Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/ijustdonatedaspecialmomenttoyou.mp3

or read his tale:

.

I JUST DONATED A SPECIAL MOMENT TO YOU. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/SMALLWISDOMSOFTHEREDCLAYHILLS.mp3

or read his diary below:

SMALL WISDOMS OF THE RED CLAY HILLS, THE RED CLAY VALLEYS

The iron man is more than fifty feet tall, so he’s hard to ignore.

Sitting here in my uneasy chair, riffling through pages of a red clay diary, I can see the iron man outside the window, even when not casting my gaze his way. He’s in line of sight so much that I don’t realize I’m observing him. But I do.

This cast iron statue dominates the city and the valley 24/7, which means that locals ignore him. But visitors seeing him for the first time are attracted and puzzled. What’s that big statue all about? they ask.

Out-of-towners meander the streets and byways of the city, trying to find out how to approach the statue. A van full of family pulls up next to me as I pluck a morning newspaper from the front yard.

“Hey, how do I get to that big iron man on the hill?” the driver asks. I know exactly what he’s talking about and point him toward the man of iron’s domain.

Transients have never heard the iron man’s name, so the metal signs pointing to Vulcan Park are no help at all. Only we indigenous denizens know that the statue’s first and last name, his only name, is Vulcan.

Details about Vulcan are readily available to research, so if you do your homework you’ll be well educated. You’ll know more than I.

From my point of view, all I need know is that Vulcan is two years older than my home. He was cast in 1904, my residence was built in 1906. Both have endured storm and temperature and humidity and humiliation and rebirth a few times. But they still stand.

Vulcan’s inanimate gaze takes in everything and nothing, as does my animate gaze. Opening my eyes to the red clay city floods me with thousands of overlapping images that would take a lifetime to describe, a millennium to appreciate, an eon to wholly understand. And even then, the Why would not be clear.

Vulcan is a symbol of what each generation decides to emphasize. My home is an inexplicable sign that many lives have visited and vacated the premises. My easy chair in which red clay rifflings occur is a temporary structure that will persist with or without me.

It’s all like an iron asteroid that flashes nearby, momentarily appreciated, creating stirrings that soon settle and await the puzzlements to come

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/wewhohavewrinklesandsaggies.mp3

or read his tale below:

WE WHO HAVE WRINKLES AND SAGGIES SALUTE YOU

“I don’t like it when old people get skinny ’cause they always get these wrinkles and saggies and things under their chin.”

Everything I write is true, but this is actual.

I just overheard that remark in the diversity isle of a large store, a store teeming with customers of every size, shape, age, proclivity and background.

Yep, one woman delivers her stroke of wisdom to a fellow kinswoman, a kinswoman who nods sagaciously and totally agrees with her, “Uh huh.”

They continue talking and signifying as they troll rows of clothing, their analytical examinations of texture and shape and color and size and appropriateness consuming the time they have, expert observers of the ad hoc world they create for comfort and familiarity.

The stories I tell deliver themselves to me when I least expect it. All I do is weave them together in order to share their import with you. I guess this can be called, Being a Writer. Or something like that.

So, here I am, relating a tidbit moment without the permission or knowledge of these two people. Does this make me an eavesdropper, a spy? Or does this mean that, in the age-old tradition of storytellers, I am simply honoring the importance and meaning of an anecdote that might otherwise disintegrate into the rustling air of an anonymous store, where mysterious and meaningful events might never be noticed and inscribed for future generations?

Think of all the millions of people who will never have their moments archived.

The absent, the missing, the dead, the distant, the invisible, the ignored, all lose their moments when there is no-one present to notice, to appreciate, to stamp approval.

Those who cannot defend themselves against the stories I tell.

As the self-centered writer, I feel that my purpose is somewhat justified. All I am doing is taking a look around me in case I miss something important in the endless aisles of the day-to-day.

Wrinkles and saggies and all

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/thepopeofsouthtown.mp3

or read his tale below:

THE POPE OF SOUTHTOWN SERVES HIS FLOCK

I’m standing in place at Express Oil, awaiting my audience with the Pope of Southtown.

My burgundy beat-up bookmobile is giving me fits, but I am a person of loyalty—I will nurse and patch and compensate for this old vehicle till one of us rattles one last time.

While Burgundy Bookie and I stand in place, we gaze at the actions and interactions that take place in graceful but purposeful slow motion.

One longtime mechanic, Philip, moves among a flock of customers who depend upon his seasoned abilities. We are at the mercy of Philip and the other specialists who greet us and patiently minister to our mechanical needs.

One petite woman stares up to him for a blessing, “Oh, my car’s still doing that, that thing. Can you fix it?”

He smiles, stares off into the distance as if seriously contemplating the response he will eventually give. Like a good diagnostician, he pays attention to what the customer is saying. He takes his time to consider the correct answer.

At that moment, he receives a cellphone call, which means he is now juggling three cases at once—mine, hers and the tinny-voiced human in his palm. Yet other congregants await his ministrations. Each of us is the most important human on the planet in our own minds.

I arrive at Express Oil just twenty minutes earlier, when the lot is still barren. Now, suddenly, the customers are lined up and Philip is gesticulating, scratching his head, dispensing advice on what he knows and what he does not know and what he will eventually know and what he will never know.

In the long run, these healers of transport are all that stand between us and a broken mass transit system, who save us from random and unpredictable encounters with Uber and Yellow Cab and hitchhiking.

These shadetree sophisticates are part of our family, the family we need to make our clockwork lives run smoothly in spurts.

That’s why now and then I drop off a box of donuts or a fudge pie created by daughter Jeannie. You know, something for the offering plate.

George Carlin nailed it a long time back, “I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.”

The mechanics of Southtown have just enough followers to last each day. And that’s always enough and plenty for us true believers

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/eyeswidesleepingsoundly.mp3

or read his tale below:

EYES WIDE SLEEPING SOUNDLY

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….

I’m lying abed in this small plaster-ceilinged bedroom I share with brother Ronny.

The time is longer ago than you might remember, or maybe even before you were born.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….

It is just after sunrise. I am slowly drifting back and forth between slumber and wakefulness. Dreams are fading into daydreams. Reality is creeping in to take over.

My ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s are turning into snorts, then into eyes wide open…

Downstairs, the Sunday newspaper comic strips await.

The comics are everything on Sunday morning. That’s where I learn what those ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s mean. They are shorthand for Sleeping Soundly.

When a comic strip cartoonist wants me to know that a character is asleep or dozing, a row of ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s informs me. When a cartoon bubble hovering above Little Orphan Annie’s head is dripping tiny closed circles, I know that this is what Annie is thinking, not what she is saying aloud. And so on.

But I’m lying here in my bunk bed, now fully awake but hoping that if I can visualize those ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s floating above my head, I can convince anyone peeking into the room that I am still asleep. Can’t they see the Z’s?

It doesn’t work, this attempt to make palpable a cartoonist’s Morse code. I try to pretend sleep, but sister Barbara opens the door a crack to call me to breakfast. “I see your eyelids moving. You’re awake!” she grins gleefully. I can never fool Barbara.

I swat away the floating ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s and dangle my feet over the side of the mattress. I’m on the top bunk, so part of becoming fully awake is the jolt to the system that I feel when I leap into the vast space between here and hardwood floor.

Time to pretend I’m awake for another day. Time to do little kid things that little kids do on Sunday mornings.

Time to find the Sunday paper and discover what Dagwood is doing—is he asleep on the couch under ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s? What about The Phantom—does he ever sleep? And Snuffy Smith? I know he knows all about Z’s, as does Pappy Yokum. As does brother Ronny on the bottom bunk. They are my kind of people.

To this day, many decades later, I envy those people, real-lifed and cartooned, who know how to catch a few ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s any time they please. Or at least any time their cartoonist so deems.

Or any time sister Barbara isn’t looking

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

 Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/joysofselectiveinattention.mp3

or read his tale below:

THE JOYS OF SELECTIVE INATTENTION AND OTHER UNIMPORTANT IDEAS

Life’s humongous happenings are the things I ponder least.

That’s because I have no control, no input, no influence, no power over the huge events that occur in daily life.

I know but one way to deal with HUMONGOUS HAPPENINGS. More about that later in this little diatribe. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, it is always the tiny unnoticeables that rivet my attention. Things like street signs that do not communicate.

Here’s one: NOT A THOROUGH STREET. What does this mean? The street is incomplete? Is it inadequately constructed? Is it misspelled? Does it intend to say NOT A THROUGH STREET? If so, THROUGH what? Does it suddenly come to a stop just past the sign? Perhaps more communicative would be NOT A THRU STREET. This is easier to read, and there is no confusion about words–thorough and through and trough could blend themselves into an amalgam of meanings. By the time they are sorted out, the driver may have run smack and thoroughly through a trough that runs thru a tough ‘hood.

Here’s another sign of the times: GROOVED PAVEMENT. What am I supposed to do with this instant information? Is it a mysterious command? Am I to spin the steering wheel to conform to the grooves?  Or is it another typo? Does it mean GROOVY PAVEMENT? In which case I can really get it on, man, and go with the flow. By the time I process this information, the sign has been long since passed and I’m on my way to the next challenge.

I recommend the highway department consider some new signs designed to entertain and confuse. What about ESCHEW OBFUSCATION? That would kick-start an inner philosophical debate about meaning, context, semantics…a much more productive exercise than the perplexing THOROUGH and GROOVY and THRU directives that nobody understands.

Or, a sign that reads ROAD ENDS would generate all kinds of excitement and stress. Since all roads eventually end, does this mean IMMEDIATELY or sometime in the future? There is no footnote or added explanation to comfort the driver. The sign may as well read LIFE ENDS, since it is an open-ended truism that one may ignore or obsess over. There’s always something new to wring one’s hands about.

The only way some of us get through the day is to employ a technique known as SELECTIVE INATTENTION. Disregarding the warning signs at least allows us to pay more attention to the road and focus less on things we cannot control.

Now about the HUMONGOUS HAPPENINGS.

As I inferred, there is nothing I can do to quell these HUMONGOUS HAPPENINGS. All I can do is exactly and precisely what I know how to do. When HUMONGOUS HAPPENINGS issue forth, I get back to basics and truisms.

I hug my family and tell them I love them.

I make sure my friends, my strangers, know that I actually care about them.

I look people in the eye to assure them that I am PAYING ATTENTION, for one terrible act of violence and abuse is to ignore someone, disavow their existence, disregard them, act as if they don’t matter, fail to listen to them.

The great sin is not noticing someone. The great abuse is not being noticed.

The great joy is the knowledge that you just listened to me, noticed me, by reading these words

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

 Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/happyunbirthdaytoyouandme.mp3

or read his tale below:

HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY TO YOU AND ME

What do I get each time another birthday rolls around?

What is my reward? Where is my gift?

More to the point, what makes me think I have a reward coming my way, each time another 365 days pass me by?

What is so significant about our birthdays, mine and your’n? (Don’t let “your’n” throw you–it’s just one of those middle English words that a bookie nerd like me finds swimming among the silt in my brain.)

Speaking of silt, how many hundreds of songs are indelibly branded into my memory?

This is definitely one of them:

MARCH HARE:

A very merry unbirthday to me

MAD HATTER:

To who?

MARCH HARE:

To me

MAD HATTER:

Oh you!

MARCH HARE:

A very merry unbirthday to you

MAD HATTER:

Who me?

MARCH HARE:

Yes, you!

MAD HATTER:

Oh, me!

MARCH HARE:

Let’s all congratulate us with another cup of tea

A very merry unbirthday to you!

MAD HATTER:

Now, statistics prove, prove that you’ve one birthday

MARCH HARE:

Imagine, just one birthday every year

MAD HATTER:

Ah, but there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!

MARCH HARE:

Precisely why we’re gathered here to cheer

BOTH:

A very merry unbirthday to you, to you

ALICE:

To me?

MAD HATTER:

To you!

BOTH:

A very merry unbirthday

ALICE:

For me?

MARCH HARE:

For you!

MAD HATTER:

Now blow the candle out my dear

And make your wish come true

BOTH:

A merry merry unbirthday to you!

***

Now, why is it that I can’t remember where I placed my Diet Coke five minutes ago, but I can recall hundreds of songs like this from my ever present childhood?

Don’t strain yourself—I don’t really need to know the answer to this question. I just want to ruminate and contemplate and masticate…eating my breakfast and thinking useless but entertaining thoughts all the while.

Go ahead and laugh at me. It’s a life I’m stuck with.

And during the best of my times, I celebrate at least 364 times a year.

Quick! Let’s appreciate and savor our unbirthdays with gusto, now and then distracting ourselves with the delusion that all is right with the world.

We do deserve a break from all this now and then, don’t you think?

Lewis Carroll and Jack Kerouac and Aldous Huxley and Steve Martin all know the value of self-delusion. Each has a different way of celebrating silliness.

My way is to share random thoughts and allow you to find your own significance or distraction as a result.

Couldn’t hurt.

Precisely why we’re gathered here to cheer

ALL THE MORNINGS OF THE WILDLING CITY

Like a spindly-legged grain of blackened rice, this little critter is dozing at the bottom of my morning lavatory. As I brush my teeth, I contemplate the creature’s future prospects.

Shall I attempt to squash it so that Liz won’t encounter it later? Shall I wave so that it takes the hint that there are larger forces at work here? Will the critter zip away to safer haven?

Most mornings in the wildling city are like that. Decisions must be made. Or not. Every moment of indecision is a moment of decision. As Harvey Cox said, “Not to decide is to decide.”

Moments later, beneath the prickling shower, muffled sounds transmit from the radio, teasing me with snippets of information that I have to string together on my own. Words like Afghanistan…president…teaser…hurricane…blockhead…

The rice-sized spidery critter gathers up what free will is left and flicks itself into elsewhere.

The soap bar diminishes a fraction in my hands, the large towel engulfs me, misted mirrors reflect vague aspects of me, outdoor skies peek in through a high window, morning begs to begin its forward thrust toward eventual dusk.

Later,  I spend a few moments attempting to select an easy-rolling, silent shopping cart in order to cruise store isles unnoticed and meditative. There is no cooperation among the metallic wheeled skeletons. My cart squeaks harshly, as do carts of other shoppers.

Strewn about the cavernous arena, other shopping carts call out to each other like feral animals under stress.

The wildling city teems with beings both animate and inanimate, all wending their special fates in indecipherable patterns that, combined, create a global symphony entitled life on earth

© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

 Twitter and Facebook