Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/GjUhMuK-ldc
or read the actual diary below:
MEAGER GRUEL VS HIGH MORAL FIBER CEREAL
Sometimes I think that who I am today is a result of all those thousands of childhood breakfasts that boosted all those thousands of childhood mornings.
“Rise and shine, rise and shine!” That’s my mom peeking through the morning bedroom door at zombielike me aslumber on the top bunk. Brother Ronny below me wriggles awake, younger and more eager to embrace the morning.
I drop to the cool hardwood floor, dodging sunlight until my eyes adjust to the brightness of yet another day.
Ronny darts to the bathroom first while I search dresser drawers for clean trousers. I rub my eyes awake and head for the kitchen, the metallic creak of the hallway floor furnace grating croaking a Hello! Ouch! to bare feet.
The tiny kitchen already exudes the fragrances of the day, since Dad has already risen with the sun, broken his fast, and headed off to work, tin lunchbox atow.
Mom’s singsong voice creates the best part of the morning, “Let a little sunshine in, let a little sunshine in…open wide the windows, open wide the doors, and let a little sunshine in!”
Two cereal boxes beckon from the dining room table. Raisin Bran and Wheaties initiate my education at the moment. Perry’s Pride Homogenized Pasteurized milk bottles bring dried flakes to life. The wrinkled raisins puff up, and reading and eating begin.
I take in the super-sports-hero blurbs before me, simultaneously searching for sugar cubes. Buttered grits are making their way to plastic place mats while sister Barbara joins the three of us with a pan of sinfully luring bacon.
Crunch and munch and slurp are accompanied by toasted light bread, and apple jelly is sure to follow.
Eating breakfast is just not eating breakfast without all those informative ads.
I avidly read milk bottle, jelly jar label, margarine wrapper, place mat inspirational slogan. Marveling over mysterious phrases, making a note to look up words seen for the first time, I am informing myself in the comfort of a loving home, learning my lessons without stern teacher overlords, getting excited just by bouncing about inside my own young imagination.
The kitchen table textbooks shamelessly promote themselves, making even federally-mandated contents disclosure an adventure.
Today, as an adult in these times, I still wonder why some people see mealtime as a meager gruel ordeal while others equate high fiber breakfast fare with high moral fiber.
As a writer of words, as a storyteller of tales, I have learned never to assume that what I am thinking or feeling or fearing or enjoying is beyond important enough to share. Each moment from childhood to geezerhood seems too precious to squander.
The fun I experience while sharing my tiny anecdotes with you is worth expressing. I hope that you are encouraged to make sure the split seconds of your life are cherished while the cherishing is still worth cherishing.
And I wish you many high moral fiber mornings
© 2021 A.D. by Jim Reed