Listen to Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast for today: https://youtu.be/gUUTaKb0Reg
or read his transcript below:
.
Life, actually…
.
A DRUM ROLL FOR ROY
.
Imagine the horror of being a victim of the bad guys in a Roy Rogers 1940s cowboy adventure movie! Remember, Roy himself never killed or hurt anybody—well, maybe a punch or two stung some bad guys into repentance—and he certainly never did anything mean-minded.
.
But when Roy wasn’t around on the big black white and gray screen, bad things could happen.
.
One of the scariest things I ever saw in a Roy Rogers movie: the Bad Guys, deciding to rid themselves of somebody who might snitch on them, lock this guy in an empty oil barrel and drop it into a deep lake.
.
Holy Cow!
.
I was suddenly inside that barrel, feeling the rusty darkness trapping me on all sides, feeling my air running out, wondering if I’d die from suffocation or from drowning, depending on whether the water engulfed me before my breathing stopped, wondering how it would feel for my lungs to burst in a mighty panic of pain and helplessness.
.
It was quite an experience, vicariously dying inside that oil drum inside that Roy Rogers movie inside the Ritz Theater inside my little Down South village.
.
That’s why one day, when my father brought home an empty human-size oil drum for us kids to play with, I was filled with excitement—now I could act out all my fears by using that drum, controlling that drum, conquering that drum!
.
And boy, did we kids do all of the above and more.
.
For years, that oil drum was my favorite toy in the back yard. One moment, the drum would become a real drum—we’d bang on the sealed end with sticks and hands and whatever else would annoy adults and neighbors, whatever would delight and excite us.
.
Another moment, the drum would become a large log floating in a river of grass. Two of us kids would stand up on either end of the tipped-over drum and pretend to be roughhewn loggers—try to stay in place and force the other kid to fall to the ground first, in a fit of laughter and disorientation.
.
Or the drum would become a circus act. I’d stand on it and run rapidly forward, while the drum would roll backwards. This usually lasted a few seconds at most, but in those few seconds the circus fans would be on their feet, cheering in awe of my feat.
.
Then, tipping the drum over and getting inside was an entirely new experience. Somebody else would roll that drum real fast and you would hold to the insides as stiffly as possible to keep from being pummeled to death.
.
Or, even when nobody was around, you could get inside and roll yourself around, having a grand contest with yourself to see how long you could last, how far you could go before blindly bumping into something or someone—preferably not a disapproving adult.
.
Other times, we would play Game Hunter and Cannibals. One or two of us weaker ones would have to play the Hunter victims, being slowly boiled into a fine meal in that vertical drum, while savages danced wildly about, anxious that their food not be overcooked.
.
Fortunately, we had no matches, so we were only cooked by the heat of the sun and the radiating heat from inside the drum.
.
When it suddenly began raining, you could get inside that drum and tilt it vertical, closed-end up, and stay dry—and hidden, if the need was there. And if lightning were to strike, perhaps the Frankensteinian result would be to become some kind of super-strong masked hero with electrical powers.
.
During more deliberative moments, the drum became an encapsulated time-machine, and you could take your own fantastic voyages inside the metal darkness all by yourself.
.
Oh, it was a grand toy, that oil drum, the kind of toy I wish I could share with all little kids who are tired of toys that do everything for you, toys you lose interest in immediately or, worse still, toys that hypnotize you for hours and give you nothing in return to imagine, think about later, go to bed tired over.
.
The Roy Rogers Backyard Oil Drum will never be listed as a valuable collectible in any antique guide, but it’s the kind of collectible that’s really important—the toy that stays in your mind and your heart all the way from childhood to old age.
.
Wish you had been there
.
© Jim Reed 2025 A.D.
