Jim Reed's Blog, page 28

NO LOITERING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Catch Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/Aki0_01dqFU

or read his transcript below:

NO LOITERING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

This sign at the post office is fastened securely to a brick-facade column. As I park and prepare to tote my bag of books-to-be-mailed, I take another look.

NO LOITERING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Does this mean that it’s ok to be a loitering violator? That maybe a fast-moving, aggressive violator is the kind authorities would prefer to pursue?

I guess punctuation would help. Instead of all-cap letters of equal font, there are other ways to more clearly express whatever it is the sign-maker is trying to get across.

What about

NO LOITERING! VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

We’ve seen this sign so many times that it is invisible to all but natural-born editors and proofers like yours truly.

Besides, sitting on the curb right under the sign is a disheveled man who is soliciting money from all passersby. The city’s ordinance against panhandling is ignored, as is the LOITERING sign.

I’m making no judgments here. It’s acceptable by me for the man to solicit. It’s also quite in the scheme of things for the city’s sign shop to produce metallic embossed signage that no-one notices.

It just seems like busy work—signmaking for no purpose, and panhandling rules that are unenforced.

The ten-year-old inside me thinks it would be fun to produce and install official-looking signs, just to see how long it would take for “officials” to spot and remove them.

What about signs like

PROSECUTORS WILL BE VIOLATED

or

VIOLATORS WILL BE PERSECUTED

or

LOITERERS WILL BE LATTE’D

or

PROSECUTORS MUST NOT LOITER

I agree that this little whimsical exercise of mine is somewhat time-wasting, but there are much worse things I could be doing than giving my imagination a workout, in these times of what-do-I-do-next-that-would-be-productive-or-at-least-fun

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

WHERE SILENCE REIGNS, ALL IS CALM AND BRIGHT

Hear Jim Reed’s new edition of Red Clay diary: https://youtu.be/CB5lUy3UaKQ

or read his transcript below:

I round the corner of the granite building, walking briskly on the way to work.

At the corner, Reverend Chris the security guard stands solid as a rock. He’s the overseer for the attorneys who occupy the structure next door to my shop.

Today, Chris is not the happy cheerer-upper I’m accustomed to. Today, he is keeping his solitary distance. He is bemasked and gloved, but he is still there to protect this corner of a city block. He is protecting himself from me. He is protecting me from himself. Like the Lone Rearranger, he is comforting.

Chris’ mask seems to mute him, as if his words would bounce back to him, unheard.

I wave and smile and attempt to delegate cheer to him.

That’s the way things are these days on the tumbleweed streets of the viral town.

LOOKING FOR COMFORT AND COMPASSION, I DIG THROUGH THE RED CLAY DIARY AND FIND JOY IN THIS ENTRY…I hope you do, too:

WHERE SILENCE REIGNS, ALL IS CALM AND BRIGHT

“Where words fail, music speaks.”

 

 

–Hans Christian Andersen

That seems true, Hans. The opposite also seems true. What’s that about?

In other words, one might say:

Where words fail, music speaks.

Where music fails, words sing.

Where silence reigns, all is calm and bright.

The world is so full of highly pumped sound, over-the-top words, whispers corrupted into shouts, noise filling every possible solitude. So full. So loud. So chock-full.

Do you recall what non-sound sounds like?

Do you ever listen to the quiet?

Do you long for a Cone of Silence to descend over you once in a while?

Would you like to spend an hour inside a bubble of solitude?

Some will say, “Yes, bring me a reflective, soundless interval, away from everything that is being pushed at me. Make me a non-consumer for an hour. Pretend I’m not anywhere you can get at me for a while. Eventually, I may return to you refreshed and invigorated.”

Others will say, “Whattayatalkingabout? Who wants to spend one minute without music and commercials and texting and tweeting and continuous conversation and television talk and unreality shows? Who wants to be bored? Silence is disturbing!”

Still others will say, “There’s no solution. Sequential, aggressive, repetitive sound is everywhere and impossible to escape. Everybody embraces it, so it must be right.”

And those who are up to the brim will say, “There is a solution. I can take charge any time I wish. I can stop abruptly, pull the plug, remove the batteries, throw the circuit-breaker, run and hide from the wordy and the wired, close my eyes to the horrorsayers and vulgarians, resist the temptation to see and hear the Next Thing Up.”

Looks like three alternatives are presenting themselves to us.

Ready to chose? What’s behind Option Number One. Or Two. Or Three?”

And am I prepared to open the door and take the consequences?

Here I go

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

ALL THAT JAZZ

Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/allthatjazz.mp3

or read his transcript below:

 

The time of corona allows me a moment to dig deep into

old Red Clay Diary entries. Time to recall days and moments so beautiful.

Too beautiful to store away and forget.

So, here’s a fond memory from eons ago when Deep South

villagers clustered for an hour of a Sunday afternoon to hear sweet music.

ALL THAT JAZZ

     Outside the large old windows of the large old church, the bright sunshine tries hard to get through the glass and closer to the sounds of jazz, sounds that gently stroke the  ceiling the floor the pews the people and the sunbeams themselves with variations on a theme of love thy everything, love thy everyone.

The pews get harder the longer we sit but the music gets lovelier and the lazy afternoon will not loosen its hold on us.

In the pew behind us an infant snores peacefully against its mother’s breast. In front of us a little girl is so caught up in the music that her body vibrates with every chord. She plays among the sunbeams and the old dust and the almost visible musical notes. She is inside the music just as surely as the baby is inside his dreams, inside his mother’s arms.

We sit in this hard pew between this infant and this child and feel the music so intimately that it seems to be pulling our bliss into one organic joy, even though we sit still and polite and quiet.

Jazz variations on the lightness of being.

And the thing is, this baby and this little girl cannot decipher the meaning of all this joy.

And you know it really doesn’t matter, because their purity is so resounding in the Sunday afternoon dust

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

USING SIGNAGE LANGUAGE TO COMMUNICATE WITH WALMARTIANS

Catch Jim’s latest Red Clay Diary podcast:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuLLy5ZkWgU&feature=youtu.be

or read the transcript below:

USING SIGNAGE LANGUAGE TO COMMUNICATE WITH WALMARTIANS

Let’s say for just a moment that I am a being not of this planet.

Let’s further suppose that I am just this moment beaming down and looking around.

I cruise through the aisles of a huge facility that dispenses food and all manner of objects Earthlings seem to require.

The posted signs are not easy to understand.

PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH THE TOYS

In my research prior to descending to Planet Three, I am led to believe that toys are manufactured for the sole purpose of being played with by children. Is this some kind of reverse-psychology attempt at human humor? Are children no longer allowed to play with toys?

I must make note of this for later study.

On one of the enormous electronic image screens scattered about this emporium, I view what is generally referred to as News.

One oft-repeated phrase in reportage of interspecies violence is this:

THE GUNMAN WAS A LONER WHO LIVED WITH HIS MOTHER.

Another confusing characteristic of sapiens. It is my understanding that children are raised from birth in close proximity to at least one parent or guardian. Does that headline infer that there is something unacceptable and damning about a grown child residing with a parent?

My time is up for this particular visit. I’ll return another day to make more notes.

Goodbye, Earthies. I mean you no harm.

MEANWHILE, BACK TO THE REALITY OF EVERYDAY DEEP SOUTH LIFE:

Love in the time of Corona is quite challenging at the bookstore.

Distance between visitors and staff is monitored, surfaces are constantly cleansed. But otherwise, all is calm, all is bright.

Customers seek bliss among the shelves and displays, ask questions about price and availability and content, and generally enjoy themselves.

A first-time visitor to the shop announces his entrance with a big juicy hand-covered sneeze. He sees my expression, which must be one of confusion. I need my shoppers, but I need them to enter—then return—both healthy and non-contagious. I don’t say anything. He laughs, says, “I don’t have Corona!”

I reach for the Purell.

His partner rubs her eyes vigorously, then explores the shop.

At a safe distance, I lead them to sections of the stacks that they prefer. I warmly explain the layout. I hope that I am exuding friendliness, politeness, while remaining careful and attentive.

I disinfect before, after and during customer visits.

Since we are all encouraged to keep a safe physical distance from one another, I fill those empty spaces with calming music and a bit of patter.

Today, I am listening to Mozart arias by Cecilia Bartoli, blue tunes by Miles Davis, new tunes by Ahmad Jamal, longing and love by the Sons of the Pioneers, clever lyrics by Anthony Newley, robust stories by Big Joe Williams and Count Basie, jolly instrumentals via Gershwin piano rolls. And so on and so forth.

I am still planted on this planet. I still have to find ways to recall and refresh my humanity, your humanity.

Maintaining the bookstore at the center of the universe is my way. I’m here should you need me. I’m here even when you don’t need me.

The books will endure, as will Earthlings, as will you

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

BEYOND THE GROVE OF THE DOLLS

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/RVzcElHfeeA

or read the transcript below:

BEYOND THE GROVE OF THE DOLLS

 Within the dusty attic of my mind reside Deep South Gothic memories that occasionally arise and remind me that regardless of how many times The Stories tell themselves to you, they are never quite finished. For every story told, there is always The Next Day, and what happened The Next Day.

Here’s a true story that will never be completed. Fortunately, the human imagination, each human imagination touched by this story, will unwillingly carry forth the tale and conjure up possible Next Day scenarios. That’s part of the fun of storytelling.

Here’s a true and actual tale hidden in my Red Clay Diary many years ago. It reappears in my dusty mind every decade or so.

ONCE UPON A TIME OR TWO… 

 Downtown Birmingham is the Tether.

You can enjoy being Downtown or you can enjoy returning to Downtown. Just take a trip 50 miles thataway or 50 miles the other way, then return to the City. This is about the time I went thataway…and was so glad to return safely—though altered.

The life-size mannequins inside the old tin shed are all tangled together in a silent and stifled orgy of lacquered intimacy.

There are mannequins fully dressed and carefully made up and there are mannequins old and weathered and strangely still youthful.

There are glowy-eyed mannequins staring into whatever comes before them but never changing the direction of the stare, prisoners frozen and sentenced to observe only that which presents itself to their direct gazes and steely peripheral visions.

There are male mannequins with sculpted hair and female mannequins with flared nostrils and delicate hands, there are mannequin heads and arms and legs and feet and torsos both dancing and as still as stones at rest in the countryside heat. And there are mannequins swinging from rafters and peeking from large pails, and next door there is another metal-roofed building with yet more mannequins and their neighbors.

The little town of Shady Grove, Alabama has no idea that these mannequins and body parts are living, never alive, in its midst. And no-one knows, either, that surrounding these mannequins are big reels of full-length movies and newsreels and ”shorts” and previews (trailers) and documentaries and cartoons, all in their original canisters, all in their original formats, 35-millimeter, 16-millimeter, 8-millimeter, and photographic slides and transparencies, and, should you yearn to see one of these features, there are dozens and dozens of movie projectors and screens from every era—silent-movie hand-cranked projectors before the time of universal electricity, wide-screen movies before the time of TV-eating-up-the-world, military projectors designed to withstand V-2 or Scud Missile attacks, and projectors that were once handled by teenagers in high school science classes, and projectors that once had been operated in real movie theatres by real union-member projectionists.

The man who has coveted, stored, squirreled away and gathered all this mass of inert motion picture paraphernalia and this city of mannequins has also taken care to hoard hundreds of belts, projector bulbs, gears and sprocket-repairers, film editors and cutters and splicers and tapers, just in case the end of all other repair sources occurs during his lifetime.

And now, he is showing me his lifetime stash—which also includes a live nightmarish dog who barks perpetually day and night, never stopping, each bark accompanied by a three-foot leap into the air in a vain attempt to escape his fenced confines and energize all those mannequins—a truly possessed dog whose owners haven’t a clue.

Next to the sheds and shacks in the buggy country air are ten-foot-high stacks of very old grey and weathered mahogany boards that their owner has gathered from companies no longer needing them, and there is an old automobile splayed open to the world with wires running from under its hood into goodness knows what.

Inside his home, the man complains about the paper-thin ceilings that someone has spray-covered and which are now falling in from boredom and weariness, and his wife hides somewhere behind all his collectible mania, never presenting herself—a Gothic world that really exists if you go a few miles outside where you live now. A world not to be made fun of, since our world is just as offbeat and inaccessible to them as theirs is to us.

Maybe I’ll go back and visit this village of non-living comrades who in a way seem more alive than you and I and who certainly get along with each other better than you and I and who unlike you and I are totally accepting of their keepers—the insane leaping dog and the movie-mahogany-mannequin collector who is beginning to worry about what will happen to all his adoptees when he has become as lifeless-yet-attentive as they

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

THE RISE OF THE DRINK MACHINES AND OTHER DISREGARDABLES

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/ZjdTaesAaeI

or read his transcript:

THE RISE OF THE DRINK MACHINES AND OTHER DISREGARDABLES

Regarding the disregarded is my job as a writer, my task as a teller of stories.

It’s easy to notice the obvious. There are plenty of other folks whose job that is.

But paying attention to the invisible, looking between the cracks, examining the interstices, walking backward in a forward-motion crowd, even describing things so obvious that they’ve become obscure…that’s my job.

1. The looming electronic soft-drink machine flashes its message: EXACT CHANGE ONLY. Only, what the exact change should be is not posted, leaving the caffeine addict no choice but to pour money in until something—or nothing—happens.

2.  The parking meter asks for quarters, but nothing happens when a quarter is inserted, leaving the visitor no choice but to pour more quarters in, just in case this magically fixes the problem.

3.  The flashing yellow light at a busy intersection totally confounds most motorists. Does yellow mean stop, does it mean speed up, does it act as a four-way stop, does the other driver know the same set of rules that you know? Most of us simply look both ways, make a wish and take the Acceleration of Faith, hoping that irresistible objects don’t suddenly meet and mess with the laws of physics. Either way, the light never stops communicating its uncommunicative message: YELLOWFLASH YELLOWFLASH YELLOWFLASH

4.  The elevator light doesn’t come on when you punch it, leaving you no choice but to punch it again and again, just in case it didn’t get the message the first time. Then, another pedestrian arrives and starts punching, too. The elevator disregards us all and operates exactly as it is designed to. It’s the elevator’s world. We just live in it. And obey.

5.  The fast-food clerk has done her job so many times, she no longer feels the need to speak. Her economy of movement dictates that she simply sit there staring at me, slightly raising an eyebrow as if to say, “Come on, speak up. I don’t have all day.” I am amused and decide to play the game. I stare silently at her and raise an eyebrow, too. She doesn’t respond. Finally, I say, “Welcome to FastFoodHeaven, may I take your order, please?” She snaps out of her contempt, acts confused, then decides to take my order. Afterward she returns to her stupor. She never knows what just happened.

6.  The city employees I most admire are the trash and garbage collectors. They do their jobs like clockwork, exposing themselves to every manner of germ and fragrance and dangerous object, come rain, drought, storm or darkness. They cannot possibly be paid enough, and certainly should receive higher salaries than city leaders…maybe about as much as surgeons. The only thing I have to do as a citizen is mind their rules, which are sometimes obscure. I obey because I don’t want them to fail to pick up my detritus.

Regarding the disregardable is a gift and a curse. Disregarding the all-too-obvious is next best. Forgetting the unforgettable, always remembering the forgettable…that’s what we storytellers do. I hope we have your sympathy…even if we don’t, we still have one shared secret that keeps us going:

This kind of life is sooo entertaining.

Get yourself a pencil and you can live it, too

©  by Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

THUD MACTHUD AND THE SEAT-YOURSELF BARROOM

Hear Jim’s Red Clay diary podcast: https://youtu.be/eYJLRoTvV5c

or read the transcript below:

THUD MACTHUD AND THE SEAT-YOURSELF BARROOM 

Thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…

The foyer of the downtown barroom enfolds me with deep, resounding, rhythmic percussion. As I enter the darkened neon-lit drinkery-eatery, I embrace an atmosphere totally different from the hustled street outside.

I await folks who plan to have dinner with me, so it seems only right to purchase a Diet Coke at the bar and take a seat near the front. The music is contagious.

Thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…

I focus my people-watching senses and enjoy the spectacle.

Newcomers enter and look around, disoriented and ready for a new adventure. Regulars enter and grab a menu from the metal stand inside the doorway and head to the back to find booth or table. Couples appear, smiling and hopeful of romance and chat.

The bartender greets customers, takes orders with his finger-activated screen, and transmits data to cooks and servers.

Thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…

I am still waiting for my companions, so my time is spent sipping beverage and taking notes on a Mister Rogers Neighborhood sticky-note pad. Mister Rogers grins his approval.

Diners and imbibers are relaxed and ready to loosen up in this Friday night after-work venue, their youth and vitality all aglow, their momentary assurance of pleasure and immortality thus far unbroken.

Thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…

If I were an habitue of this sort of establishment, if I were fifty years younger and filled with ignorance of consequences, I might meet someone here and spend an hour philosophizing and flirting. I might change my name to Thud MacThud…doesn’t that sound cool? “Hi, my name is MacThud…Thud MacThud,” in my best Sean Connery voice.

Just a moment of lapse. Back to the present.

Thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…thud mac thud thud boom…

As usual, my brief time at an isolated table atop a backless stool in a neon-world barroom is the funnest part of the evening. I don’t even need to meet and eat. What I take away is a fine memory of a fine few minutes at a sociable hot spot within a percussive dream in a lively nighttime town near the center of the universe.

I tip the bartender and stroll back to the shop, the shop that is indeed the center of my workday universe. I drive home to the second center (yes, the universe has many centers, and you are one of them) and have a pleasant time conversing with my wonderful soul mate.

Just another Friday night in a Friday night town in Deep South Alabama

 

©  by Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

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 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

DIGGING DEEP FOR THE PRIZE OF PRIZES

Hear Jim’s Red Clay diary: https://youtu.be/jLT44ssjn0Y

or read his transcript below:

DIGGING DEEP FOR THE PRIZE OF PRIZES

I’m five years old when I become aware that my right hand has become invisible.

Here I am, back in childhood’s Tuscaloosa, living high, enjoying playtime and neighborhood play pals and imaginary adventures. Unaware that someday all this playground fun will be camouflaged by the duties and expectations of adult life.

Right now, I am small and full of curiosity and energy. No responsibilities beyond household chores. No worries, because parents will take care of me, parents will shoulder all the pain and duty.

My right hand is stuck deep inside a box of Cracker Jacks, my fingers wiggling about. Impatient, I want to dig down for the prize that I know is hiding beneath all those caramelized popped kernels. The prize comes first. Then the appreciation and examination of the prize.

My right hand appears again when I pull it out of the box, prizeless and covered with sticky. Dang! I rotate the box and dig in again, stopping first to eat the best part of a Cracker Jack box, the crunchy peanut that occasionally makes an appearance.

My finger touches something hard and metallic. Prize found! Treasure discovered! What will it be?

I slowly pull forth the unknown object of my obsession, popcorn scattering about me.

It is a small metal airplane, complete with propellers you can spin, complete with the permanence that only cast iron can provide. This aircraft will last a lifetime or two!

I sit on the bottom step of the front porch gazing at the day’s Cracker Jack prize that is now perched on my bare knee. I clutch the box to my tiny chest and slowly savor the crunchy goodies within. I look for a second peanut. This is a good day.

Will there ever again be such a wonderful day?

My imagination extends as far as my right hand. This is the best day of my life so far

©  by Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

 

 

 

FROM GRUNTY TO NERDY AND BACK AGAIN

Here Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/SDSC5j7glWI

or read the transcript below:

FROM GRUNTY TO NERDY AND BACK AGAIN

Sweeping up and straightening and cleaning.

Those are my summer tasks here at the Tuscaloosa YMCA in the late 1950s.

For this dusty work I receive a few dollars from the Y executive director.

With those few dollars I head for Lustig’s bookstore nearby and spend an hour roaming the aisles and inhaling the knowledge and humor and danger and romance dormant within multi-colored multi-shaped volumes.

These few days in the old Victorian house that shelters the Y provide my first experience in earning non-allowance non-school-lunch-money income. It is also a way to pay my way for an upcoming Hi-Y field trip.

As I walk home, saving bus money for more book purchases, pockets jingle with fresh income I can call my own. Previous entrepreneurial efforts have been terrifying and discouraging. Trying to sell greeting cards door to door is not for me. Who or what hides behind those doors I’m supposed to knock on? Cold calling , I learn, is way too scary to ever attempt again.

Next day after school, I cross fifteenth street and head for Parkview Drugs, where unspent lunch money and bus fare allow me to buy books from rotating squeaky metal racks. I will forever associate that sound with exciting literature and forbidden titles.

After the Y job, my working career lies fallow until the next summer, when I am employed as a day-laborer at a government housing construction project in Warrior, Alabama. Six weeks of sunburn and heat rash and heavy lifting bring me even more income. But those six weeks teach me that, like cold calling, grunt labor is not something that will never satisfy me. I gain a new and unexpected education from co-workers. I learn a lot of cuss words and folklore, too. It is a vivid experience that still influences my writing and my journey through life.

The following summer brings me my bliss and sets my course.

At the age of seventeen I become an on-air personality at the public radio station in Tuscaloosa. More money, more jingle in my pockets, more books. Mainly, more experience that I, as a nerdy youngster, can appreciate and feel at home with. This later turns into a career in television.

There are other careers later on, but they turn out to be mistaken choices…until, one day, I begin to buy and sell old books for a living, writing a few books along the way. And, forty years later, I am still at it.

Many decades later, looking back with joy and horror at those and many other jobs, I can pick and choose…pick and choose which careers were ripe for me, right for me…which careers I should have avoided.

Should groundhog day ever occur, should I ever be allowed to do it all over again, I know exactly what I will pick this time as the best career of all best careers.

But that’s another story for another time

 

©  by Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

A PROPOSED DAY WORTH LIVING

A PROPOSED DAY WORTH LIVING

My days on Planet Three are divided between what-ifs and wishful thinking.

What if?

What if I could re-live that embarrassing gaffe and this time comport myself correctly? Too late or too impossible to bid time return, but seldom too late to watch my step next time.

I wish.

I wish I were more adept at handling life’s crises. But wishing doesn’t accomplish much, in the real world of orderly time-passage. Doing is the only way to make wishing seem real. So I will wrangle the next crisis with more aplomb. I will Do Better. I wish.

Thoughts like these seep into the cracks of the day. For instance:

It is important to feel someone else’s pain. Makes me a tad more human. More humane.

But I also know that feeling someone’s pain doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to do anything about it, do anything to lessen their hurt. Might be I’m too lazy. Maybe I realize I’m unskilled at helping anybody else out, much less myself.

It takes a lot of what-ifs and wishes to come up with a solid plan for doing the right thing, the helpful thing.

We are an imperfect species in many ways. Just look around. But strangely enough, we are also such a beautiful species when we once in a blue moon actually do something healing or helpful or unselfishly honest. A puzzling and peculiar fault of character.

So, Bub, you’re so pontifical, tell me how you would make things better? First time I’ve ever called myself Bub.

Assuming the duties of creation:

If I were in charge and required to improve the human species, I would try injecting more compassion and empathy into our DNA. In addition I would toss in a pinch of willingness…willingness to not only care, but to take action, to carry out our caring impulses. To make kindness and civility key ingredients. I would decrease the number of hurtful words and rants that damage so many of us.

Take politics and piety away and you might be left with honest interaction.

To sweeten the recipe, I just might throw in a tablespoon of calmness. And a dab of willingness-to-forgive.

Bake moderately and savor the newborn fragrance and peace that make a day worth living, worth remembering

©  by Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

WEBSITE

 Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY