of forest to our waiting Willys automobile. It wasn’t really a tree if we didn’t later find pine or fir needles in our underwear, if we didn’t get our fingers sticky with resin that couldn’t be removed voluntarily.
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It couldn’t be called a Christmas tree unless half the needles had fallen off by New Year’s Day. Those needles were necessary to remind us in the middle of July— when we were still finding them under the sofa and in our socks—that, yes, another Christmas just might come one day.
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Every part of Christmas was special to Mother and us kids. We got the tree up and decorated as early as possible and sometimes did not take it down till February was threatening to occur.
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And every decoration counted, every decoration was sacred.
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There were cheap plastic Baby Jesuses and velvet-clothed Santa Clauses, Bakelite angels and glassy angel hair strands, small ceramic Snoopies and brown-paper handmade stars, miniature mangers and stockingcapped elves, tin whistles and school-pasted wooden shards with glitter applied, strung popped popcorn necklaces and varnished mummified cookies.
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Mother’s fireplace mantle was fully and carefully decorated and arranged with a mixture of kids’ handcrafted stuff and store-bought doodads. The front and back doors were decorated, the lawn was bedecked, even the bathroom door was all Christmassed-up.
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Christmas was a yearlong idea, a monthlong project, an intense array of garlands and gewgaws, clutter and array.
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So much was put into Christmas that the images stayed with you all year long and in fact all life long.
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Every and each time I smell ginger or apples or vanilla or pine or baking dough or roasting pecans, Christmas comes back to me in a second. Each time I pass an ornately dressed bungalow in a tiny neighborhood, it all comes back. Every time I hear the old carols, whenever I look up in the frozen winter to see a bright star or two, whenever I see the expectant gleam in a child’s eye, Christmas comes back to me.
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Christmas comes but once a day.
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When the very idea of Christmas, the very idea of unselfish giving, the very idea of warm family gatherings and sharings…when these things die from our lives, won’t we all die a bit, too? When the soul goes flat from lack of sweet remembrance, the world will be declared flat, too.
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Thanks to you, Mother, I can hold on to Christmas even when there’s nothing else visible to grab hold of
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
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