or read on…

.

Life, actually…

.

THE 9 1/2 MOST PROFOUND THOUGHTS ANYONE EVER HAD

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1.  When eating a doughnut, meditate upon the significance of the hole, for without it,           you’re merely munching on a patty of cooked dough.

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2.  Always begin the day by awakening—otherwise the night will just keep extending           itself.

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3.  When applauding, you get a better sound by using both hands.

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4.  You can stand alone in a forest and tell a joke, but you’ll never know whether it’s             funny.

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5.  It is better to pay the power bill than to curse the darkness.

.

6.  Tomorrow is the day after the first day of the rest of your life.

.

7.  Most things work fine till they break down.

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8.  If you misplace your comparative analysis skills, you will become disallusioned.

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9.  Try never to be more than one place at once.

.

10. The secret of life is like an ice floe. You never—wait, I don’t have that one ready yet

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or read his tale below:

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Life, actually…

.

FRIEND ME A MESSAGE MOST NOBLE

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A mere 17,000 years ago (in Lascaux and a thousand other places), folks were tweeting and texting and friending and linking and graffiti-ing to their little hearts’ content…only, they didn’t call it the same thing back then.

.
Here at the Museum of Fond Memories at Reed Books, I can’t help being reminded of this fact, constantly.

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Each time I pick up an artifact and examine it for its internally-sealed, private history, I have the tingly feeling that this long-lived object is a time capsule, and that it is my responsibility to translate and forward its contents to you, my patron and customer…for you, my heir.
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For instance:
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From the hundreds of old letters and postcards that reside in the shop, I pick up one item at random…and within that item I could spend a day, lost in translation.

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It’s a hundred-year-old love letter. There’s a mustard stain on the second page—what could we learn of old-time mustard-processing, were we to have it analyzed? There’s a pressed four-leaf clover for luck—a tiny, carefully selected gift to the recipient of the letter. There is legible and concise handwriting—when did schools stop teaching
the art of clear, loving and personal penmanship?  There is correct spelling and sentence structure (I still spell out every word in my internet exchanges.).

.

There is florid letterhead with tiny angels cavorting—talk about uploading images! There is news of births and deaths and illnesses and accomplishments—all described fully and with competent involvement and emotion—no LOLs, only true and passionate opinions and thoughts.

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And there is evidence of time spent in considering what the message would include, carefully omitting sentiments and whinings that would only irritate the recipient. And there was time to re-consider what the letter would contain, since the ritual of folding, inserting, licking of envelope and stamp, sealing and addressing, would provide a meditative break, time to change or make better the message before it was posted.
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And, perhaps most importantly, the letter-writer knew full well that the contents of the envelope would serve as a permanent record, would be re-opened and re-read for messages hidden or implied, would be shared with others, would be placed with dozens of other letters in a lavender box or bulging scrapbook, to be revisited down the generations, would be a picture of that moment for all time, just as the Lascaux cave walls are still probed and enjoyed, a mere 17,000 years later

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© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Life, actually…

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.

THE BOY WHO LIKED SPINACH

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Spinach was the un-coolest thing I could imagine placing in my mouth,

way back when I was a whippersnapper.

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Adults would tell me all sorts of things that made spinach even less attractive:

 .

“Eat your spinach—it’s good for you!”

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I don’t want to be good because I eat spinach. Aren’t there lots of other ways to be good?

 .

“Why, spinach will give you loads of iron to make you big and strong.”

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I don’t want to eat anything filled with chunks of iron. What if they

rust? Besides, I’ll pass on being big and strong. Small and wiry and

elusive sound more survivable to me.

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“You just love Popeye the Sailorman—and he eats his spinach!”

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What’s Popeye’s mailing address? I can send him my serving.

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Besides, Popeye is kind of creepy—it’s Olive Oyl I lust after.

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“Here, let me cook the spinach with slices of boiled egg—that’ll make it real good.”

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Great, now even boiled eggs taste like spinach.

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And so on. My silent protests and unspoken wisecracks rose up whenever

anybody tried to force an idea on me. Actually, I’m like that to this day.

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Then, one day, when no-one was looking, I decided to actually try some

spinach—just to prove to myself that I really hated it.

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The empty can of Popeye brand spinach lay hidden in the garbage pail. One serving was left on the platter at the family dining table, the table that I was in charge of clearing off. Back then,

kids actually had chores to perform.

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I grabbed a forkful of the mushy, over-cooked substance and stuffed my mouth.

.

Glug!

 .

It tasted good!

 .

Holy Smokes, I thought. What have I been missing?

. 

From that day forth, I ate my spinach, but, in order to save face, and in order

to smugly lord it over my younger siblings, I never explained how I had discovered

that spinach was edible. I relished it while they sat staring at me as if I were a brown

shoe floating in a punch bowl.

 .

Being a natural-born contrarian allows me to learn new stuff every day. Right now

I’m eyeing that serving of sushi that’s on the menu. Gulp.

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 Well, maybe, at least for today, I’ll skip the contrarian thing

.

© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed

or read on…

Life, actually…

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OH, BY GOSH, BY GOLLY, IT’S TIME FOR MISTLETOE AND HOLLY

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A dozen or so years ago…

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A pleasant young Russian scientist with pretty wife and fussy baby girl in tow, shows up at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories, this pre-Christmas day. The three stare wide-eyed at the array of books. He’s looking for Birmingham souvenirs they can afford. Frank Sinatra’s voice bounces against the books as other browsers drift the isles, ”Oh, by gosh, by golly, it’s time for mistletoe and holly…”

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A smelly street guy shows up to purchase a HOBBIT DVD for his buddy, who can’t come to the shop “’cause he’s not allowed to leave the shelter.” He was caught with a cellphone and for some ethereal reason that’s forbidden. He’s being punished for not following the Memo. Mel Torme doesn’t notice, he just goes on about “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”

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A slender shopper reminds me that she served me breakfast at Dimitri’s one morning and is making good on her promise to visit the store. We chat warmly while an enormous man cruises the isles in a cold sweat, searching for esoterica. Several customers appear escorting visiting family and friends who’ve never before been Downtown. I extoll the wonders of the city while they try to take it all in. The Modern Jazz Quartet dances the musical notes around “England’s Carol,” their version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen…”

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A merry woman spends much of my time trying to fit as many purchases into a twenty-dollar bill as she possibly can. She finally seems happy with three small leatherbound Shakespeare plays and an enormous encyclopedia volume. She leaves behind several 1940′s pulp-fiction novels and a beat-up Purple Heart display case. Now, candyman Sammy Davis, Jr., is soaring about “Christmastime in the city…”

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One departing customer returns to the shop, unable to resist purchasing an old copy of TALES OF UNCLE REMUS by Joel Chandler Harris. Something resonates with her childhood and she has to have it. The Russian couple wants to walk the city, so I send them to their next stops, the Jazz Museum and the Civil Rights Institute. Vince Guaraldi continues interpreting Charlie Brown with his rendition of “Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum….”

.

The day is filled with auld acquaintances materializing, new friends made, adventuresome explorers sated, bookmongers always looking for the next fix, children grabbing stacks of tales for their dad to read aloud, and one man spending two hours to find just the right volume to adopt. Dean Martin trills, “Rudoph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide mein sleigh tonight…”

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And by gosh and by golly, a good day was had by almost all, and isn’t that about as much as you could possibly hope for in this erratic, terror-filled, joy-soaked world? “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…”

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(c) 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

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 MY ANTEBELLUM CHRISTMAS PRESENT

.

https://youtu.be/TamF9KovbqI

(Read text below and/or listen by clicking above.)

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Every trip to the old antebellum house was like Christmas Morning.

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Whenever I could get there, by way of bus or foot or bicycle or ride-hitching, I felt like Christmas had just gotten jump-started.

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The antebellum home in Downtown Tuscaloosa, back in the 1950’s, had expelled its original dwellers and converted itself into the County Library.

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It seemed to exist solely for my pleasure.

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Up the stairs, not racing, in slow motion—don’t want to incur the wrath of a shushing librarian—I head for bookcases containing the knowledge of the known world and the imagined knowledge of undiscovered worlds.

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Opening each book was like unwrapping a Christmas gift.

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Each volume contained its own peculiarities. In addition to the printed words within, there were always imagination-laden surprises:

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A pressed flower might drop spinning to the floor.

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A scrap of paper complete with cryptic message would unfold itself and read its contents to me.

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A margin scribble or an underline would challenge me to guess what a previous reader’s life was like.

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Mustard stains might tattle-tale whether the patron read at night or on the run at a hot dog stand.

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Unmistakable tobacco fragrances absorbed by the paper would be identified by brand-name (Cherry Blend was popular).

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Little crayoned bookmarks and turned-down corners made certain pages more intriguing.

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Coffee rings exposed the previous reader’s carelessness.

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Librarian mutilations included penciled numbers and rubber stamps and glued pockets and dog eared dated cards and taped-down dust jackets and intrusive binding materials and repaired/reinforced spines.

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The heft and texture and color and fragrance and flaws of the physical book were more fascinating than the book itself, at times.

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The powerful shower of Holmesian clues would almost make reading the book an anticlimactic exercise.

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To this day, I prefer the flawed personality of a well-used book to the pristine untouched edition that nobody ever opened.

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Every book has its own history, my dear Watson. I can tell you a lot about what that book has been through just from all the clues and hints of clues that warp it and give it character.

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Visit my antebellum shop in the Center of the Universe, Birmingham, Alabama and commence your sleuthing

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Jim Reed © 2025 A.D.

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

.

THE HALLOWEEN THAT ALMOST NEVER WAS BUT COULD HAVE BEEN

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     I’m meandering the ever-changing aisles of a bargain chain store after work, trolling for Halloween candy with which to bribe any would-be evildoers who appear on our porch on The Night.

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Since we live in Norman Bates’ mother’s house, a beautiful 120-year-old carpenter gothic dwelling that fits us like an old shoe, I am constantly aware that we may or may not see trick-or-treaters this week.

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Some years, the ‘hood is too bereft of children and too daunting to parents who are afraid to drive down an unfamiliar street situated in the heart of the far past.

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Other years, parents are brave and adventuresome and bring their kids to see what’s what, in a community that just might nourish ghosts and notions about ghosts.

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    This makes my discount store task easy. Just in case nobody rings the bell this year, I stock up on goodies that Liz and I won’t mind having around—stuff we ourselves like.

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I pick up a bag of candy corn, but it tastes of Clorox and a bit of staleness, so I’ll have to find another brand in another place on another day.

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I get Reese’s Cups for Liz so that I can always tell from her peanut butter breath when she’s been into the stash. I buy a dark chocolate goodie because she loves that stuff. I pick up some small candy bars mixed together in a variety pack and try not to eat all the Mounds Bars on the way home.

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    By Halloween, we’ll be all set for the kids. I’m dressed as the weird-looking bearded geezer I am, just to play along—for me, it’s a come-as-you-are Halloween event. Liz dresses like the smiling and sweet and always-interested-in-kids person she is—she’s ready to play all year long.

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    Will the Munchkins come and will we see our fair share of Star Wars characters and princesses and zombie dudes and Bat Man midgets, or will we be sick to our stomachs by trick time, having eaten all that candy ourselves?

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Even wizards and dragons and bump-in-the-night creatures don’t know for sure.

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Stay tuned

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      © Jim Reed 2025

]]> https://redclaydiary.com/?feed=rss2&p=301 0 https://redclaydiary.com/?p=739 https://redclaydiary.com/?p=739#comments Sun, 29 Jun 2025 08:12:49 +0000 Jim http://jimreedbooks.com/blog/?p=739 Continue reading →]]> Listen: https://youtu.be/20fgH8w5Yrg or read on…

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Life, actually…

.

THOSE WHO LOVED ME ARE ALWAYS AROUND

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I can’t seem to rid myself of all the long-ago formerly-living people who have filled my life, fleshed out my life, enriched my life.

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You’d think that, once people you know die, you’d be able to put aside your memory of them and get on with meeting new people, having new experiences.

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Just doesn’t work that way.

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There are many dead folk who continue to influence my life:

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Helen Hisey, my 8th grade speech teacher, taught me not to be afraid of speaking my passion in front of audiences. She taught me that it’s OK to slow down and respect the crowd, have faith in their ability to absorb worthwhile information when it is delivered to them with  zeal and humor and love. Helen still guides me.

.

Sadie Logan, my 2nd grade teacher, brought me up from a very deep and fearful place to a position of importance. She never, ever stopped believing in me and letting me know that I was the most special kid on earth. All these years years later, I learn that she made virtually every student she’s ever taught feel the same way. We are all the offspring of Sadie Logan.

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Jon Charles Palmer and Elmo Riley and Pat Flood were my childhood playmates who just plain accepted me as their friend and never had any reason to harm or dismiss me, no matter how stupid I acted, no matter how far away and out of touch I became. I still hang out with them in memory ever fresh.

.

Frances Lee McGee Reed, my mother, always laughed at my corny humor, always knew I was special, never let me get away with a lie or an exaggeration or a misdeed, forever believed that I was Number One in her book—even though my brothers and sisters felt the same way. She taught me that the greatest entertainment there is, is people-watching, and I spend most of each public day doing just that, with her invisible presence setting me straight.

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James Thomas Reed Jr., my father, taught by quiet example. He was clumsy aloud, but his image as a learned and wise man was powerful without words. He was my earliest example of what a real family man does—earn the living, bring home the pay, sit silently in an easy  chair after supper, reading books great and books seedy and books wise, from Mickey Spillane and Zane Grey and Edgar Rice Burroughs to Eric Hoffer and Harry Truman and Ogden Nash. A most educated man, though never a graduate, he set the example of steadfast tranquility.

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Other dead people who look after me:

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Pawpaw Burns was my elderly neighbor who showed me that if you really pay close attention to children, you can get through to them by simply noticing, simply respecting them for where they are at the moment. They can always tell.

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Adron Herrin and Jack McGee and Brandon McGee and Pat McGee and Annabelle Herrin and Evey Hartley and Effie McGee and Georgia McGee and Gladys McGee and Matty Wooten and John McGee and Dinah Hassell and Elizabeth McGee and many other kinfolk accepted me, warts and all, and treated me with respect and good humor, making me react in horror when anybody tells me they are separated from their kin, cut off from the nurturing care that can come from kindly people who share your blood, if you will only let them.

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There are crowds of dead people in my head and in my life and that’s OK.

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Even better news: there are scores of living people who have helped me, too, many without even knowing it.

.

I see living people.

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And, because of the wisdoms and comforts and joys left me by the deceased, I am better prepared than most to carefully weed out the unwise and hang only with the people who trust and accept me and make no judgements.

.

Thanks to those long-ago-passed, I have become a good student of life, and the lives they lived help me manage the bad days well, and enjoy the good days even more

.

© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

• antidoteceiling.mp3

or read on…

ANTIDOTE CEILING

“Resentment is like drinking poison

and waiting for the other person to die.”

–Carrie Fisher

Lying here in the darkened room on my freshly-made bed, staring at the stars projected on the ceiling by my Spitz Junior Planetarium, I silently ponder the Universe, and the Universe silently and dispassionately ignores me.

When I was young and green and burdened with the implanted beliefs of the people in my little world, I could actually delude myself into thinking that all’s well that ends well, that it’s easy to whistle a happy tune whenever I feel afraid, that if you do unto others they will do likewise unto you, that if you’re really good and search hard for your mittens you’ll get some pie.

I know now, ruminating and reminiscing, that none of the above will necessarily happen. I know now that not everything ends well—but sometimes it does, that if you whistle past the graveyard, you may still be frightened—but sometimes not, that if you practice the Golden Rule, others will seldom practice it right back—but now and then somebody might, that if you work hard and do good deeds you may never, ever be rewarded—but once in a while it can happen.

I’m also in the process of trying to digest the immutable fact that I should be mature enough to find satisfaction in the good things that occur spasmodically and unpredictably, that I shouldn’t spend much of my time resenting the good stuff that doesn’t happen, the bad stuff that often happens.

When will I stop taking the poison?

When will I realize that accentuating the positive is the antidote, that eliminating the negativity is required to live a peaceful life?

And, once I realize this, when will I learn to forget and truly forgive—which are one and the same thing? Remembrance is a burden sometimes.

But now, as I grow, remembrance is the sweetest thing in the starry-ceiling Universe

© Jim Reed 2025 A.D.

OR READ ON…

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Life, actually…

.

BARNEY FIFE BECOMES WYATT EARP RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES

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The behatted security guard stands stolid at his post, at full attention, totally focused on mission. He is there at the corner each morning for all passersby to ponder.

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In his hand is a Starbucks product, something to hold on to besides his weapon, which is neatly side-strapped and loaded for action. His dark eyeglasses perfectly match the starched and pressed khaki uniform and perfectly perched Smoky Bear hat.

.

He is one notch braver than Sheriff Andy, one degree below freewheeling Dirty Harry, firmly entrenched in his stoic protector image, embedded in his role as Defender of the Bank.

.

The Writer who passes by each day is like most folks in his reaction to the officer.

.

Seeing him each day, perception changes in an orderly fashion.

.

Here’s the order.

.

1.  At first, he looks silly and out of place. In a neighborhood known for its eclectic populace—tattoo parlor right across the street, walls and alleys of graffiti everywhere, a beautiful and poetic water fountain nearby hosting panhandlers and the homeless as well as smiling tourists and over-the-mountaineers who are here to eat high and then maybe get high later, bored teenagers looking for what they wish they knew they were looking for, intellectual occupiers, new-age dreamers, clueless pedestrians, fearful drive-bys on their way someplace else, worldly shop-owners, vacuous police officers, bright and alert CAP officers, city workers…they are all intermingling and drifting past this neatly pressed officer of the law.

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2.  As you see him each day, each week, each month, he begins to look different. His belt-overhanging gut begins to seem appropriate to his loyalty to the corner, his hat is suddenly perceived as just the right hat with the just the right tilt, just the right fit, just the right symbol of dormant authority. His coffee cup is a compromise between doughnuts and diner hangout, his uniform looks like it belongs there, his demeanor again rises just above Andy, but now just below a modern-day Wyatt Earp.

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3.  After a while, this corner-protector becomes a symbol of stability and gentility, a throwback to the weaving chaos of Five Points South. The protector may be a mere bank employee whose job is to symbolize safety and dependability, but his presence is now morphed and iconic, what we expect  to see every day, a touchstone of reality in a Jello based world.

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We could use a few more street-based protectors around the rampant city—you know, officers who actually walk  the beat, merchants who dare to step outside their shops, blinking at the sun and showing us they are part of the ‘hood, elected city officials who actually dare to spend their wages inside the city instead of escaping to the shopping mall ‘burbs each night.

.

I’m present here in the city, so is the protector, so are the people both enfranchised and disenfranchised. We want you to brave the city streets, too—and get to know these passing spirits as real and necessary beings.

.

Y’all give it a try, you hear

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© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed 

]]> https://redclaydiary.com/?feed=rss2&p=1046 0 https://redclaydiary.com/?p=461 https://redclaydiary.com/?p=461#comments Sun, 01 Sep 2024 07:40:53 +0000 Jim http://jimreedbooks.com/blog/?p=461 Continue reading →]]> Listen to Jim:  http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/whatilikeaboutbeingalive.mp3