Catch Jim’s podcast: https://jimreedbooks.com/podcast/

or read the transcript below:

BIRMINGHAM GHOST GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT

Three disheveled young musicians wander down a century-old hall and through doorless rooms. They are giving me a guided tour of my own bookshop, some twenty years ago when I am located down on 20th Street, just a few blocks away.

“This is where I slept,” one rocker says, staring at the heavily-laden bookcases.

“Yeah, I was across the hall where those old newspapers are,” says another.

“Man, we froze to death some nights in this place,” the third man smiles.

“But we had great parties when we could afford the fixin’s,” the first recalls.

Way back then Reed Books occupied the second floor of this run-down former hotel, once across the street from the location of a vaudeville theatre.

Before I moved the shop into this building, the young performers had crashed in the unheated unaired structure and made it a temporary shelter.

Whizzing through town on their way to a distant gig, they decide to stop by and see where fond memories were once made.

“I wonder if the ghost still lives here,” one muses.

Now they have my attention.

“What ghost?”

“Oh, well, there was a ghost here, and some nights we could all hear it bouncing down the hall,” he says matter-of-factly.

“And we never actually saw it. It just came to visit now and then.”

I ask whether the ghost ever scared them.

“Oh, no, we just let it be.”

Hmm.

After the merry wanderers take their leave, I am left alone in the shop, the shop that suddenly takes on another personality once I learn about the ghost.

Through the years other visitors occasionally mention the same ghost they notice in previous contacts with the building.

My then-employee Craig verifies that he, too, has felt a “presence” when alone among the books.

Today, recalling the ghost of a bookstore long ago flattened and covered over by an apartment building, I wonder a couple of things.

Whatever happens to ghosts when their hauntings disappear? Do they re-locate? Do they remain and roam about, waiting to be noticed?

And why do I never experience the presence of ghosts? Maybe I’m just too skeptical for my own good. It might be fun to encounter such a harmless apparition.

Cruising the aisles of books upon books in today’s bookshop location, I realize that I actually live among thousands of ghosts and ghostly stories and page-turner apparitions. These are ghosts enough for me.

So long, Birmingham ghost. I hope you find places to go bump in the night when you grow weary of lolling about

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

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WAVING FOR PEAS ON A DEEP SOUTH SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Way back when…

My brother Ronny makes me laugh so hard at Sunday lunch that the English peas in my spoon suddenly fly through the air and scatter onto the dining room floor.

Just to keep the insanity going, I suddenly proclaim, “Peas on Earth!” which of course escalates the merry chaos.

Mother remains calm and stares at us till we retrieve all the spilled goods and resume our meal. Dad pretends he hasn’t noticed.

Later this afternoon, back here in the 1950s, Dad takes Mom and us kids on an afternoon drive through the backwoods of Alabama. On the red dirt roads and blue highways, we take delight in counting cows, reading road signs aloud, and waving. And smiling at imagined friends.

Waving and waving back is an important pastime here in the rural countryside. Trading smiles with strangers is a ritual that somehow makes us feel more secure, more at home, more at peace in an otherwise troubled land.

We even wave at pets and farm animals and feral beasts.

We pass front porches filled with smiling wavers, waving smilers. We feel special. For one split second after another, our presence is noted. For one split second after another, we pay attention to the living and the lives that are taking place in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

This is our rolled-down-window view of the real world, not the make-believe world of movies and radio and television and books and church sermons and droning teachers.

Sure, we learn a lot of abstract things by paying attention to media and preachers and instructors, but the real visceral learning comes from reaching out. Waving and smiling never fail to bring spontaneous comradeship and connection.

But this golden Sabbath road trip after family breaking of bread becomes an indelible memory that carries through the years till right now.

I still wave and smile at strangers. Those who pay attention always respond in kind. Those whose eyes are glued to their palms miss the moment, the moment that will never repeat itself.

So, I salute all you smilers and wavers. Without your passing presence I don’t know how I would get through the day in one piece, living in peace, and enjoying occasional spasms of peas on earth

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

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Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

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THE DOMINO MATCH THEORY GOES UP IN SMOKE

Jimmy Three lives and breathes in a 1950s Deep South village. Lower your eyelids for a moment and travel back in time with me. Let’s take a look at this young boy named Jimmy Three. He actually exists, both back then and, seventy years later, right now.

There he sits behind the itchy bushes of his front yard on Eastwood Avenue, the stub of a pencil held tight in his teeth. There is a scraggly notebook in his lap. A fizzed-out Pepsi Cola bottle leans against his leg on the uneven red dirt. A box of wooden kitchen matches is at his side, next to two filched cigarettes.

Jimmy Three is a daydreamer who writes down his dreams and ideas and fleeting thoughts and oblique notions. He writes them with his  penknife-sharpened pencil. He hides his papered outpourings in a special place inside the house.

Jimmy Three is looking around to make sure nobody can see him from the street. His Mom is downtown paying bills in person, his siblings are away adventuring. For this moment, Jimmy Three is alone and loving it.

This is his first time to attempt to smoke a real cigarette. Up till now his playtime fantasies consist of unlit pretend smokes—twig cigars, whittled pipes, rabbit tobacco scraps, pantomimed Bogart gestures. Smoking looks so cool to Jimmy Three.

He picks up a Lucky Strike, pokes it into his mouth, pushes open the cardboard drawer and selects one hardwood Phosphorous-tipped stick. He recalls his Mom cautioning him to close the box prior to striking a match, lest the whole shebang lights up.

Now he has met his match and is about to rub it quickly against the sandpapered strip affixed to the Domino label. How will this work? he wonders. Do I take the cigarette out of my mouth to light it or do I risk singeing my eyebrows?

He tries to remove the cigarette from his mouth but OUCH! finds that his moistened lips are stuck to the thin paper. Another lesson learned: Dry your lips before smoking.

The soggy end of the cigarette isn’t fit to use, so Jimmy Three reverses it, placing the untouched part between dry lips. He strikes the match, reassured by the acrid smell, and holds its lighted end to the cigarette.

What to do next? He blows through the Lucky Strike but the tobacco goes cold. Why won’t it remain lit? By now he’s yelling OUCH! Number Two because the match has burned down to his fingertips.

He stomps on the embers. Taking a deep breath, once again scanning his whereabouts to make sure no-one is there to observe his humiliation, he picks up the second cigarette. The first one is a mess shredded useless on the red clay. Here is my final chance to get this thing going, he mutters.

What other way do you smoke a cigarette? Well, maybe I can light up, suck in instead of blowing out, and see what happens. What if I suck the flaming tip into my mouth. Third OUCH!?

Lucky Strike between dry lips, flaming match held to the cigarette tip, he sucks powerfully.

It works. It works so well his lungs suddenly fill with unaccustomed smoke, his coughing spasms seem endless, his tearing-up eyes are blinding, and his entire project is doomed.

Jimmy Three extinguishes the match, shreds the cigarettes, buries all the evidence, returns the Domino Matches to the kitchen and hopes nobody will ever suspect what happened.

Saving the empty Pepsi bottle for deposit return, Jimmy Three goes to his room and nurses the upset stomach he will have the rest of the day…an upset stomach created from the inhalation of Phosphorous fumes and wood smoke and smoldering tobacco and a dash of guilt.

Jimmy Three retrieves his notebook and pencil stub and makes some notes.

And he resolves to move on to less risky experiments, a resolution he sometimes keeps and sometimes breaks. Like the time he climbs the old smokestack near the neighborhood and nearly gets into a whole passel of trouble.

But that story comes later

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

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HOW TO BECOME YOUR OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHER

In the Fall, I will resume my speaking appearances here and there, spreading the gospel of words and writing and reading. Sowing the seeds of realization—realization that you are just as important in the scheme of things as you were when a mere child.

I will go on about my belief in Childhood’s certain knowledge that all things in the heavens and on earth are connected,

My powerful belief that the center of the universe is right here, behind my eyes, right here, wherever I am

I gaze at life through my own eyes. Since I cannot see through anyone else’s eyes, I can only imagine what everything looks like from others’ points of view.

But imagine I can. I can imagine what your world is like. That intuitive burst of inspiration turns me into an artist, a writer, a performer, an evangelistic purveyor of thoughts and ideas. The fun of sharing my own point of view with you comes from your feedback.

“Why, you write about me, did you know that?” a fan tells me. “How do you know how I feel?”

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know it comes up repeatedly in my time on earth.

If I am to have any satisfaction at all, I learn to adopt this thought that you, the reader, have given me.

Instead of trying to report what I think you are feeling, in place of imagining your life, I have to remind myself that that will never happen. I’ll never be you.

What I can do, though, is write about my deepest, purest feelings, allowing you and your imagination to identify with me where you can, here and there.

You get the impression that I understand you through my writings, but the truth is, I am a mere conduit. I write about my life. From reading my work, you draw your own conclusions about yourself.

That makes me a mirror or an echo chamber, doesn’t it?

My message to you is always the same: Write your life. Takes notes. Record what you see, what you experience. The more you do this, the more you realize how important  you are.

The tiniest observation, the most minuscule thought, the least noticeable jolt of insight—each is an enormity. Each is universal.

As you take note of your life, your past, your present, your imagined future, you will begin to appreciate yourself more. You will begin to see that others are just as important as you. You will begin to see that you are just as important as others.

Don’t take my word for it.

You don’t have to dig deeply to find profound thoughts. Don’t strain yourself seeking heavy-ladened insights. All these will come to you when least expected.

My mission, in these little notes and talks and performances and readings and appearances, is to show you how connected we all are. I do that by telling brief stories about actual life, actual day to day  existence.

As I say, don’t take my word for it.

My satisfaction will come when you no longer need to see my words, hear my words. I will be happier once you become so involved with telling your own stories, that you don’t have time to read or hear mine.

But for now, that is enough. I’ll be quiet while you get busy taking notes. Tell me your life now. You already know enough about mine.

At least for today

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast at https://youtu.be/V2fIoMi6IbY

or read the transcript below:

THESE LITTLE PIGGIES DON’T KNOW FROM MEDICARE

 Everything I ever will need to know about doctors and hospitals, I learn as a pre-teen in 1950s Deep South America. No kidding!

As I dial the Time-O-Meter back to those days of yore, I find myself staring up at a white ceiling. I am prone on my back and there appears above me the face of Dr. Conwill.

Doc Conwill is preparing an instrument that vaguely resembles a soldering iron. As I lie here on the examination room’s white-linened gurney, I also see the face of my mother, who is hovering nearby to witness the upcoming medical procedure.

I am fully clothed except for shoes and socks. Two big toes are about to be operated on. I know that pain is about to occur, since this is the second time I will be grasping Mother’s hand while hurt is being inflicted. This little piggy and that little piggy will soon be altered just enough to make ingrown toenails behave themselves.

The only wisdom I glean from today’s medical procedure is that Pain Hurts. Yep, Pain Hurts! YEOW! is about as profound as I get.

Local anesthetics are not applied, so for the rest of my life I am sympathizing with victims of toenail torture. Only in this case, hurtfulness is for a good cause.

A few months later I am in Druid City Hospital, again face-up on an operating table. This time, Dr. Conwill has delegated my toes to the care of a surgeon who will get the the job done in a less painful and more  institutional manner. The danged toes refuse to heal themselves under Dr. Conwill’s care.

This is my first time in a hospital, first time anesthesia will be administered, first time my bare buttocks will be displayed by one of those backward-fitting hospital gowns, invented by someone with a misguided sense of humor. Bare bottom in order to operate on bare toes? Hmmm…

I fade to black and re-materialize hours later in recovery, my toes fixed, my eyes unfocused. Two days later, I stop seeing double and begin to deal with the fact that I will return to school wearing sandals—most uncool in these days of Fifties protocol.

My father enters the room, ready to meet with toe surgeon Dr. Thomas and sign discharge papers to get me the heck out of here. Dr. Thomas enters, peeks under bandages, declares me ready to exit. Dad asks how much he owes for the operation.

These are innocent times.

Dr. Thomas glances at my feet, smiles, says, “Well, let’s make that $12.50 per toe. What about $25.00?”

Dad opens his leather wallet, pulls out a twenty and a five, and the deal is done.

No co-pay, no insurance filing, no Nurse Ratched to have us jump through hoops, no series of bills and lengthy legal statements arriving in the mail.

$25.00 and I’m done with hospitals for a few decades…until last week, as a matter of fact.

But last week’s hospital stay is another, more lengthy  story, in these times when nothing in the field of medicine is as simple as barter or receiptless cash or a simple handshake

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

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Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

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A TINTED TALE

Pretend that once upon a time you open your own business, right here in your own village. Of all the things that can go right or wrong, here is just a sample of one small item, one thing that influences your daily life. There are others!

First you lease a space that contains great big windows. The idea is that the glass will give you the feeling of wide open spaces, accessible at any time. The view will allow potential customers to feel comfortable.

Then you find that the sun is blindingly annoying at certain times of day. Customers complain, you yourself complain.

You sally forth to install shades to cover up those windows. The view is temporarily hidden. You intend to re-open the shades once the sun moves on.

Later you realize that the shades are now a habit, remaining in place because nobody thinks to go and reopen them. The only sunshine apparent is provided by bleached-light fluorescents.

Given a chance to re-design the structure you inhabit, you make sure the windows are tinted so that curtains won’t be needed, so that you can still see out and passersby can see in.

What you find out too late is that you can’t really see the clearness of day. From inside, the world appears overcast. From the outside, your place looks deserted, even when it isn’t.

Besides, newfangled windows are also not openable or closeable because air conditioning precludes the need to feel and breathe fresh—or stale—air. That also means that when the AC goes down or the power company takes a break, there is no relief to be found from a raised window.

One day, you notice that other businesses have this problem.

When you pass an eatery with heavily tinted windows, you hesitate to stop because there are no customers to be seen, no lights on view…you assume the place is closed and that somebody forgot to switch off the OPEN sign.

Instead, you select a place that looks active and vital—and sunshiny. And untinted.

Which brings up the profound question, “What are windows for, anyhow?”

Oh, sure, you can keep the windows curtainless and untinted, but even then, things happen. A vendor convinces you that you’ll make lots of money placing a new display in front of the window where all that unused space awaits. After a while, passersby only see the back of a colorless display and, once again, inside the store it is dark and eerily lighted by those ever-present fluorescents.

So, this tinted tale is about to end. The lessons you have learned about business visibility and customer satisfaction leave you wondering how you would design a business locale from scratch, should you have the opportunity.

Probably won’t happen, because all those other tutorials  need to be attended to. I could go on.

The good news is that each lesson learned is a lesson that can be shared with others about to embark onto the land of entrepreneurship. Some will ask you for advice.

On the other hand, many others will do exactly the same thing you and I do. We ignore all wisdom emanating from well-wishers. We ignore because the actual act of creating a new and viable work of art and commerce—your own business—makes you temporarily insane. You want to start your venture to prove to the world and yourself that you know better, that you can navigate without any outside intervention.

Even if you don’t even know what a rudder is

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/DajVZHnp3Dk

or read his transcript below:

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE REMEMBERED

In my richly textured memory of being four years old back in the 1940s, I am once again facing a Philco radio.

Just four feet away, this wood-encased time machine houses some of my favorite legendary characters.

Sister Barbara and I sit on the hard wood floor in front of the radio, gazing at the textured cloth that covers a metal speaker…a speaker that hides our heroes within.

There’s the Lone Ranger, riding away from a western solved-crime scene, as townspeople wonder aloud, “Who was that masked man?”

Later on this evening, clueless jokester Fibber McGee will verbally joust with his always patient and sweet wife Molly.

Orson Welles’ voice will vibrate the speaker when his alter ego The Shadow makes the bad guys regret their anti-social behavior.

And Jack Benny will make us laugh the hardest when he’s not saying anything at all–the longer he pauses, the more we are amused.

And so on.

The real mystery: How do all these life-sized characters manage to shrink down to the size of a radio interior for a few minutes each week?

Other puzzles of childhood haunt me.

No matter how many times I rapidly open the refrigerator door, I can’t catch the guy inside who is in charge of turning the light off and on.

My frequent attempts to push at the living room mirror, to enter the reverse world on the other side…they just don’t work. Apparently, only Alice can achieve this feat while she is inside her story.

Even when I shout SHAZAM! at the heavens, I never turn into Captain Marvel. I forever remain meek and mild Billy Batson.

When I don a tee-shirt emblazoned with the handmade felt image of a black bat, when I am complete with improvised utility belt, I don’t really become Bat Man. I just stand there in the back yard, looking around for criminals to subdue. They don’t appear.

As I progress in age, I begin to see the clear difference between reality and expectation. As I draw crayoned stories on butcher paper, as I block-letter penciled tales of wished-for adventures of derring-do, I come to realize that all stories, invented or true, exist to entertain and distract me from the more blatant events of daily life.

And even though, to this day, I love the act of imagining and wishing, I am always able to beam back to reality when needed.

I Walter Mitty my life as well as I can.

All these eons later, here I am, distracting you from the pangs and pains of life, if only for a minute or three.

My job is done here. For today, at least

Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY

Catch Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/LbDUb4ROxso

or read his story below…

Life, Actually

ON NOMADS AND BIKERS AND OTHER BOOKLOVERS

A nomadic wanderer arrives, intent on acquiring authentic nostalgia that will later be affixed to the walls of a restaurant chain. She is happy with her trove.

A film director and crew spend the afternoon getting a scene just right in the small room where fantasy books reside. A talented actress and I get to repeat take after take until the filmmakers are satisfied. It is quite fun. Show biz.

An Oxford scholar visits and finds pleasure in the passel of C. S. Lewis books he can add to his collection. He, too, owns bookstores, and we carry on a conversation about nerdy things, bookie things, to our mutual satisfaction. He talks about Inklings, I talk about Bradburian lit.

A mischievous child finds the bookshop to be a playground. She meanders and pretends to be mute.

Bandanna head coverings mark the tribe of bikers who enjoy their visit and purchase a wide range of titles.

A favorite customer sports a cane and a ligament problem as he brings me up to date on a sci-fi series he’s following.

A retired librarian trades memories with me, recalls times when kids loved books and behaved in class and responded to her periodic SHUSH! And SSSSHHHH!

A WWII fan combs the wartime shelves and finds a classic or two.

A bookless patron cruises the aisles and looks puzzled when her companion finds excitement on the shelves.

One visitor wrings hands and explains how frustrating it is, trying to “get” friends and family to read good stuff.

A quick in-and-outer grabs a thriller, drops some cash, and heads bikeward to find lunch.

A quiet and furtive person whispers, “Where do you keep the occult books?”

A bright-eyed denizen looks me straight in the eye and begs me to recommend something really worthwhile. This, of course, gets me going…I do go on. Surprisingly, she takes my advice! Who knew?

I take a break in monitoring, sip a carbonated drink, breathe deeply, and prepare for the next thirty mini-adventures I will have before closing time.

I am happy to be so happy in my happy occupation

© 2021 by Jim Reed

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TRANSCRIBING THE TIME REMAINING     

I am a quiet listener, a covert observer, a note-taker, a silent transcriptionist. All things interest and intrigue me.

As a writer, this is sometimes an affliction, sometimes a wondrous pleasure.

 Today, I can’t help reflecting on the wispiness of life. Bear with me and perhaps we will discover our similarities…

“You know how it is you know how it is.”  The rapid street-talker is a bit overheated. He’s got scraggly hair of different lengths floating about, just over his ears and on the back of his neck. No other hair apparent.

But there is enough hair wandering that you can’t really say he’s bald. “You know how it goes you know how it goes,” he keeps saying.

I listen more closely.

He’s talking about the value of one product at Dollar General and how—you know, you know—it’s better at Wal-mart and how some things at Wal-Mart are not as good as Dollar General. “You know how it goes you know how it goes.” Family Dollar and Dollar Tree will eventually enter the rant.

I grin. Somehow, I know exactly what he’s talking about. I hear similar monologues wherever I go. Hordes of comparers telling no-one in particular how their lives are progressing. Even if most of their time is spent comparison-shopping, it is something to do. Something to do.

I watch as younger people, filled with energy, brimful of directionlessness, beautiful in their remaining baby fat, begin to sculpt themselves into who they already are. They are now their adult versions. Their skin changes, their bone structure changes, their entire demeanor becomes something they did not quite expect.

Unfolded and examined, their inner lives consist of a lovely mishmash of hopes, dreams, reflections, expectations, disappointments…band-aids here and there attest to their coping abilities, their daily hopeful regenerations.

Meanwhile, way past the majority of doled-out years, I spend time distracting myself from life’s inevitableness. I live on hope and fond memory. I long to hug loved ones once more. I do not expect gratitude, so I love it even more when it is offered. I tally received gestures, received gifts.

I am my own nation. Young or old, I suppose you are, too.

It is a joyful, bumpy ride, this time I have. What a journey!

As my imaginary friend Pig-Pen once said, “I have affixed to me the dust of countless ages. Who am I to disturb history?”

Someday, someday…after my absence is no longer noted, my dreams and I will become nothing more than half a mist in an old echo of a sweet memory

© Jim Reed 2021 A.D.

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RUNTY SQUIRREL WINS MOTHBALL WAR

A ragged piece of roofing material PLOPS to the wooden deck attached to our home. The rough-surfaced grey material is heavy. It lands inches from my feet. It misses my head.

I quickly gaze skyward to see how this can happen. Peeking down at me from the roof is Runty Squirrel, a grizzled denizen of the ‘hood. Runty has just chewed loose another tile. At this rate Runty will soon make happen a nice new portal to the heavens.

Before I can react, Runty twitches, seems to gesture, darts away. In my imagination he’s mocking me, daring to risk another attack on the house.

Through the years, our ancient dwelling has experienced dozens of sieges from Runty and his gang. We’ve spent lots of loot on bloodless but unsuccessful defense strategies. Done much research and heard mostly hilarious but improbable solutions from folks who want to help but who don’t understand the nature of squirrels.

I am now philosophical about these critters. I sense that they recognize us as pesky invaders of the hills and valleys of Alabama. After doing battle with them I also realize that we are indeed interlopers. Humans come and go. Squirrels remain and bide their time, awaiting the day we’ll become nomads and leave them to their territory.

Wise and kindly thoughts such as these do not address my problem. I need to protect my home and family. I need to find a way to co-exist with Runty and company. l won’t destroy Runty’s nests if Runty won’t destroy mine.

So, I try one more strategy. I understand that, like me, squirrels hate the odor of mothballs. Indeed, word is that squirrels will move their nests away from any mothball-infested area.

This sounds too good to be true, but it is disguised as a simple and inexpensive solution to a mighty perplexity.

To make an already too-long story shorter, I obtain mothballs, clamber into the dusty attic, scatter the small naphthalene spheres all over the place, and smugly report to Liz that I think the infestation may soon be over. And, as a fictitious version of H.G. Wells once said, “The first man to raise a fist is the man who’s run out of ideas.” I’m bragging that I did not have to raise my fist.

Late that night, and many nights thereafter, I toss, turn, moan, cuss, and regret that I ever heard of mothballs. Their odor is powerful, offensive, probably dangerous to mere human me. They obviously have no effect on the squirrels, who still inhabit their nests.

I picture Runty and brood partying and dancing while nibbling pecans and mothballs as appetizers.

I concede defeat.

Liz finally makes the Inevitable Call. A nearby specialist is known far and wide as the Infestation Terminator.

Within days, he has sealed up egress, ingress, portal, exit, entrance…any place a squirrel can find access to us. The squirrels move out. I enter my usual Denial Mode, refusing to consider any possibility that tiny lives may have been snuffed out in the process. Hopefully not.

I still see Runty and his progeny circling the house, running along power lines, leaping from limb to limb, barely escaping feral cats, occasionally gesturing to me.

I can at least entertain the fantasy that we are co-existing. I can accept the fact that we will be long gone someday, that squirrels will continue resisting and existing.

Who knows? We could someday be Squirrel Planet Three. Long after human time has played out

© Jim Reed 2021 A.D.

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Weekly Podcast: REDCLAYDIARY