Jim Reed's Blog, page 27

DEEP SOUTH CASTAWAY FINDS COOKIES AND HOPE

DEEP SOUTH CASTAWAY FINDS COOKIES AND HOPE

In my evergreen memories of being a Deep South child of the 1940s and ’50s, I am re-living a moment in time…a time when reading a book was the best adventure imaginable.

I cannot wait to turn the next page of the novel Robinson Crusoe.

I lie on the hardwood floor of summertime, invisible to those around me, because I am cast away upon a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, trying to survive by wit and mettle.

Robinson and I dive deep into an uncontaminated ocean to retrieve all we can of supplies stowed away upon the sunken ship that stranded us here. We frantically look for food, shelter, protection from cannibals and mutineers. We witness the solitary beauty of nature and the best and worst of humankind.

As isolated as we are, Robinson Crusoe and I find a way to survive on our own for 28 years, never knowing whether we will be rescued and re-birthed into a cantankerous civilization, or whether our bleached bones will be discovered centuries hence by a society that has never heard of books and totally unplugged independence.

I can feel the sun’s heat and the ever-present mosquitoes and the sand between my toes on this island, and…

“Jim, where are you?” calls my Mom.

I am jarred into reality.

“Uh, here, Mother!” I am in my room, hoping that I won’t have to tear myself away from this engrossing tale.

“Time to take out the garbage,” Mom says, politely failing to mention the fact that the trash can overfloweth because of my avoidance of unavoidable chores.

Back in these childhood times, in this particular generation, all kids have chores and duties. We also have our books and toys and playmates. We are also allowed to let our imaginations run wild, as long as we do our part to maintain the family.

I groan dramatically, find an H.G. Wells bubble gum trading card to use as a bookmark, carefully hide Robinson Crusoe and Daniel Defoe from sight, should a sibling happen upon it.

I head for the kitchen and the duty, grab a fresh-baked cookie from the window sill, and sally forth to my next somewhat trashy adventure. Not as exciting as hiding from cannibals, but definitely a sign of hope…hope that, once chores are completed, I can rejoin my pals, Friday and Robinson and freshly-snared fish.

Later, as I swim the pages of the book, I am almost disappointed when rescue occurs, when 18th-century society snatches us up and makes us all comfy again.

Sure, I like my chocolate-chip snacks, but to this day I can’t rid myself of all the fantastic and deadly and hardy escapades that took place on that tiny bit of land jutting from an azure sea, deep in the center of a fertile imagination

 

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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ONE LIFE ONE MOMENT IN EVERY VILLAGE, USA

ONE LIFE ONE MOMENT IN EVERY VILLAGE, USA

 You can see him right there, next to the fast-food diner in the heart of downtown, in the center of this village.

You can see him if you pause to look.

Here’s what you can see should you take the time.

Slow down and peek right and left. Lower your windows so that you can both see and hear what is outside your vehicle.

You can see him if you dare—yes, dare—to drive slowly, just beyond your comfort zone.

Yes, there he is, right next to the eatery.

He’s lying there flat on his back on the sidewalk just inside an alcove of an old building next door, and he looks dead except for the fact that one arm is stuck straight up and a lighted cigarette is being held firmly within direct view of his upturned face.

He has his eyes closed and there’s a look of blissful satisfaction on his face since he’s just eaten some kind of generic food, judging from the wrappers lying there right next to him and the half-full paper coffee cup resting nearby.

He’s just had his meal in his own dining room of a city and is lying there on his own city-sized bed and his ceiling is as high as the sunny sky and his shade is provided at his leisure by a tall building that nobody can take away from him since he doesn’t own the building in the first place and the building isn’t going anywhere in the second place.

One good breakfast one good cuppajava one good cigarette and a nice hot village day at his disposal, and the next moment seems hours away.

And isn’t right this second just wonderful and aren’t all those ragtags passing by in their air conditioned conveyances just plain missing this split second that’s so important so precious so long

 

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

 

 

SOMETIMES THE ECHO ANSWERS BACK

Listen to Jim’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/asapImi3m5U

or read his transcript  below:

 

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when I had time to be a teeny, time to experience the passages of youth. SCENES FROM A MEANDERING TEENHOOD…

SOMETIMES THE ECHO ANSWERS BACK

My imaginary flying carpet carries me beyond hither, way past yon. I am having great fun until I have to pull up to a gas station to re-fuel. Did Aladdin have to do this?

Floating in outer space, awaiting free fall, I suddenly realize that I need to go to the bathroom.

I spend weeks flirting with a coed in English class. My teen longing produces zero effect until, one day, the English coed responds and indicates she would be willing to go out with me. Suddenly, I realize that I do not have a car or a driver’s license. What was I thinking?

I’m standing atop a great pile of abandoned strip mine dirt. I look across the green water below and see another pile. Maybe I can yell and create an echo. I call out, “HaaaaaaaThere!” The echo hollers back, “So whattayou want with me already?” I skedaddle and never tell anyone else what just happened. Later, I wonder where my “HaaaaaaaThere!” went off to.  Is it still circling the globe?

My teen buddies, Dot and Jim, are joining me in wading across Hurricane Creek, heading toward a little island. Suddenly, Dot jumps a couple of feet in the air and climbs aboard my back. I follow her gaze and see a large rattlesnake lazing in the sun, slowly aroused. The three of us skedaddle. Lots of skedaddling occurs when you’re a kid.

My father takes brother Ronny and me hunting in a forest. Ronny has a rusty .22 rifle and I tote the double-barreled shotgun I’ve been gifted as part of a rite of passage. Dad fires his weapon at a high-up dancing squirrel. I don’t want to kill anything or anybody. To divert attention from my wimpyness I fire both barrels at the squirrel’s tree and hope I don’t hit anything. I still have that shotgun these generations later, but I’ve never fired it since. I believe the squirrel survived and is still dancing.

My playmate Jimmy and his kid brother are excited and frightened, and a bit nervous. They just observed several UFOs in a vacant lot near their house. I am a total skeptic, meaning I want more data. Jimmy describes in great detail what the flying saucers were doing, what they looked like. He even diagrams them. He really saw them. Again, as a skeptic, I am still awaiting the verdict, even though my own brother, Tim, also had a UFO experience years later. I secretly doubt that intelligent space aliens would ever bother to visit such a flawed species as Earthlings.

My best friend since second grade, Pat, tries an ESP experiment with me one evening at her home. We sit and focus and sort of meditate, then she asks me to guess what she is imagining—a number between one and 100. For some mysterious reason, I suddenly envision a large three-dimensional number 17 emanating from her forehead and gliding through the air toward me. It is the exact number she has written down. Like the UFO experiences, this has never happened again. We could not replicate the experiment. Being fairly smart, we did not obsess about it and went on to other activities. But isn’t that interesting?

One night, walking alone with nothing to do, I gaze up at the top of a very tall smokestack on the campus of an abandoned military base called Northington. Something comes over me. Since no-one is looking at or judging me, I decide to climb that smokestack, just to test my own courage. I grab a rusty iron rung and begin the ascent, not daring to look down. When I get about ten feet up, I figure maybe I’d better descend. Descending turns out to be more difficult than I imagine, because it involves looking down. What the heck, I tell myself. I’m already this high up. Might as well go for it. The smokestack gets taller as I climb, some of the rungs are rusty and slightly loose. But I gotta do it because I’m a teen and this is one of the insane things teens do. I finally make it to the top, gaze down the large dark hole, imagine myself becoming stuck there and being found as a skeleton years later. The rest of the story does go on. Let’s just say I finally made it safely to the ground and vowed never to do anything this stupid again. And if I have done stupid things since then, I’ll not reveal them to you.

Just a few scenes from my childhood. If you don’t like these, I have others.

Why not share your own scenes with me

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ICHABOD CRANE MEETS DON QUIXOTE

Hear Jim’s latest Red Clay Diary podcast:

https://youtu.be/whJQ9d36t1Y

or read the transcript below:

ICHABOD CRANE MEETS DON QUIXOTE

The gaunt and wavering cafeteria server at Fife’s Restaurant is making an occasional gesture that I do not at first understand. It is Christmastime in the nervous city, and the customer line moves steadily toward the gesturing server while other employees pile wonders upon my plate.

The fragrance of fresh corn muffins and butterbeans and meat loaf magnetically lures me into Fife’s a few times a year—but especially during pre-holiday times. This is a real diner, one that has rolled onward for decades. Loyalists return frequently for a trip to the past. A grumpy cashier plies her trade, making me aware that, were she not grumpy one day, I would know something is terribly wrong. The efficient and pleasant table servers await me.

The clientele in front of me are inching forward toward the gesturer, who dispenses water and iced tea and bread as a final act of service before we are processed by the cashier.

His gesture. With one lanky arm and pointing finger, he is calling attention to the Christmas jar above the counter. It’s a tip jar. He is making sure in his own silent way that we customers at least have an opportunity to make his seasonal family a little happier. He hopes for gratuities but never asks, never disapproves when ignored.

What draws me to this ancient eatery? The food is always hot and copious. The decor is, well, not really decor—it’s more like somebody’s old, comfortable home. The booths and tables are worn and rickety but always clean and carefully bussed. 

I dig into my pocket for a few dollar bills, silently insert them into the jar as the recipient asks whether I prefer rolls or cornbread, water or tea, sweetened or unsweetened, lemoned or unlemoned. The transaction is completed. I have my loaded tray and cutlery and dinky little paper napkins. I survive the cashier. I embark upon a search for a welcoming table.

I ponder the unknown lives of diners and servers and cooks and bussers. I can’t fathom them all, but I can help myself remember the gesturing employee. He looks like a cross between Ichabod Crane and Don Quixote. Are his fears and dreams similar to those two iconic characters? What kind of child was he? How does he get home in the evening? What will he do with the paltry dollars and change he accumulates?

All is temporarily erased from imagination as I seek catsup for the meat loaf, salt and pepper for the beans, pepper sauce for the greens, butter for the corn muffin. I drown my present self in good feelings, read the juicy parts of the newspaper, leave another tip, this one for the chatty waitress.

And that’s the end of my Christmastime immersion in a place where good times past engrave themselves upon sweet memory. What remains is this little experience, for someday there may not be a Fife’s to nurture me. In times like these, there may never be another place to rub elbows and lives with such a diverse and easygoing crowd.

Attention must be paid, I tell myself. Attention must be paid

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

EMERGENCY ENTRANCE

Listen to Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/l0tydg24-IQ

or read the transcript below:

EMERGENCY ENTRANCE

Did did I ever tell you about my Bubble of Solitude? I’ll be brief: My Bubble of Solitude has an emergency entrance to which only I have the password. I use that entrance to escape the thousandfold distractions and contradictions of the world.

Even though I live in this world along with you and a few billion others, now and then I must pause, reflect, reassess and recharge in order to re-enter and resume dealing with life, love and the pursuit of purity.

I look upon my Bubble of Solitude as a journal, a diary, a captain’s log…a log that encourages me to toss rose petals here and there along the way, so that I can always find my way back when the world is too much with me.

On a wonderful day such as this, I have mixed feelings, contrarian thoughts. On the one hand, I am happy that my tunnel vision only allows the best of the day to present itself. On the other hand, I know that there are many lovely souls outside my Bubble of Solitude who could use a helping hand, lovely souls who long for acceptance and attention from you and me.

I send you greetings from the confines of my Bubble of Solitude. I hope you are bearing your life-assigned load as well as you can.

Please know this: There are rose petals strewn along the way for you, too. Rather than step on them, stop to examine and appreciate their intrinsic beauty. The only reason these rose petals are on your path is to offer up their wisdom, should you decide to open up to it. Wisdom that you can intuit from their presence, or wisdom that you can dismiss at will. It’s all on you. And me.

Even if you accidentally crush one of those petals, quickly pick it up and sniff the fragrance that was waiting for you all along. Even your mistake brought forth the wisdom of your senses, unarguable senses often ignored in the rush of a propulsive life.

Among the hundreds of scattered ideas that call out to me today, I guess these particular imparted words are enough for right now.

Go forth and find your own bubble. Find a way to reanimate within the bubble. It’s always there. You and I can live both inside and outside at will. Contents of the bubble await your presence, contents of daily life await outside. Don’t worry—you and I can handle both.

Give it a try

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

 

ARCHIVES OF THE CLEAN PLATE CLUB

Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay diary: https://youtu.be/3GXSL9oKZZE

or read his transcript below:

A story both true and actual, from many many many many years ago…

ARCHIVES OF THE CLEAN PLATE CLUB

 Popeye canned spinach is being served tonight, straight from can to stove pan, where slices of hard boiled eggs are added, along with white vinegar. Once steaming, the delicacy is transferred to chipped serving dish to family table, where it beckons to parents and kids.

For some reason, I am the only one of five children who endorses and gobbles up soggy warm spinach. Brothers and sisters will do anything possible to avoid having to face the prospect. Which is odd, because all five of us adore our cartoon hero, Popeye, who downs entire cans before each conquest.

Admire the superhero. Disdain how he got to be super. Losers all, I think smugly. I’m going to grow muscle and develop agility by imbibing a double dose of Popeye spinach.

Fortunately for my siblings, Mother’s dinner table is loaded with plenty of other delectable leftovers—pork and beans, cole slaw, hot cornbread, cold fried chicken, apple pie…enough to hide from parents the fact that no-one but yours truly ever touches the Popeye spinach.

I am also the kid who eats everything on the plate. That’s because it’s a sin to waste food or toss out uneaten food. WWII ended just a few years ago. Our parents sacrificed and scrimped and saved and worked hard to bring home the food we are enjoying. We are constantly reminded of this.

“Think of all the starving children in China,” Mother says whenever a plate is left uncleared. This is her way of letting us know that there are many children in the world who don’t get three squares and a snack each day. We should be grateful. And we are.

But that, too, never convinces  everybody that they should try spinach.

Children can starve, muscles can stay flabby, but some things just should not be eaten.

Still, whenever we go the the movies, the Popeye cartoons inspire us. Even if some of us don’t care for his culinary habits.

No matter, I love Popeye’s spinach. Even though I know that it’s more fun to imagine being strong and mighty, than it is to exert the effort required to become strong and mighty.

Maybe I’m just a eat-everything-on-your-plate hero. At least I’m thinking of the children of China, and not just myself.

Of course, later, as a sullen teenager, I will learn to retort, “Well, let’s just pack up the leftovers and mail them to China.” That line only works once, as you can imagine.

And another admonition that I wish I can whisper to my brother is, “Eat every carrot and pea on your plate.” We could giggle and feel so smug for at least a minute.

It’s those minutes that remain ever fresh and soggy in my mind to this day

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

MOTHERS A-BILLION

Hear Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/5amkVQU19zc

or read his transcript below:

MOTHERS-A-BILLION

It is impossible for me not to think about mothers every now and then.

My mother jump-started me and prepared me for leaving the nest and flying away to life and love and all the sadnesses and joys that followed. I still follow the flight path she structured.

It is impossible not to think about all the other mothers of the world, past, present, future.

Every kind of mother floats around in fond memory.

Motherless mothers

Mothers who lose their children

Mothers whose children have been taken from them

Mothers of mothers

Absentee mothers

Mysterious mothers

Mothers who are always there

Stepmothers

Foster mothers

Adoptive mothers

Adopted mothers-to-be

Mothers in name only

Clueless mothers

As-you-wish mothers

Clumsy mothers

Mothers we wish we had known better

Mothers we know only too well

Highfalutin’ mothers

Humble mothers

Welfare mothers

Imprisoned mothers

Hugging mothers

Distant and cool mothers

Dream mothers

Dreamy mothers

Mothers we would give anything to see again

Creative mothers

Mothers who do what they can do, just for us

Brilliant mothers

Caretaker mothers

Sacrificing mothers

Storybook mothers

Protective mothers

Hovering mothers

Biological mothers

Test-tube mothers

Guardian mothers

Only-in-their-imagination mothers

Good-pal mothers

Uplifting mothers

Grandmothers

Great grandmothers

Grand mothers

Foster mothers

Surrogate mothers

Stand-in mothers

Well-meaning mothers

Wanna-be mothers

To-be mothers

Brand-new mothers

Long-gone mothers

Faraway mothers

Gentle mothers

Good example mothers

Gay mothers

Straight mothers

Not-quite-sure mothers

Trans mothers

Black mothers

Brown mothers

Pale pink mothers

Mothers of all colors and stripes

Pasty complexioned mothers

Mothers we wish we had

Mothers we wish we had back

Men who fill in as mothers

Mothers on bail

Disenfranchised mothers

Hospitalized mothers

Mothers in nursing homes

Mothers who take the time

 In a way, I love them all, these mothers. Mainly because we never appreciate them enough. Mainly because they never feel they give enough.

I just want these mothers to know that I thought about them for a few special moments, that I wish them well for all they’ve done or hope to do for us, their babies old and young

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

ACTING KIND, PRETENDING TO BE KIND, MAKES ME KIND

Hear Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/5f-cP0TO33Y

or read his transcript below:

ACTING KIND, PRETENDING TO BE KIND, MAKES ME KIND

Time for a journey to the past for a couple of minutes. Time to ruminate about where I have been and what motivates me to keep on keeping on, to this day.

I’m compliantly sitting on a hard wooden chair in grammar school, looking as straight toward the ceiling as I can, mouth agape, while a visiting dentist hovers over me and draws near.

This is the first time a doctor has looked at my teeth. His eye-glassed face comes close to mine, he pokes me with sharp metal. His breath underwhelms me with the stale odor of tobacco. His grimaced-revealed teeth are yellow and crooked. And is that the smell of rubbing alcohol or drinking alcohol?

No wonder I hesitate going to the dentist to this day, even though I have the best practitioner/diagnostician you can possible hope for, name of Patrick Odum.

But this little glimpse of childhood is about the 1940s, so I am still back there in spirit.

I comply with this terrifying examination because I know that Sadie will comfort me should I panic.

Like many second-graders in the 1940s post WWII era, I am warmly tutored by a disciplined and kindly teacher whose face and name remain with me to this very moment. Sadie Logan ignited my love of books and ideas, and I owe so much to her.

Sadie made me feel that she was paying particular attention solely to me each time I required respite or guidance.

I’m still inspired by Sadie’s concern, compassion, scholarship, her unwavering attention to me as an introverted and directionless post-war child.

Because of people like Sadie, I became who I am today, an introverted and directionless post-war child who finds ways to cope and persevere and achieve…ways to hide all signs of darkness and simply act my way into thinking past the gremlins.

Ways to act myself into new and better and more worthwhile endeavors.

The dental moment might have traumatized me, but with Sadie Logan in charge, I knew that somehow I could get through any situation safely. Second grade was a blessing.

I am jolly and alert and stimulated and loving because I learned from Sadie that what you do all day every day is how you will be remembered, how I am regarded today

 

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

LIPSTICK APPLIED TO FUTURE WISHES

Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/tFkNnSAOm8w
or read his transcript below:
*

LIPSTICK APPLIED TO FUTURE WISHES


 OR,


ROBOTS R US
*





“Oh, man!” I mutter to myself as I turn the pages of my 1950′s Popular Science Magazine, way back when the mag is new and hot off the press.


*

“Oh, boy!” I’m looking at all the swell illustrations of what life in the 21st Century will be like and, checking my Boy Scout wall calendar, I see there’s a good chance I’ll be alive to see these predictions come true.

*


Just look at what life will be like in the year 2020, when I am elderly. Wall-sized television sets will entertain us by voice command, everybody will own a jet pack, colonies on the Moon will be readying their vehicles for Mars settlement, everybody will dress like Buck Rogers characters, and poverty will be a thing of the past.

*


Oh, yes, there will be robots to serve our every need.

*


Robots will do all the dirty little tasks and all the great big jobs for us, leaving us free to spend our time enjoying recreation, bettering our educations, improving our management of crimeless cities, reading all the great literature that workaholics in the 20th Century never could get around to.

*


Well, here we are in 2020. Everything came true, but in grotesquely disguised ways. Be careful what you dream of.

*


Jet packs exist in the form of drones. Everybody will have one any day now.

*


Large TV sets and computers arrive packed with their own nightmarishly mistranslated instruction manuals which only 7th graders can understand.

*


We can’t get up enough politics to settle the Moon, much less Mars, but we do fund satellites in large cluttered orbits.

*


Many of us don’t read books anymore.

*


We don’t dress like Buck Rogers, but we do love our week-long fashion trends…and isn’t that the cutest tattoo she’s wearing—wait, it might be a patterned stocking.

*


Poverty is still poverty, but we put lipstick on it once in a while to make ourselves less conscious of it.

*


And so on. The good, the bad and the ugly still exist side by side, but it’s all very shiny and disguised and, well, Modern.

*


Then there’s the thing about robots.

*


Robots serve us every moment of our lives. Computerized robotics run our refrigerators, toasters, alarm systems, automobiles, surveillance systems, communications networks, prisons, telemarketing companies, warfare readiness conglomerates, social media devices, city halls, political campaigns.

*


Yep, robots have made us so comfortable that we are only faintly aware that, in order to earn that comfort, we have to obey these robots, wait patiently while they re-boot our machines, carefully follow their instructions, maintain and finance them. And the worst thing that can happen is for us to be without these creatures for even a moment. The horror!

*


Where was I?

*


Well where I am is in the midst of spending hours hoping my IT guy can repair my busted computer this week, sitting strained but quiet while my wife and son spend hours trying to make the streaming function on our television set work properly, hoping against hope that The Cloud doesn’t crash with all my writings and records thereon, crossing my fingers to boost the chances that a sunspot burst won’t destroy my flash drives and troves of word programs upon which I depend.

*


I wait patiently and quietly for my robots to give me an all-clear signal so that life can get back to normal.

*


Back in 1954, I’m putting down my Popular Science Magazine and picking up an Astounding Science Fiction Magazine, which weaves tales of robots that will take over the world and eventually do away with humans.

*


Here in 2020, I’m becoming aware that the dominant population is now robotic, that we humans are the real robots, that at times robots act more fairly and justly than we do.

*


A twist in time is all it took for humans to become slightly unnecessary

*
*


© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

A SOGGY DAY IN ANY TOWN

Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/yXKU8ka3mRs

or read the transcript below:

A SOGGY DAY IN ANY TOWN

“Flash flood warning for parts of…”

A robotic voice, its syllables clear but raggedly paced and unemphasized, interrupts life in this Deep South village for a few seconds. The voice is reporting the fact that rain is a-coming.

Lightning and its rapidly tag along thunder seek my attention.

Funny how fright and fear constantly shift their subjects. One day I’m afraid of the pandemic, another day I worry about tornadoes, next moment I might be obsessing over where my meals will come from in a few weeks—or my toilet paper.

And, with enough idle time on my hands, I even wonder: just where is my waist? It used to be Coke-bottled-defined. I knew where to tighten my belt. As I morph into someone shaped like the Pillsbury dough boy, I lose my waist. Oh, well, not to worry. There will be something else to fret over any minute now.

In order to battle the forces of worry and concern, to distract myself, to make up a cheery life in order to occlude the dreary feary life, I stay busy. 

I am on my way to the bookstore to spend the day cataloging and arranging, preparing for the post-apocalyptic world we hope will save and savor us.

The silence of barren streets is somewhat comforting. It tells me everybody’s in this together. It allows me to see the town itself, unencumbered by other vehicles, other denizens. For a moment there seems to be no future.

But the future always hovers, reminding me that my world is not a world worth having without the presence of other people.

And, sure enough, I pass by the father of the owner of Pop’s Deli outside his daughter’s diner, smiling and waving a box of door-to-door meals he’s about to deliver. I long for the soon-to-be day when I can sit within and see Heather’s sweet face as she chats and cooks and produces a tasty omelet while I read my morning paper and scan newsprint for signs of hope.

I pass by a few stragglers, roll down the window and wish them a good morning, make them smile despite the hard times. And here we all go forward, one asphalt stripe after another, one step prior to the next step.

Each day I park in the nearby deck, punch the down button with my elbow, and gaze out a huge window, waiting for the elevator to awaken. The deserted hollowed-out skyscraper across the street sports many broken windows and seems bereft of life at first glance.

But after months of periodically staring with nothing better to do, I notice that this lifeless structure is perhaps not yet dead and gone.

From one high-up gap-toothed window, a makeshift shade flaps in the breeze. Some days it is not there, other times it is crooked but present. This means that someone is occupying upper-story space. Someone is residing under circumstances I can only imagine.

Now and then, when fright and fear encroach, when my guard is down, I think about this ghastly ghostly building and what might be going on out of sight of passersby, out of sight of the absentee owners of this property. I wonder whether I’m the only person who knows that, high up, a life or lives may be going on.

And when fright and fear gain the upper hand, I wonder whether I’ll someday be looking for space like this to hide from the horrors.

But never mind. I have books to cherish and customer promises to keep. And the wonderful ability to brush aside all this depressive meandering in order to nurture hope and family.

There is no other journey worth considering

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY