Catch Jim’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/WcS4KFdT0vc

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Life, actually…

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A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

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Just because this is a chilly winter day doesn’t mean that every day for the rest of my life will be chilly.

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In just a few weeks, temperatures will top out thermometer tubes and I will once again dream of chilly days like this.

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Here’s an entry from the Red Clay Diary, from one of those hundred-degree days in a Down South village:

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Stepping into the morning, I hit a wall of astounding heat and humidity, SPLAT! just like Wile E. Coyote slamming into a brick wall. Wow!

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I catch my breath and wade into the scorching morass like a ghost seeping through a closed door.

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How will people behave on a day like this? I wonder. How will this affect their attitudes?

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I soon know the answers.

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BEEP! The Roadwarrior in the testosterone jeep behind me taps his horn in the split second it takes the light to change and my foot to switch from brake to accelerator. In olden days my reaction would be to remove foot from pedal and slow down a bit, a simple act of aggression caused by the heat of the day but eminently satisfying to me and doubly frustrating to the jeep guy.

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Nowadays I no longer test the patience of a souped-up stranger. Folks can be testy, even dangerous.

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I simply allow him to whiz past and get on with the journey.

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I take a deep breath, smile, and resume my forward trek.

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Now I am peering into a chest-high used-book bin at the thrift store to see what’s what, when a longsleeved arm curls around me from behind to grab a volume I’m examining. I turn to see who would do such a thing and just miss observing a different arm snatching a book from the other side of the bin.

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I sigh, count to eight and a half, and decide not to protest. These are just books and those are just locusts doing what they know how to do.

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I move on to a section of the store where nobody is hovering. My fun comes from silently–and alone–reading the titles and imagining the contents.

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Later on, the building I’m about to pass sports a long staircase upon which four orange-hard-hatted men wearing orange vests sit and chat next to four orange traffic cones. They don’t notice the heat of the morning because this is what they experience all day on every hot day. They aren’t whiners like you and me. They are enjoying each other’s company.

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Then, I am at the car radio store standing by while a perspiring clerk lies on his side on the passenger seat of my vehicle, surgically probing for the top of a Flair marker that has leapt into the bowels of my cassette player and clogged the works. He’s a good sport and doesn’t mind the challenge. I’m proud of the cassette player, ordered brand-new from Japan, where it is still manufactured. It gives me pleasure whenever I drive, because I can play all those wonderful old cassettes that have piled up over the years.

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EUREKA! he shouts as he displays the culprit just fished for and caught. He doesn’t want to charge me anything, but I feel it’s worth every cent of the twenty-dollar bill I slip him. He doesn’t know what a good Samaritan he is.

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This hot evening, we are dining at a favorite  restaurant, being served by a brusque but efficient waiter who clicks into Polite as he brings the tab, making a little joke and hoping to engage us. We show our appreciation and actually do leave a nice tip.

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At the bookshop earlier in the heat of the day, I assist a customer whose face is remarkable–expressive dark eyes, soft lips, soft smile, pleasant and easy to deal with. As she prepares to leave, a shadow flickers over her countenance for just a second and some distant pain reveals itself. By the time I react, she is gone, like so many others whose sequestered lives remain out of reach. But I remember her face.

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These are just a few of the pilgrims with whom I engage or disengage.

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There are so many, so many, all with secret lives, all with journeys mysterious. I appreciate them all, I wonder about them all.

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I feel like an archivist, writing down all these wispy lives. But at least I notice. At least I try to show some respect. At least I assign A-Plus grades to each and every soul. This could be the only attention they receive today.

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Maybe you can help me archive more of these lovely sad and happy people

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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