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.

 

 

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

A MOM FOR ALL SEASONS

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast:

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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PLAYING HYDE-AND-GO-JEKYLL AT THE HALLOWE’EN BARBIE QUEUE

Catch this on Youtube: https://youtu.be/xji5iMZbtno

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Life, actually…

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PLAYING HYDE-AND-GO-JEKYLL

AT THE HALLOWE’EN BARBIE QUEUE

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In olden days Down South, we used to sit of an afternoon on the front porch and watch the world sneak by. It was great fun.

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We porch-sitters were just us. Everybody who passed by constituted the World as we didn’t know it. All passers-by were mysterious and perplexing—thus, entertaining.

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We had no idea who these apparitions were, but our colorful imaginations allowed us to guess, to make up lives and stories to go along with what we saw. Our unfettered daydreams painted exciting back-stories to go along with clueless visitors.

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Short-attention-spans were not yet invented. At least we didn’t call them short-attention-spans. Probably paid close attention to those split seconds of observation, then filed them away in memory, then awaited the next fleeting visitations. No time to label or distort or criticize. Just along for the ride.

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These days, front porches no longer seem to matter as much. Our motorized vehicles are porches-in-motion. We drive by the world in place of the world’s driving past us.

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One artifact from those old Down South days remains: Dad jokes.

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Yep, I still crack Dad jokes. Only now they have evolved into granddad and great-granddad jokes. They haven’t changed much. Just ask my grown kids and groaning grandkids.

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An example might help. We are in our mobile front porch and cruise by a movie emporium where people are lined up to see the latest trendy film.

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“Looks like a Barbie queue,” I the village elder comment. If any young’un is listening there will be a moan or a chuckle accompanied by a momentary smile. One Dad Joke down and billions to come.

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Luckily for the world and family at large, most of my quips are silently written down for later use. Most are not heard by anyone but yours truly. This is my small gift to world peace.

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For instance, Hallowe’en is coming up. Soon a story about Hallowe’en will compose itself and appear online and on paper. Time to recall horror stories that remain in Recall Storage. We kids used to play a game called Hide-and-Go-Seek. In Dad Joke world, this now becomes a game called Hyde-and-Go-Jekyll. It’s more fun at this time of year.

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And so on.

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Thanks for paying attention. It won’t last long because you are probably busy composing your next Dad Joke or Mom Joke.

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I hope you cause groans even louder than mine

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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1987: THE PERSISTENCE OF A DOWN SOUTH MEMORY

Hear Jim’s podcast on Youtube:

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Life, actually…in my way-back memories of times past…

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1987: THE PERSISTENCE OF A DOWN SOUTH MEMORY

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The persistence of memory and its everchanging neverchanging indelibility is a mystery I’ll take with me to the end, I suppose.

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It is one day in 1987. I wander the downtown streets of hometown Tuscaloosa for the first time in twenty years, looking for something comforting from my past. It is a day that I know is about to bring me surprises unpredictable.

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I am between frenetic tasks. I have a few minutes to take a deep breath or two. I feel like a time traveler.

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I am treading the suspense by trying to find niches with familiar faces staring out, icons that will wave back at my glossed-over remembrances of younger and simpler times.

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I recall the old Ritz movie theater, the one on the Other Side of the street, the side with the pool hall and spittoons and roughneck hangouts—in other words, the more exciting side of the street.

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When I was a kid, the Ritz Theater always screened second-run Republic pictures with cowboys and spacemen and serials and double features and cartoons for kids during Saturday matinees. The Ritz was also constructed rather compactly in contrast to the other theaters in town, and its balcony was narrow, its restrooms dank and smelly, and its patrons a little shabbier.

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Something about the Ritz insinuates itself into my dreams over the years and becomes a kind of fevered presence during restless nightdreams. The theater haunts my mind and makes for some nicely scary imaginings.

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This wandering-around day in Tuscaloosa, the Ritz comes back to me and I try to find it. Where the Ritz once stands, there is nothing left but a parking lot occupying the narrow space between two buildings. It simply isn’t there anymore.

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Do I have the wrong street? I look around, walk a way down and up the block. No, I am right. The Ritz has evaporated.

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I return to the lot and look for signs of the Ritz. And there they are. Shadows of stairs two stories up one exterior wall. Remnants of arches on another wall.

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Part of the balcony can be detected in one-dimensional profile, where workers have not bothered to patch the gaps they left.

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It is a haunt of a theater now, with gargoyles wistfully filling holes where theater stuff once was.

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I stare for a while.

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Finally, I step back onto the sidewalk and look again, blink my eyes. At this moment, I realize the Ritz is still there. It will be there as long as I am here. It is in my dreams. It doesn’t need to be an actual structure anymore.

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My Tuscaloosa recollections are a mixture of childhood adventure, scary interludes, romantic notions, pretend-swordfights, loving family laughter, hugs that can never cease.

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Like the Ritz Theater, all my memories comprise a permanent companion, one I don’t have to forget, one I can continue to puzzle over and learn from.

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I am in a state of disturbed comfort now. I can smile more often because I’ve learned how to put on the Ritz…and use it as a reminder that I never have to be without the people I love, the things I love

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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IGNORABLE FALL FASHION ADVICE FROM THE PAGES OF GEEZER QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

Listen to Jim’s 4-minute podcast:  https://youtu.be/UZnbff1NVcU

or read on…

Life, actually…

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IGNORABLE ADVICE FROM THE PAGES OF GEEZER QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

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These notes fell out of my Red Clay Diary this morning. They apply solely to guys who are so far gone in age they are largely invisible to younger folks. Here goes…

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Personal-appearance tips from the Down South imaginary pages of GQ (Geezer Quarterly) Magazine.

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FASHION TIPS FOR GEEZERS:

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If you’re going to primp, do it once a day, preferably right before you let anybody else see you. It looks vain to keep checking your cowlick or your comb-over or your bald pate all day, so just do it right one time and forget about it. One of the perks of being aged and over the hill is you can walk around all day looking unkempt, simply because nobody notices.

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Throw away all your socks and get a dozen pair in just one color, maybe black. That way, you don’t have to waste time finding matching partners. Black goes with everything. If you’re a geezer, people expect you to wear unmatched socks. Black dissolves that problem.

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If you don’t want your considerable gut to call attention to itself, wear a black (there’s that color again!) shirt or a Book-‘Em-Danno shirt. Book-‘Em-Danno shirts are so colorful and distracting that nobody will focus on your flab. Besides, it’s kind of OK to be chunky when you’re wearing a Book-‘Em-Danno shirt. But if you want to remain invisible, do the black shirt thing.

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The no-iron rule: select all casual clothes based on whether they have to be pressed after washing. Ironing is a waste of time and, like I said, after a certain age, everybody expects you the geezer to be wrinkled, but nobody expects your clothes to be wrinkle-free. Beware of friends and acquaintances who have their jeans washed, starched and ironed. There’s something a little bit wrong there.

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Never, never do a comb-over…unless you go all the way. Comb-overs have the same effect on people as toupees and hair club do-overs. Everybody notices them. And the best un-kept secret about toupees and wigs is: If you wear one, that’s all anybody will ever remember about you. Period.*

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*Exception to the toupee rule: Give actors and performers a pass on their toupees. It’s how they make their living. They have to look good to get jobs. Just enjoy how good-looking they are and stop with the snarky remarks.

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All day each day, avoid looking at yourself in mirrors. It will only demoralize you. Nothing more disturbing than seeing the reflection of some old saggy baggy guy and suddenly realizing it’s you. Best to cherish how you appeared at your best in high school. You can edit out the remembered acne, of course.

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Each pocket you add to your shirt ages you another decade. One pocket is useful, two pockets are overkill—you might as well wear a protector. The coolest thing to do is wear shirts without pockets, since pockets only encourage you to stuff things into them, thus bulking you up even more.

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On the other hand, make sure you utilize all the pockets in your trousers. Keep everything in them for easy access…and don’t ever wear a belt pouch/fanny pack (it looks like a snake that just swallowed something really huge). This allows you to keep both hands free, swinging loose and easy.

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Don’t get me started about shoes. I learned early on that the only shoes worth wearing are the ones that fit comfortably from the first moment you put them on. If they hurt in the store, they’re never going to stop.

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Don’t wear trousers unless your pockets contain a set of keys, IDs, money.  This prevents hours of lost time searching for the above. Don’t put them down anywhere, ever!

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Had enough of this for one sitting?

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Why not absorb today’s GQ tips and see whether they work for you? If you don’t happen to be a geezer yet, look what you’re missing!

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And stay tuned for more geezer wisdom as it occurs. Or recurs

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2023 A.D. by Jim Reed

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BIG SHUNNARAH IS WATCHING YOU

Hear Jim on Youtube: https://youtu.be/x_vkuJeV8LM

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Life, actually…

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BIG SHUNNARAH IS WATCHING YOU

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“How’s your mom’n’em?” asks Dora, as she fills a fresh-licked white plastic bag with thrift store wearables. Her register is asking for  payment of $15.45.

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Alice, her friend on the other side of Dora’s counter, is riffling through a large slouchy handbag in search of wallet and workable credit card. As she fishes she smiles and provides Dora with a truncated genealogy of life-up-to-now family facts.

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I’m the eavesdropper in line just behind Alice. I take my time and listen and observe. This is more fun than anything on the internet or the tube.

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I’ve dropped a few eaves in my time.

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Alice and Dora have known each other a long while, but at this moment one is customer, the other is accepter of payment. Family ties run through the conversation as smoothly as Jergen’s Lotion salves a rough spot. A few phrases transform updates into small endearing stories.

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I am relieved to learn that all is well with mom’n’em and, with an occasional sidebar about kin being arrested or taken ill, life is proceeding with surprise and predictability.

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Dora and Alice finish their exchange and part ways with smiles and warmth and mutual “Y’all come to see us!” declarations.

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I’m next up. I place selected books on the counter and Dora begins scanning prices into a keyboarded device, pausing each time the machine fails to do its job, mumbling while she has to hand-enter rows of numbers. She pulls a fresh plastic bag from its rack, licks her fingers to make opening the bag easier, slaps the bag by its body-shirt handles, and balloons it big enough to drop the books in.

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“You need to press this button and sign this screen with your finger and then sign this paper receipt in order to please the pencil-pusher who set up this redundant and time-wasting system,” she says. Only, she doesn’t say anything of the kind—she just thinks this with a bored frown. She and I silently agree that the only way to get through the day at the counter is to take breaks, grab lunch, gossip with other employees, and occasionally catch up on friends and relatives and strangers who pass by.

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As I drive away from the store and head back to my village, I glance here and there, amazed at the gigantic billboards mostly filled with images of a smiling attorney screaming “CALL ME ALABAMA.” No commas needed.

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What would my normal day be like if I didn’t see and hear a dozen BIG SHUNNARAH IS WATCHING YOU messages? What would my day be like if I couldn’t catch up on mom’n’em and all the real, living adventures that await friendly inquiry?

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Knowing about mom’n’em enriches my time and makes me want to call distant family and catch up. Big Shunnarah doesn’t seem to matter at all

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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NO-SEE-UMS AND DUM DUMS LIGHT THE WAY

Listen on Youtube:
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Life, actually…
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NO-SEE-UMS AND DUM DUMS LIGHT THE WAY
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No-see-ums and Dum Dums light my path through another day of fun and perplexity at the bookshop.
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On the way to bookdom I encounter enough mysteries to last a week. Once within the store visitors offer me gifts they don’t even know they are offering.
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I accept these gifts with grace and understanding, even when I don’t quite understand.
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It’s all in a day’s time…and there is never enough time to appreciate all that I see.
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A focused no-nonsense customer breezes past me and heads for his special section of the shop. He knows what he thinks he wants to find but instead comes across irresistible treasures that distract and delight.
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A homeless regular greets me loudly and graciously while siphoning off a handful of Dum Dums I keep in a basket—one to a customer is a rule for other people, not him. It’s OK. Every year or two he saves up enough to buy a book.
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Another customer brags and browses jovially yet comes short of actually purchasing anything. He always promises to pick up some titles on hold but never quite gets around to it. When he’s not flaunting, he’s flouting or flailing. It’s all good—he does add energy and humor to the morning.
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A whimpering simpering child acts out his confusions while batting down all no-see-ums cautions from his hovering mom. Once she is down the aisle, he calms down and actually responds to my suggestions for books he might like. Mustn’t let mom know he’s enjoying himself.
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Another customer summons the courage to ask for my bookly opinion about what she should read next. Before answering I ask what she enjoys most, what her favorite childhood books were, what kinds of stories take her away to better times, or at least more unknown times. She returns to the stacks.
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Two energetic visitors ask for quarters with which to feed the vending machines wherein lie prizes and surprises. They giggle and appreciate and anticipate.
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The USPS letter carrier offers mail and good will each time she visits. I miss her when she’s late or absent.
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Customers from far away places troll the shelves in awe. I find a way to communicate with them, my goal always the same—make certain they leave with memories of a pleasant and friendly encounter within a pleasant and friendly village. Whatever I can offer them is meant to overrule preconceived notions about us Down Southers. We are generally a friendly group.
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“What’s this APP thing the parking meters want?” asks a frustrated customer. He’s not up to date on the intricacies of anything newer than a flip phone. I give him lots of quarters to override the Big Bro’ parking overlords.
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“Books! I have books for you!” This panting visitor is lugging a misshapen box of volumes. I accept the gift kindly, sight unseen. No book is ever thrown away. I offer the donor a bottle of cool water.
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“You have books about Helen Keller and Doctor King?” This is an easily-fulfilled request. We have lots. This is one happy customer.
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Chris, the next-door security director, is having a lively sidewalk conversation with a friendly passerby. I can hear his energy through the closed doors.
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Firefighters whiz by the shop on their way to taking care of people in need, their sirens reminding us that help is always nearby.
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A phone caller wants to know if we carry books by GO-eeth. He needs one for his son’s college class. I check on today’s supply of Geothe and assure him we are well stocked. He’ll be in later.
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Rhandrae  from the shoe repair place across the street calls to see if I’d like some cookies she’s brought to work. How can I turn her down? Another neighbor looking out for another neighbor.
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When things quieten down I begin the daily task of cleaning, pricing, sorting, cataloging and shelving this day’s trove of paginated wonders.
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Haven’t done anything this fun since yesterday and the day before. And tomorrow will be even better
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
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DEEP COOLING THOUGHTS DOWN SOUTH AT NINETY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT

 Hear Jim’s podcast:https://youtu.be/GsbU2rmI9Ag

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Life, actually…

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DEEP COOLING THOUGHTS DOWN SOUTH

AT NINETY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT

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Each summer in my Down South village, it gets so hot that all I can do is think back…recall icy cold days, and try to lower the weighted temperature.

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Here’s a ten-year-old winter memory from the pages of my tattered and true Red Clay Diary. Hope it cools your brow:

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There are more amazements on the frozen streets of Birmingham than are dreamt of in all philosophies.

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The vampire wind tries to nip a pedestrian beneath her scarf as she scurries to work. She tries valiantly to clutch the cloth to her throat. She successfully keeps the bite away, thus forcing the carnivore air to search elsewhere for her skin. She thinks: I have to face this again on the way home tonight.

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Ignoring the temperature and all parental precautions, a group of seventh graders and eighth graders invades the bookshop, writing students from the Alabama School of Fine Arts who hope to pick up new ideas in well-thumbed pages. They warm their hands and minds with ideas burning inside each volume. They think: This is great, but what’s to eat?

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I visit for an hour with students at Birmingham-Southern College, spreading the gospel of reading and writing and thinking outside the hum of the hive. They sit around the Arthurian table to see what I have to say, or to see what the teacher wants them to hear me say. Perhaps my most attentive listener is the teacher. She thinks: I wish class could be this much fun every day. Sigh.

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The college room walls are lined with books locked inside sturdy cabinets, longing to join their free-ranging comrades but resigned to the concept of Waiting. Waiting for someone to unlock the shelves and touch them once more. They think: I have all this wisdom. Wish I could share it.

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Back at the shop, an Atlanta bookdealer braves the weather to stroll and examine my paginated orphans, to see what’s in the store…to see what’s in store. He thinks: How can I make some money off all this stuff I’m purchasing?

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Outside the shop, the coldness becomes mundane. We all talk about it too much and want to go on to some other subject.

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But the vampire wind will remind us who’s really in charge, when we brave the sidewalks once more, with only large warm books hugged tight against the chest to keep the heart warm and the mind afire

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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NEXT UP! DANCING AROUND THOSE UNSOLICITED OPINIONS

 Listen on youtube:https://youtu.be/V4zV9jPR1-U or read below:
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Life, actually…

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NEXT UP! DANCING AROUND THOSE UNSOLICITED OPINIONS

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“Duck!” is what I want to shout whenever somebody gets close to my face and begins to recite THAT STORY THEY KEEP TELLING.

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“Duck!” is my knee-jerk reaction when THAT STORY THEY KEEP TELLING begins to roll out and fill all available space.

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“Stop and really listen!” is my contrarian shout that immediately follows the duck! volley.

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Yes, you guessed it—my life overfloweth with characters like myself, people who have deeply-felt opinions—opinions with no place to go. Having no place to go with these long-held rants, many THAT STORY THEY KEEP TELLING folks pick on me. I am easy pickings.

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After all, I am a dutiful prisoner of my own workplace, a stalwart of my family, a casual victim of wherever I am at the moment.

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Getting trapped and encapsulated by one of these THAT STORY THEY KEEP TELLING people is something I must endure, something I am slowly beginning to appreciate.

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Being mostly an internal and private person guarantees that my basic instinct is to avoid at all cost being cornered by the rants and rages of strangers.

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But here in this lovely Down South village I am learning to stop and listen, pause and ponder, observe and ruminate…whenever a THAT STORY denizen needs to mouth off and show off and plead for attention.

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I am actually getting better at listening.

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Are you also a deflector of THAT STORY people? Maybe you know what I’m talking about.

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My entire life has been spent defending my small solitude of a mind, defending it against encroachment by those who would like to move in and take up space. Perhaps I have been unfair to many of these rant-tellers. Maybe not all of them want to storm my defenses and take over…maybe some of them simply wish to vent, then move on.

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As I learn to listen more, I make fewer wisecracks—wisecracks being my main weapon against alien or forbidden ideas that these ranters wish to implant. Wisecracks have protected me from many attacks by bullies and shamers and predators and needier-than-thou warriors.

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But wisecracks also can keep me so isolated that I miss the special gifts that some folks unknowingly offer. When I stop and examine what’s really happening during one of these storytelling episodes, I find that there is a kind of wisdom and fellow-human-being confidentiality that can be helpful or comforting.

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When I stop and lay down my armor and my weapons—in the form of defensiveness or resistance or smart-aleck remarks or fake emergencies—I can actually appreciate what is going on.

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Of course, the ranters have their own limitations. Some are beyond help, having long ago given up being taken seriously. Some have stopped looking for cues as to whether they are being heard.

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But now and then, now and then, one of those THAT STORY THEY KEEP TELLING people will pause and, taking my signal, take a deep breath at the same time I am taking a deep breath. Now and then, now and then, I and thou will leap from the swirling habits we’ve established…and actually hear each other.

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When that leap of recognition occurs, even if temporary, great understanding and humanity can rear themselves and actual real-life conversation can commence.

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This is something to strive for. I need this kind of progress now and then.

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I need to disarm. I need to peek into the abyss. Just to see whether a really good day is about to jump out and happy-fy me despite myself

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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