Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/borntobemild.mp3

or read his diary entry below:

BORN TO BE MILD

a long-ago entry in my ancient Red Clay Diary…memories still fresh as greens…

The rusty pedal car I own when I am tiny and a wee bit young…somewhere along the way it disappears. Or I grow too large to occupy it. Or I graduate to tricycle and simply ignore those squeaky pedals that up till tricycle mean so much to me.

As predicted by everyone but me, even the tricycle is left kudzu-covered in the back yard when suddenly an old used bicycle comes upon me and I learn to unwobble my way to bikehood.

I haven’t mounted a bicycle for nearly six decades, but I can feel it beween my legs as if it is still here.

Here goes.

The free ride of a bicycle. Push of pedal. Turn of wheel. Press of brakes. Spokes & fastened bottle caps and rubber-bulbed horn and flickering battered headlight and reflector discs.

Flimsy wire basket up front. Pants cuffs tucked into high-pulled socks. Axle grease and  narrow bent passenger-perch right behind. Fanny-piercing triangled seat and rubber-tipped anodized handlebars. High-ride bars versus cool-looking lowered bars.

And that moment of stasis when going uphill has to switch to walking & pushing.

Finding just the right hill to coast down in free-fall, hair-combing wind in my face, and stinging eyes and tooth-lodged insects. And sweatsweatsweat. And that strange sensation when I stop, dismount and feel the contrasting silence with its stunned density all around, in contrast to the movement, the movement.

How could any destination compare to this paused moment?

Then, anticipation hovers…the anticipation of the next ride,  the next adventure, the next quest.

Then there’s the patch patch patch of used blown tires,  the fear of theft thus chain and padlock. The certain feeling that there will never be another vehicle as freeing as this vehicle…the freedom ride to Somewhere Else, someplace different.

And, eventually, the notion that the trip goes only so far before it rounds itself into homeward bound.

Arriving back home to recount adventures to mother and siblings.

The comforting belief that the day will be complete once a homecooked meal beckons with fragrance and stomach grumble.

The starry late-night dreams snuggled under covers with me, the ever-young imagineering bike kid floating, floating abed.

Anticipating the sun and the dew and the next great trek

 © Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute blog:

https://redclaydiary.com/mp3/prettybreeze.mp3

or read his memory below…

A twenty-five-year-old page falls out of my red clay diary today.

This must have been who I was way, way back then…

PRETTY BREEZE

The fluffy gentle cotton blue and white frock floats in the breeze past the book shop window.

Contained therein is a young slim body topped with blonde long hair flowing flowing flowing in the June-cool Thursday morning.

Another day at the shop, and I the shop owner stand at the window affixing postage stamps and pressing them against the upper right-hand corners of envelopes.

Just the other day, a white sports car pulls up before the parking meter in front of the book store. Moving gracefully out of the driver’s side is another young woman dressed in high heels and short short dress, her stockingless legs evenly toned and steady on the pavement as she walks around the front of the car and bends down to open the passenger door.

Gently, she removes a small basket from the seat and just as gently carries it to the book shop door and enters.

I recognize her as a regular customer who, a few weeks before, was body-large with wedlockless child, the same child who now occupies the basket she totes. I am introduced to the infant Sidney, whose tiny feet and toes curl in silent slumber, oblivious to the old books and the old relic proprietor and the young exotic dancer who has decided to raise Sidney on her own. She is now back to dancing at Sammy’s Go-Go Lounge.

The customer beams at the basket and its contents, picks up the books I’ve been holding for her these last few weeks. She pulls forth a large roll of five-dollar bills.

The tab is fifty dollars, so now I am ten five-dollar-bills richer.

I watch as she carries her precious cargo to the car and drives away, then go about my business and file the experience away with all the other unusual and eccentric happenings of book shop life.

The infant Sidney is a living contact between me and my customer.

It occurs to me later that the five-dollar bills are probably equally personal objects, since they have most likely been received as tax-free tips during her performances.

I have a sense of personal contact with all my customers, though the interchanges are varied and vexing and joyful and sad, depending on what and when and where and how.

They are all part of my family, in a way. In a way.

Sometimes I feel that the act of opening a book and finding a pressed flower or a love letter or a four-leaf clover is just as personal an act as discovering a basketed infant or a folded five-dollar bill recently pressed against the skin of a young exotic dancer in the remains of a big city on a cool June morning

 © Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s blog:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/skywardhandsignal.mp3

or read his memories below:

THE SKYWARD HAND SIGNAL AND THE DANDELION MEMOIR

 On this particular day of hotness and elevated humidity, the driver of the westbound automobile dares to do something different. Obviating the dry coolness issuing forth from her air conditioner, she grasps the plastic knob of the anodized door handle and cranks it counter-clockwise. The window descends, massive heat rolls in.

Then, the driver extends her left arm into the sunny morning, right-angles her elbow so that extended fingers point skyward, and prepares for the right turn she intends to execute a few feet ahead.

Just a few yards behind her rear bumper is the front bumper of my vehicle, and behind that bumper is driver number two—me.

I am awed by this small vision, a vision of someone out of the past navigating the modern streets of Birmingham as if the previous fifty years have evaporated. The car is old and iron-solid, blinkerless and weighted down by time.

The woman ahead of me is neatly coiffed and Sunday-school-tailored. She seems to exist in her own orderly time zone, reminding me of earlier days when all drivers were required to provide solid and accurate hand signals so that tailgaters would know well in advance that a slow turn is in the offing.

This time traveler ahead of me triggers other memories I will have to deal with in future red clay diary entries…just to settle them back into place in extensive and dusty files.

Memories of helping my mother hang soggy fresh-washed garments on our backyard clothesline. Flashbacks of incredibly sweaty afternoons penduluming a swing blade to control the advance of tall weeds. Learning how to avoid stripping gears while attempting to navigate a stick shift VW Beetle.

Watching my aunts carefully flatten and wash aluminum foil so that it can be re-used—Waste Not being the operative term. Saving canceled bank checks so that they can be employed as play money in imaginary games and used as notepaper for grocery lists. Wiping dry dinner plates one by one as they are hand washed.

The careful practice of slow-dialing a heavy black telephone after making sure the party line is not in use. Opening a massive dictionary and experiencing the texture and sound of turning pages, then moving fingers down columns to find how many definitions apply to each and every entry. Picking a delicate dandelion and slowly blowing its fluffy seeds into the childhood air.

The Sunday school hand-signal woman disappears to the right, my memories are interrupted by speeding hornblowers and orange construction cones, daytime redefines itself so that I am back to Now, the hustle emerges, the step-by-step responsibilities of life intrude and brush aside all but the next thing and the next thing after the next thing

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

EVERY WHICH WAY BUT OVER YONDER

Quietly staring into space can get me into all sorts of situations, both sticky and problematic.

Indeed, calmly staring into space can transport me into the Wonderlands hidden away in my mind, can open me up to thoughts I never knew were lurking.

That’s why my pockets are filled with thoughts jotted down in haste–just in case I wish to retrieve them later.

Casting about car seat, sofa, ottoman, notebook, back pocket, desk drawer…casting here and there…I come up with a stack of inspirations, insights, nutty ideas, memories worth noting–ideas penciled and penned upon sticky notes, napkins, blank margins of torn newspapers, little spiral memo pads, backs of business cards, printer sheets…

Just for fun, just for reconciliation with my little Cosmos, I’d like to share a random sampling with you. Got a minute?

RANDOM ACTS OF SENTIENT SPASMS:

From Carl Sandburg:

“I’m an optimist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” 

*

From braindroppings of Jim Reed:

*

“Filling time is about all we do, whether or not we actually do anything.”

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/theinveteratevertebrate.mp3

or read on….

THE INVETERATE VERTEBRATE AND ALL THINGS CONSIDERATE

I’m getting to be a habit with me.

Actually, I’m beginning to realize how much habit and ritual govern most daily activities.

This is actually not such a bad thing.

For instance, habit and ritual free up the mind, help me focus on more important things, expend my time on thoughty thoughts and considerate acts of kindness.

If I had to arise each morn and re-learn how to use brush and paste, so much of the clock would be wasted. Instead of spending twenty minutes examining the toothbrushing instruction manual and trying to decipher its line drawings, I can depend on body memory.  Without even consciously trying, my teeth become cleansed and minty while my mind focuses on much more important things.

Things like the possible meanings of life, the purpose of existence, the motives of neighbors, the infractions of traffickers, the ills of the world, the wonders of fond memories. Things like that.

Of course, habit and inveterate attitudes can stifle the mind, too. Particularly if I let go and allow habit and inveterateness run the show. Particularly if I laze about and allow all original inspirations and aspirations to enter the sinkhole of speedbumpiness.

Guess the rule of thumb is, don’t allow lethargy to rule everything—being in the control seat beats being yanked about by puppet masters awaiting their chance.

Would I prefer being a nervous tic or a nervy tick? At least the tic indicates that I am sentient and aware. The tick just sucks away, bloats, then ceases to exist.

Habit and routine free me up to concentrate on projects and projections and promises of better things.

So, I’d best be about the business of concretizing the best of what good is left within me, dissolving the useless and meaningless negativities that flit about like gnats….spreading the word that each of us can Matter if we just decide to

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s podcast story:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/changingthingstokeepthemfromchanging.mp3

or read on…

CHANGING THINGS TO KEEP THEM FROM CHANGING

Most mornings of my life are astoundingly similar.

Even though each day is new and filled with discovery, chocked full of wonder and challenge, grimace and grin…each day is remarkably like each previous day.

I skim my right hand down the wrought iron banister of homefront, left hand swinging bag and baggage of stuff to take to work. Upon the sidewalk or lawn or atop a bush is the morning paper, all snuggled up inside a clear sleeve, freshly pecked at by dew-dropped critters.

I pick up the package with now-freed right hand, stuff it under left arm, pull open the gate of our white picket fence. Only the gate does not want to open—I’m stating this as if the gate has free will and consciousness. Can gates decide whether to open?

On dry, rainless mornings, the gate swings free. Given an hour or two of precipitation, the wood expands just enough to make it stick. Grumbling and forcible exit follow.

Later in the day, at the shop, the tall wooden front door, itself a victim of humidity, groans and creaks quite loudly and hauntingly. This makes me grin and feel right at home. It causes customers to laugh or register alarm or give me free advice about how to fix creaking doors or preach to me about how I should get that thing fixed. Some customers even rush back to the door and force it closed in order to silence it.

I pretty much react the same each time, “You know, if that door ever stopped making that great sound, I would rig it to play a recording of the noise whenever opened. It has become part of the shop’s ambience.”

I make this statement just to test the customer’s flexibility of attitude. Usually, the effect is, the customer looks again at the creaking door, relaxes and laughs, gives up worrying about something beyond all personal control, and decides to embrace the shop and its idiosyncracies…thus returning to browsing and rumination.

The stubborn gate and protesting door serve to snap me out of my doldrums, force me to chuckle or snipe, jump-start me into the day’s activities, be they excruciatingly routine or off-balancing wondrous.

One of my favorite books is The Leopard. One of my favorite quotes from the book sticks with me and guides me to this day, making me appreciate sameness and change with equal zeal

 “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

–Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/theentrancetoentrancement.mp3

or read his story below…

THE ENTRANCE TO ENTRANCEMENT

One particular customer at the old bookshop is wandering about, mouth agape, eyes wide with wonder, joy writ across her face.

She has never seen anything quite like this—a cathedral of fragrant  old books and artifacts going back 500 years in time and issuing forth to her present day.

Are such disparate time periods and objects meant to abut and overlap and inform one another? She asks this of herself.

The customer then elevates her arms from waist to eye level, spreads hands wide, palms facing forward. It’s as if she is gently pushing at the looking glass, preparing to enter a world unknown until this moment. How will she get back? she wonders.

She has no idea anyone is observing her, which may demonstrate that she is indeed tumbling momentarily into the pleasurable comfort of childhood recollections.

It takes her some extended period of time to adjust to the fact that in a world as entrancing as this, she may never feel fully informed, but, ironically, she at some inner level feels totally at home.

It is as if childhood remains intact, deep within her, prepared to be remembered and cherished when called upon.

As she wanders about, an actual real-life present-day boychild sprawls on the floor of the old bookshop, casting about for some beckoning book cover to energize him into upright attention-span.

It happens. The right book about another boychild and his imaginary tiger friend pops into view. He is suddenly alert and, page-turning on the green carpet, transfixed into yet another imaginary world where things make a bit more sense.

Elsewhere in the aisles, a young couple delights in browsing and snuggling, giggling and chatting about this literary thought and that literary thought. They are happy and in love with both books and each other, unable to separate the two realities.

The old bookdealer just observes and smiles and feels proud that, ages ago, he fell headlong into ownership of this emporium, an emporium where dreams and realities truly appreciate one another, truly live in harmony

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s audio podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/writingaloudandtalkingsilently.mp3

or read his tale…

WRITING ALOUD AND TALKING SILENTLY

How do you write aloud? How do you talk silently?

I might actually have the answers to these two questions.

Listen to Jim’s audio podcast:

http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/secretsofthegarfieldunderpants.mp3

or read his tale below…

*

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s blog:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/howtoremainignorantwhileseemingsmart.mp3

or read his comments below…

HOW TO REMAIN IGNORANT WHILE SEEMING SMART

There’s this little trick I taught myself eons ago. This little trick evolved into a technique, maybe into an art of sorts.

How do I explain it to you? Here goes…

I’ll call this little trick RETAINING MY IGNORANCE IN ORDER TO ENHANCE MY WISDOM, ALL THE WHILE AFFIRMING THE EXISTENCE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE PERSON WITH WHOM I AM CONVERSING.

Come to think of it, this little trick may have its roots in my early career as actor and interviewer.

When I was onstage I learned to freeze in place while other actors delivered their lines. Remaining immobile in effect turned the stage over to the actors so that the audience paid rapt attention to them, not me.

As I gained experience, I learned to do more than freeze while getting ready to say my next lines—I learned to relax and actually listen to what was being said, which added reactive depth and authenticity to what I then said.

Get it?

Later in life, when I interviewed people on air, I used this experience to add intensity to the dialogue. Instead of figuring out what to say next, I took a deep breath during the interviewee’s comments and really listened to what was being said. When I replied spontaneously with my next question or comment, I came across as natural and thoughtful—or something like that.

At least this is what happened in the best of times.

After abandoning acting and broadcasting for an extended and stressfully boring career as a Mad Man, I blocked all these techniques from my mind, believing them to lack relevance in my new life.

After I crashed and burned from the Mad Man life, I found hope and joy in doing what I do now—writing, operating a bookstore, performing and hosting, etc.

Then, I realized that everything I had learned as a very young thespian and announcer turned out to be useful in the shop.

When customers seek help or advice or feedback, I make sure they have my full if brief attention. I listen and react, then try my best to take them seriously and give them a hand in finding what they need.

This makes me feel better about what I do for a living, and it seems to bring great satisfaction to most customers, who seem grateful and even surprised that a shopkeeper is focused and attentive and friendly and helpful.

Results are a bit puzzling. For instance, my behavior in the shop gives people the impression that I am smarter and wiser than I really am. I am not necessarily smarter and wiser, I am just Paying Attention—something many folks are not used to, in this no-eye-contact texting virtual confusion of a world we’re in at the moment.

I guess all I am really doing is trying to treat people the way I wish to be treated. When I leave a shop or eatery or event, I feel really good or really bad, depending on how the people in charge deal with me. As long as I keep this in mind at the shop—asking myself, “How did I just now make this customer feel?”—I can find some small bit of pride in having done what I can do with the limited tools and experience I possess.

Ignorance, it turns out, is blissful. Helpful and attentive ignorance is even more fulfilling.

John Jacques Rousseau (you know, That Guy) once said, “To write a love letter we must begin without knowing what we intend to say, and end without knowing what we have written.”

I think I just did that. I spewed forth some unplanned thoughts about a deeply and lovingly felt subject and they turned into a love letter to my customers, a tutorial to anyone who wants to leave each of life’s encounters with the knowledge that perhaps, just perhaps, someone feels a bit better as a result.

And you and I, at our finest, will not even be certain of what we did to make this happen

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast