Jim Reed's Blog, page 35
December 16, 2018
SNUG ADRIFT
Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/3oCy52E3YA0
or read his tale below…
SNUG ADRIFT
When you are snug abed and attempting to sleep the nearly-longest night of the year…
When you begin to drift raftless through the years and years of holidays gone past, holidays gone dim, holidays occasionally bright and warm and layered with the carnival-design colors and trappings that kids love and cherish and hold their breaths over…
When you are in this special place invisible to all but you yourself…
I hope you will take a moment to remember the best Christmas or holiday you ever ever ever had…allow yourself to slip into it and dream the sweet sweet dreams of a four-year-old who just knows that every kindly fable and each and every sweet tale every adult ever told any kid is absolutely true and verifiable if just for that one moment when the tale is first told.
I hope this remembrance of times past brings a comfortable smile to your lips.
For one sweet moment, I hope you simply defy reality and become a safe, secure and happily sugarplummed child…
And try your best to recall YOU—the once and future real you—and how you once were and how you still are, somewhere deep deep deep down inside
© 2018 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
December 9, 2018
THE BLESSING OF SHINY QUARTERS
THE BLESSING OF SHINY QUARTERS
“Bless your heart,” somebody just pronounced, at the vacated table. The eatery is bustling with noisy diners, and a rather rowdy bunch is waiting for the bussers and servers to clear the surface, or at least redistribute the grease evenly so that the source of subsequent sepsis cannot be traced.
The Bless Your Heart employee is addressing the grand tip of four quarters the previous gluttoneers set adrift on the placemat. She is not amused.
The Bless Your Heart muttering is a form of automatic censure. This longtime denizen of chaotic kitchens and foot-bruising tiled floors and bossy bosses and entitled customers knows how to suppress what she really wants to say until she can grab a smoke next to the dumpster out back. The words will not be as pretty as Bless Your Heart, but they will be honest and direct and heartfelt and delivered in philosophical resignation.
Later in the long shift, at clock out time, the Bless Your Heart woman will stop by Dollar Tree and pick up a few Christmas trinkets to the tune of at least twenty-four quarter tips, wend her way home to her basement apartment that sports a wreath-decked front door and, within, a small musical Christmas Tree with twinkling lights.
She slides the chain lock in place, groans a bit during shoe removal, slips into a so-soft robe, examines the contents of a refrigerator that holds no surprises, retrieves half a quart of eggnog, then sits lengthways on a caressing sofa, takes a sip while regarding the twinkling tree, looks forward to turning the Dollar Tree bag contents into something that will make her lone grandchild smile and laugh and clap her hands in love.
The cares of the day loosen their hold, the memories of childhood Christmases loom sweetly, the echoes of distant family and friends diminish, and for just a moment, just a moment, the world takes time to bless her heart
© 2018 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
December 2, 2018
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS)
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS)
Join me in my travels, back to yesteryear, when the world was just a dreamy landscape existing solely for the purposes of childhood…
When you believe something so strongly, so unrelentingly, so innocently, that your behavior defies all logic, all convention, all common sense, all cynicism…when you really truly believe something, then you have the gift of purity that can only be defiled by an unkind word a thoughtless gesture or one moment of insensitivity.
Remember when you believed so deeply in Santa Claus that you would confide only in him—in him only—your innermost desires?
Remember when you believed so deeply in the omnipotence and honesty of Santa that not only did you confide in him your wishes, but you at the same time, honoring the magic secret between yourself and the old elf, would not, dared not, could not, tell anyone else your secret—not even your parents?
Remember what it was like to keep such a tightly held secret so pure that, because your parents did not know what you and Santa had discussed, you therefore did not receive on Christmas morn the gift you wanted?
Remember how you never blamed Santa Claus for not bringing the gift you desired, since Santa did, after all, tell you that he’d try his best but couldn’t promise? You looked the other way on behalf of Santa because he was sacred, he was honest, he bore no grudges, he did no evil, he was, you know, Santa Claus, after all.
How long has it been since you believed in something that powerfully? And isn’t it amazing that because you held those beliefs as a child, Santa still has some power over you?
All logic, all evidence aside, you still want to believe in Santa Claus and the idea of Santa Claus…and somewhere deep deep inside you, don’t you think you do still believe in him?
Because if you ever stopped believing in such wonderful ideas, wouldn’t the world do its final bit of perishing in the heart, and wouldn’t the world just be another planet in the technical and mathematical universe, bereft of all soul and heart and sincerity and just full of cold debris and detritus floating around with no particular purpose?
Santa is the glue of the hopeful universe—Santa and his counterparts deep in the beings of children since time began
© 2018 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
November 25, 2018
I GOT THE PARANOID BLUES OH YEAH
I GOT THE PARANOID BLUES OH YEAH
The beat of the city gets into your head sometimes. And some days it’s hard to control.
You can get so carried away by the multi-tasking immediacy of the city that you begin to suspect everything’s amiss in the normal ebb and flow of things.
It’s like this, you see:
I get into my car and switch on the ignition and this rock ‘n’ roll song is blaring forth. Huh? I don’t voluntarily listen to rock and pretty much remain a dyed-in-the-wool nerdnik. Jazz and classical music dominate, along with specific tunes from my childhood and young adult years.
That’s why, suddenly, I get this creepy feeling:
How did rock ‘n’ roll music get into my car radio speakers?
My brain races:
Did anybody else drive the car lately?
No, nobody would be caught live or dead driving my old rusty trusty station wagon bookmobile. So it couldn’t be that.
Did one of the wandering street people get into the car and sleep there overnight, staying warm and listening through stockinged cap?
Don’t know. It’s a possibility, since the door lock fell out a year ago and therefore I can’t secure the car anyhow.
Hmm…
I haven’t had the car serviced in a long time–usually at car washes and car repair places, employees fulfill their ironclad job description provision that you must immediately change the station in the vehicle you’re working on or washing, else the owner won’t know that you’ve actually been inside doing anything useful.
Uh, maybe the FM switch got hit accidentally and I’m hearing some AM oldies station.
Horror of horrors—somebody ELSE’S music!
Nope, that switch doesn’t work anyhow.
And then, of course, the rock and roll music fades down and the National Public Radio announcer comes on and continues reading news, having employed the music as a kind of meaningless bridge from one story to another.
Now I feel kind of silly and comforted at the same time, but that’s about normal, cause the big city does that kind of thing to you if you let it and don’t I need a vacation about now?
Maybe some nice classical music would calm me down—but then, the station plays such music only at zero-listener times of day.
I’ll have to resort to punching the out-of-fashion audio cassette player PLAY button, then descending into the peaceful and calming sounds of Miles Davis and Ahmad Jamal and Gershwin and Mozart.
Musical nerdnikness settles me down and gives me permission to manage my day in the only way I know how.
I’ll be OK any moment now
© 2018 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
November 11, 2018
RE-NOTICING THE UNNOTICEABLE
RE-NOTICING THE UNNOTICEABLE
“Get up and walk across the room!” my acting teacher, Marian Gallaway, insists. I’m part of a circle of seated college students who are at the beck and call of the charismatic and flamboyant woman we all call “Doc” Gallaway.
Doc Gallaway is addressing me directly, so I have no choice in the matter. I’ve got to take to the runway and become an example for the class. I know the routine. Having been in a play directed by her, I have learned that she is dictator and I am subject. I arise from the folding chair and, well, just walk as if I’m going somewhere.
“Impressive,” Doc proclaims. “You see how he carries himself?” I keep walking to the edge of the circle, then about-face and return to my chair. “What do I see?” Doc asks the fearful students. No answer.
“He walks as if he is carrying great responsibility upon his shoulders,” Doc continues. She concludes, “Watch people, how they move, and carry this into your character onto the stage.”
That is her lesson for the day.
My earlier instructors…people who help me learn to watch humans closely…give me the courage to blatantly stare while the species goes about its daily activities. I am only now, in the third act of life, beginning to appreciate their gifts.
For instance…
Back in the day, Frances Reed, my mother, loves nothing better than to sit with me in a public area and point out details about passing people. To this day, it is my favorite pastime, uncovering clues about what each person is trying to hide, or clues about what is obvious to the viewer but invisible to the person being observed.
Uncle Buddy McGee, a decorated WWII paratrooper, returns from the War with two Purple Hearts and a passel of stories and tales about his experiences in the midst of European battles. He teaches me the value of turning swords into plowshares, for every bit of horror he observed is turned into humorous narrations designed to make me laugh while teaching embedded lessons about life.
Helen Hisey, my eighth-grade speech teacher, teaches me how to rise fearless before crowds of friends and strangers…rise fearless and just get on with the performance, making sure that every word and movement means something clear and specific to the audience.
And so on. Lots of people teach me lots of things, some of which I forget to employ, others of which I practice daily whether or not awareness accompanies them.
The peculiar thing about great Life Lessons is that they have to be re-learned or re-visited now and then. They remain entrenched in deep memory but often get obfuscated by life events and travails. They must be dug out, dusted off, and re-purposed.
Today, I am digging for buried treasure, treasures awaiting my re-appreciation.
Doc Gallaway and Frances Reed and Buddy McGee and Helen Hisey and a dozen others are visited in hidden memory and resuscitated each time I am in need of bolstering or cheering up or sobering up. When I temporarily forget their instructions, I falter and lose my way.
So, this very day is the day I re-up my observational skills. Not only will I issue forth my courage and continue my daily vigilance, but, someday soon, I will turn my Noticing abilities upon my teachers. For so long, I have taken them for granted, so now I plan to examine and observe the teachers themselves. It’s too late to teach them anything new, but maybe my recollections will turn up some more life lessons that they taught me by sheer example.
Time to re-notice the unnoticeable
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
November 4, 2018
SWING YOUR PARTNER ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND
Listen to Jim brief audio podcast: https://youtu.be/lKFwZ1i_aqo
or read his memoir below:
SWING YOUR PARTNER ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND
Billy the Tough Kid zooms and weaves his thick-tired bicycle through the after-school playground crowd, singing loudly with a copy-cat twang, “Swing your partner ’round and ’round! Pick her up and throw her down!”
Billy’s bike comes just close enough to students to make them jump or yell or giggle or hug close their skirts and book bags. Billy is skilled at pushing the boundaries of decorum a tad beyond School Rules. Just enough at the edge not to get disciplined. Just enough to call attention to himself. Just enough to cement a memory that lasts all the way from the 1940′s to the 21st Century.
Billy is a Tough Kid because we meeker students allow him to be. We kind of admire his brazenness—wouldn’t it be fun to be Billy the Tough Kid for a day? What would our Mommas say?
During Northington Elementary School recess one day, Jimmy, a toadie of Billy, calls a few of us into a huddle and shows off his genuine brand-new switchblade knife. We are in awe and are even allowed to touch the polished bone handle.
Jimmy is also the purveyor of naughty French postcards extracted from his WWII-veteran father’s stash, but most of us are too young to appreciate this. We kind of wander off to the safety of volleyball and tag games.
But his conspiratorial zeal makes an impression and remains sheltered in long-term memory.
I find my gentle giant in grammar school. John is a strong, to-the-point, seasoned kid who knows the ways of the world. Who, unlike Billy and Jimmy, never shows off, always dispenses quiet and sometimes misplaced gems of wisdom.
John is my temporary hero because he gives me a lift on his bike when we leave the school grounds. He drops me off at home but never visits. Instead, he pedals the heavy used bike up the hill east of Northington and disappears into the afternoon.
My next-door temporary after-school neighbor, Bubba, is a friendly playmate who has no interest in bullying or winning or showing off. We’re sitting in the shabby Tide Theatre, watching a B-grade movie, scarfing popcorn and sharing a dope (back then, cola drinks were nicknamed “dopes” for reasons we had to learn in later life). Actor Steve Cochran, a master of B-gradedness, pulls a gun on somebody and is threatening to blow his head off. I’m really into the story but suddenly realize that Bubba is crying in fear.
“It’s OK, Bubba…it’s just a movie.” He is still upset. Finally I say, “This isn’t real, it’s just play-like.” Bubba calms down because he understands the term “play-like.” It’s how we kids of playground and front yard and back yard and vacant lot communicate with one another.
“Hey, Bubba, let’s play-like you are the bad guy trying to rob a bank and I’m the gunslinger who’s going to stop you,” or “Let’s play-like we are Robin Hood and his Merry Men, out to get the sheriff of Nottingham.”
We would play-like in all our spare time during summer days that never lasted long enough.
What lessons did Billy, Jimmy, John, Bubba and all those elementary school companions teach me?
I guess that, without meaning to, they taught me to travel back in time and show some appreciation for them and who they were and who they came from and where they would wind up. They all had lives to live, and I had my life to live, and we all remain connected to this day by those tiny, seemingly insignificant encounters.
If I could meet them just one more time, what would I say today?
I’d tell Billy, Thanks for the memory of a class clown who could take a square dance song and make it funny, make me see it in a new way.
I’d say to Jimmy, thanks for showing me that great knife—I’ve never had one like that, but I still remember the joy and comfort having that knife in your pocket gave you.
To John, I’d say, Thanks for paying attention to a shy and observant little kid who didn’t have many friends, was no good at sports, but who could take the time many decades later to resuscitate a sweet memory of unconditional goodness.
To Bubba, I’d say, Thanks for making me aware that everybody reacts differently, in their own special way, to what is going on around them. I’ll never assume that people feel exactly the way I do, and I’ll always try to look more closely at who they are and how they feel.
Observing and appreciating people, not judging them, finding that shiny seam of innocence that runs through them, trying to see past the facade and bluster and acting-out that disguise and protect them from not-always-friendly realities…
That’s what I do on my best days in my best moods. And on the dark days, I try to imagine myself being the clown who knows how to swing my partner ’round and ’round just to get a laugh or a burst of joy out of us both
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
October 28, 2018
INSPIRATIONS PASSING BY ON THE WAY TO OVER THERE
Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/TDlx0LFTTRc
or read his story below:
INSPIRATIONS PASSING BY ON THE WAY TO OVER THERE
For every thousand or so thoughts or ideas that invade my brain, only a handful are scooped from the cartoon bubble hovering above my head, then retained for possible inspiration later on.
These out-of-nowhere glitches and doodads are piled high in a corner of my mind and sorted and possibly matched on word-laundering day.
A few examples of stuff that arrived from nowhere and for no good reason reappear on this page today:
A PEW THOUGHTS
Would you term a belligerent preacher a pewgilist?
Would a smelly boxer be a phewgilist?
If the phewgilist attended church, would the pew say phew!?
You tell me: where does this material come from? Another example:
DISLIKE
That disliker dislikes me.
Not only that,
That disliker dislikes the likes of me.
I dislike not so much the
disliker, but the disliker’s
dislike of me.
I dis the disliker, not
because I disliker, but because
I disliker dislike of me.
Where am I going with this drivel? I dunno. May I impose another example?
“I can’t get very far without my body.”
Hmmm…
” If my mind wanders, it can’t get far because it is tethered to the body bag within which I reside.”
Can’t stop my brain. There’s more:
“Wisdom imparted by the wind would be called a wind advisory.”
The question may now be asked, Is there a very fine line between bursts of wisdom and instances of insanity? OK, here’s another:
“My greatest hope is that Science will find Cheese Curls to be a sure path to a healthy life.”
Now, that is almost sane. Hmmm… Another:
“If you speak the unspeakable, it isn’t.”
And on and on:
“If you build it, there is no telling whether anybody will come.”
Either I’m losing it, or this stuff is beginning to sound, well, Sound—if not of mind, at least of whimsy. Can you take another?
“I’m so skeptical I’m skeptical about my skepticism.”
I’m not so sure I’m a skeptic.
Uh-oh, this is now becoming Zen-like:
“Why do people only have flights of fancy? Can’t one occasionally enjoy a sea voyage of fancy or a hike of fancy?”
Now, Grasshopper, this exercise starts to morph into quotable realms of ephemeral wiseness.
Why don’t I shut up while I’m still behind
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast
October 21, 2018
I GOT SHOES YOU GOT SHOES
I GOT SHOES YOU GOT SHOES
I got to have shoes you got to have shoes. Most everybody’s got to have shoes.
But, you know, sometimes barefoot is the best disguise.
If you’re barefoot, nobody can judge you by the quality, price, stylishness, source and brand-name of what’s encasing your feet.
Barefoot is always the best way to be—every child knows that.
But shoes eventually win out, the wearing of shoes eventually becomes mandatory and womandatory.
I had to start wearing shoes every day when I entered the First Grade at Northington Elementary School. That’s back when the school was physically located inside old Army and Prisoner of War buildings left over from World War II.
My father, Tommy Reed, was a carpenter—later, a city building inspector. But before that, he had been a coal miner when he was a boy, then a shoe salesman.
By the time I was old enough to wear serious shoes instead of fun ones (hard leather-soled shoes to replace the black and white gym tennis shoes and the summer sandals), Daddy declared that after extensive research and experience, he had determined that the best shoe store in Tuscaloosa County was Central Shoe Store at 519 Greensboro Avenue, Downtown.
As a career carpenter, my Father had once done some carpentry work at Central Shoe Store and had become friends with Paul Applebaum, who, with his father Abe, operated the shop. After their discussions of past shoe sales experience, it was decided that Paul Applebaum was the best judge of proper shoes and proper shoe fit.
Back in those day, nobody would dream of allowing a kid to pick out his or her own shoes.
When families were close and warmly connected to one another, parents had a great deal of say-so in their children’s lives. Shoe-purchasing trips were on the level of car-buying, since one was likely to own only two pairs of shoes at a time—Sunday shoes and school shoes.
Back then, there was no such thing as extravagant ownership of dozens of pairs of highly-priced shoes.
It was a serious affair, this shoe-buying thing. But it was also a comforting experience because it meant that my brother Ronny and I would have Daddy all to ourselves for a Saturday while the three of us traveled Downtown to Central Shoe Store.
Paul Applebaum would carefully measure our feet for length and width in a serious but friendly manner. The beauty of Paul Applebaum was that he paid close attention to his job and his customers. I liked him because he treated my Father, who was literally a quiet and humble carpenter, as seriously as his most well-to-do clients from the better side of the tracks.
And that new pair of heavier-than-lead thick-leather black wingtipped Sunday shoes took weeks to break in—you never knew if the fit was good till you’d pretty well worn the shoes down a bit.
Paul Applebaum and his generation of apprenticed shoe-sellers are gone now. Buying shoes today is just another fast-convenience off-the-rack experience. Nothing like those days when getting into a new pair of shoes was the result of hours of study, measure, contemplation, talking and comparing…and good-natured visitation with the county’s greatest shoe salesman, Paul Applebaum
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
October 14, 2018
THE GIRL IN THE FOREVER SMOKING BUBBLE
*
She takes her smoking breaks outdoors, right here in front of her office building, right next to the old bookshop.
*
Puffing away on a cigarette or two, she stares at third avenue north and occasionally speaks to passersby, but mainly she speaks only with spoken to.
*
On rainy days she actually retreats to the protection of the bookshop entrance, particularly during CLOSED hours.
*
What does she look like, this inhaling exhaling denizen of the lawyered structure next to the old bookshop?
*
I catch glimpses of her, since I don’t wish to impose on her hazy bubble, her safe space.
*
But I do know what she looks like because we often exchange pleasantries.
*
Here’s what I know—and it is more than I need to know:
*
She is young, attractive, well dressed, neatly dressed, and apologetically smiling.
*
What makes her imprint upon my own private bubble is the fact that she is pregnant with twins.
*
This healthy-appearing pleasant smoker carries her twins within her protective cone of loneness, and all the things I wish to say to her are things that I will never say to her because I have some understanding of the preciousness of privacy and loneness.
*
What do I want to say if only it would make any difference at all?
*
Well, I’d like to plead with her about the smoking.
*
“Please don’t smoke. Your twins will be affected. How you spend your later years will be affected. How you wind up will be affected.”
*
Maybe something like that is what I would say to the smoking childbearer who speaks to me in the third avenue doorway.
*
But what I say to her is something like, “How are you today?” She smiles and says Fine.
*
One day I am so bold as to ask her about her pregnancy, Thankfully, she is not offended at all and shares her protected feelings. That’s when I find out about the impending twins. That’s when I become aware that the possible negative effects of smoking pregnant are in no way among her thoughts. She simply mentions how she feels
today—good or uncomfortable, as the case may be.
*
I leave her to her life, as she leaves me to my life.
*
After all, there are things I’d rather she did not ask me, too.
*
If all goes well, someday she will be delivered of healthy twins and will reappear in the doorway somewhat slimmer, with stories to tell about her babies and how they are faring and how she is managing. And she will light her second cigarette.
*
Good bubbles make good neighbors
*
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
October 7, 2018
PREPARE YE FOR ANOTHER HALLOWEEN
Listen to Jim’s podcast:
http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/anotherreallifemartianhorrorstory.mp3
or read on…
PREPARE YE FOR ANOTHER HALLOWEEN
A true and actual Martian Horror Story
It is 21 years ago, right now, in sweet memory:
We are trudging through the sand pits at Woking, looking carefully about for any signs of Martian space ships, when I realize for the umpteenth time in my life that it’s good to get away and do something different with mind and body and spirit.
I am in England with a group of scholars, authors and fans of H.G.Wells. We are walking together near the town of Woking.
H.G. Wells lived in Woking whilst writing THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and a few things, such as the sand pits, have not radically changed.
In the cool and humid forest we finally find the exact landing site of the Martian cylinders, then go on to other landmarks of the Martian invasion—places where, in the mind of HGW, houses and buildings have been destroyed by the invaders, and we pass the house where the story’s hero had lived.
Once in the town square, I get to stand beneath a replica of one of the 55-foot-high Martian robots, something these aliens had left behind when an earthly virus finally killed them all off.
HGW would have been delighted to see this machine, but he might have expressed disappointment that his warnings about unanticipated invasion (invasion from Fascists, invasion from bad ideas, etc.) have gone largely unheeded, generation after generation.
Soon after he published WAR OF THE WORLDS, the invasions of WWI began, the war destined not to be the war to end all wars. And finally, in 1945, Wells had a chance to see what horrible use his predictions about atomic energy would be put to.
The good news is, Wells’ early draft of a universal human rights statement for mankind was adapted, then adopted, by the League of Nations, then the United Nations. His visionary views of racial harmony, feminism, equality and freedom from repression have stuck with many of us.
But it’s good to know that there’s an ever-present reminder of what can happen if mankind doesn’t learn to stick together and get along: the Martian machine can be re-animated at any time and the world can plunge once more, as it has plunged many times in the past, one step forward, two steps back, two steps forward, one step back…
It’s hard to find the pony some days, but, as Wells reminded us: Despite the despairs and depravities of humanity, we must accomplish two things simultaneously. 1. do everything we can to fight them, and 2. live our lives each day as if these despairs and depravities do not exist.
After my Martian trek through the forests of Woking, I return to the States with renewed hope.
Within two days I contract a strange virus
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.
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