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Here is a true story I re-tell every Thanksgiving, just

to remind myself and you that everything that really

matters is right before us, all the time. Here ‘tis:

.

THANKSGIVING:

THE HAPPIEST SAD DAY OF THE YEAR

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The saddest thing I ever saw: a small, well-dressed elderly woman dining alone at Morrison’s Cafeteria, on Thanksgiving Day.

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Oh there are many other sadnesses you can find if you look hard enough, in this variegated world of ours, but a diner alone on Thanksgiving Day makes you feel really fortunate, guilty, smug, relieved, tearful, grateful…it brings you up short and makes you time-travel to the pockets of joy and cheer you experienced in earlier days…

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Crepe paper. Lots of crepe paper. And construction paper. Bunches of different-colored construction paper. In my childhood home in Tuscaloosa, my Thanksgiving Mother always made sure we creative and restless kids had all the cardboard, scratch paper, partly-used tablets, corrugated surfaces, unused napkins, backs of cancelled checks, rough brown paper from disassembled grocery bags, backs of advertising letters and flyers…anything at all that we could use to make things. Yes, dear 21^st-Century young’uns, we kids back then made things from scraps.

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We could cut up all we wanted, and cut up we did.

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We cut out rough rectangular sheets from stiff black wrapping paper and glued the edges together to make Pilgrim hats. Old belt buckles were tied to our shoelaces—we never could get it straight, whether the Pilgrims were Quakers, or vice versa, or neither. But it always seemed important to put buckles on our shoes and sandals, wear tubular hats and funny white paper collars, and craft weird-looking guns that flared out like trombones at one end. More fun than being a Pilgrim/Quaker was being an Indian—a true blue Native American, replete with bare chest, feathers shed by neighborhood doves, bows made of crooked twigs and kite string, arrows dulled at the tip by rubber stoppers and corks, and loads of Mother’s discarded rouge and powder and lipstick and mashed cranberries smeared here and there on face and body, to make us feel like the Indians we momentarily were.

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Sister Barbara and Mother would find some long autumnal-hued dresses for the occasion, but they were seldom seen outside the kitchen for hours on end, while the eight-course dinner was under construction.

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There was always an accordion-fold crepe paper turkey centerpiece on display, hastily bought on sale at S.H. Kress, just after last year’s Thanksgiving season. It looked nothing like my Aunt Mattie’s turkeys in her West Blocton front yard. And for some reason, we ate cranberry products on that day and that day only. Nobody ever thought about cranberries the other 364 days! And those lucky turkeys were lucky because nobody ever thought of eating them except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were home free the rest of the year!

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Now, back into the time machine of just a few years ago.

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It is Thanksgiving Day. My wife and son and granddaughter are all out of the country. Other family and relatives are either dead or gone, or just plain tied up with their own lives in other states, doing things other than having Thanksgiving Dinner with me.

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My brother, Tim, my friends Tim Baer and Don Henderson and I decide that we will have to spend Thanksgiving Dinner together, since each of us is bereft of wife or playmate or relative, this particular holiday this particular year.

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So, we wind up at Morrison’s Cafeteria, eating alone together, going through the line and picking out steamed-particle-board turkey, canned cranberries, thin gravy, boxed mashed potatoes and some bakery goods whose source cannot easily be determined.

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But we laugh at our situation and each other, tell jokes, cut up a bit, and thank our lucky stars that this one Thanksgiving Dinner is surely just a fluke. We’ll be trying that much harder, next year, to not get blind-sided by the best holiday of the year, Thanksgiving being the only holiday you don’t have to give gifts or reciprocate gifts or strain to find the correct gifts.

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Left to right: Tim Reed, Tim Baer, Jim Reed lining up for Thanksgiving.

Don Henderson is behind the camera.

.

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On Thanksgiving holidays ever since, I make sure I’m with family and friends, and now and then I try to set a place at the table of my mind, for any little old lady or lone friend who might want to join us…for the second saddest thing I’ve ever seen is a happy family lustily enjoying a Thanksgiving feast together and forgetting for a moment about all those lone diners in all the cafeterias of the world who could use a kind glance and a smile

.

© 2017 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

 http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/rogersboys.mp3

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THE ROGERS BOY SAVE MY LIFE

Did I ever stop to thank you guys?

I know you’re all still hanging around, in film and video and literature and memory, but out of the four of you, I only got to express my gratitude to one.

Let me back up.

I’m thinking about the four Rogers Boys in my life: Will Rogers, Roy Rogers, Buck Rogers and Fred Rogers.

Will and Roy and Buck chaperoned me through my childhood in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Fred stuck with me after that, and to this day still nurtures me.

Will Rogers was funny, wise, commonsensical, more like a kindly uncle who saw through pretense and ego and managed to make me laugh at the scary and puzzling and daunting things that life dishes out. He found a way to see something useful and good in just about everybody he met, be they despot or beggar, politico or felon. At my best, I try to keep my head and think about what Will Rogers would have said about my predicaments.

Roy Rogers taught me his code of ethics. Through his movies, comic books, broadcast appearances and personal life, he set standards of behavior. His public persona was upright, he played fair even when others didn’t, he was open and giving of time to anyone who needed a helping hand. His private life was exemplary: his adopted family was diverse—way ahead of his times. Whenever I was in trouble, I’d think about how Roy would have acted.

Buck Rogers fueled my imagination and helped me see beyond the corporeal and gravitational strictures of being alive. He taught me to accept my wildest dreams as part of my reality. He introduced me to a futurist whose head remains in the clouds and whose feet stay firmly planted on the ground—Ray Bradbury. Buck Rogers taught me to let my mind run free, with the simultaneous realization that reality is always there to keep me stable and productive for family and society.

Finally, Fred Rogers walked with me for decades, and still does, reminding me to see the useful and good things about people and the world, all the while noting that things are never perfect. He was my friend no matter what mistakes I made. He was forgiving and instructive at the same time. Latch-key children throughout the world depended on him every afternoon, since he was the only adult in their lives who looked directly at them and talked gently with them, who gave them 30 minutes a day uninterrupted and non-threatening. I discovered him as an adult and recognized the latch-key kid within myself. I wrote to him and he replied, fortifying my observation that it’s ok to be strong and kind at the same moment.

Well, that’s what I think about the Rogers Boys. Go ahead—google them, study them, see what they have to say. Better still, adopt your own set of chaperones, people in your life who are so good and nurturing that you tend to take them for granted and forget to thank them till now.

I’ve been given much good advice in my life, most of which I resisted or ignored. But, luckily, the people I select to guide me in the long run, such as the Rogers Boys, are always there, waiting for me to grow up and finally listen

(c) 2017 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim:

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/kerouac.mp3 

or read on…

THE KEROUAC THELMA MARGARET ROAD-THRILL JOY RIDE

When I was young and knew nothing but what my imagination dreamed up, I thought it would be most amazing if one day I could muster the courage to Hit the Road, Destination Unknown.

Lying abed late at night, the moaning whistles of passing trains would feed my fantasy of hopping a freight and hobo-ing it to the Next Place Thataway.

Books such as Robinson Crusoe and Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks with a Circus made it seem possible to run away and self-survive, prove my manhood—to whom?—and come back to town a seasoned hero.

Later literature kept up the pressure: I could run wild like Kerouac and Cassady…go pell mell like Thelma and Louise…get to know mysterious people like Steinbeck and Charley, take the blue highways like Least Heat Moon.

And, true to my metaphorical destiny, I did go on the road…but solely in baby steps. To this day, a visit to Pratt City or Columbia, South Carolina or Victor, Idaho or Gardendale are equally fun and adventurous. As soon as I press the pedal, I’m off and running, seeking material for the Museum of Fond Memories, material for my blast/blog/tweet/facebook/books, material to riffle through in old age.

When she was a teen-ager, my daughter Margaret and I occasionally took to the road—off to a reunion or a visit or a flea market, racing along and loving every minute of it. Back then, Margaret, being psychically connected to me, abandoned herself to my goals—those goals being to enjoy the moment and not worry about anything else at all.

First thing Margaret and I did at the start of every journey was stop at a convenience store—any convenience store—and load up on all the junk food we weren’t allowed to eat at home. Crackling cellophane, popping cola tops, outrageous belching and lots of laughter drowned out the rest of the world. We would end each trip happy and satisfied, having tossed care to the winds if only for a few hours. There were no negatives to these adventures, if you don’t count the inevitable indigestion.

It was inexpensive therapy.

To this day, Margaret still has adventures, having been all over the place, from the top of the Tetons, to Paris, to England, to Jackson Hole, to Costa Rica, to Cuba, to Tanzania, to China, to Panama, to the Snake River. I can’t go with her, but I live every moment vicariously, traveling in mind and heart with my long-ago companion. She always reports back to me and we always laugh in memory green.

I still journey throughout the world and to corners of the universe, but I do it the best way I know…each day showing up at the Museum of Fond Memories and passing artifacts on to you and others—artifacts from the past 500 years and the far corners of the planet.

Come in and take a road trip around the shop with me

• youcantellthatithurtsher.mp3

That wasn’t so painful, was it? Seinfeld would be proud.

Let’s do this again sometime

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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The Last of the Red-Hot Neisghborhood Watchers

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http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/thelastoftheredhotneighborhoodwatchers.mp3

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The Queen of Southside Birmingham is dead.

Long live the Queen.

Our 92-year-old neighbor Margaret Selman left us happy. She wanted nothing more than to join her late husband and best friend, Frank, and she died smiling and excitedly talking about the prospect. She left us neighbors happy—happy with good memories of the way she ran the ‘hood for nearly a century.

This is not some kind of soppy obituary designed to paint Margaret as a perfect person, not designed to make you think I was always the best neighbor I could be. I just want you to get a quick thumbnail image of Margaret in your mind.

First of all, her throne was the wrap-around porch of the big two-story 1906 home she and Frank kept immaculate all those years. She held court each evening when the weather was right, and folks came from miles around to sip some sweet tea and share gossip and laughter for a few minutes under Frank’s big ceiling fan.

Any evening you might see a parked police car, indicating some officers were sitting and chatting and catching up on street news. An occasional city council member or merchant or dogwalker or wanderer or priest might stop and smile and listen to Margaret’s very long, very detailed, and very accurate tales. And she remembered each and every person, if not by name, then certainly by physical description.

One other thing: Nobody ever said NO to Margaret and got away with it. She was a powerhouse persuader, and most of us just learned to give in and enjoy the ride. Frank never said NO to her, either. He would give her anything she ever wanted. And he loved every minute of it.

Margaret was a walking genealogy reference and historian—she could recite the names and addresses of each and every family who had lived in each and every house for a two-block radius over a seven-decade period. And she knew where the bodies were buried. She knew who was Catholic, who was Jewish, who was Heathen, who was kind, who was spirited, who was unkind. You could always run a character reference on someone you didn’t know.

And she was a great guardian of the ‘hood. At any hour of the day or night, she and Frank would chase ambulances and fire engines if they stopped nearby, always ready to help stressed-out people, always ready to fill in the details of the incident when you dropped by later.

This was Margaret’s neighborhood, and she felt safe and protected no matter what went on around her, because she remembered how safe and protected she had been as a little girl in the big house in the 1920′s and ’30′s. After all, she resided in the house for all but two of her 92 years and would never consider moving anywhere else.

Just the other afternoon, when Margaret’s daughter Becky walked across the yard to tell me her mom had gone away a few minutes earlier, still smiling, I felt the slam of a large dome dropping over the ‘hood. For a few moments, the dome retained all the laughter and fun we’d had over the  decades, laughing and talking and eating all the wonderful sweets the Selmans kept on hand for guests, all the babies and grandbabies and great-grandbabies Margaret had bounced on her knee, all the time she’d come to our rescue and we to hers. Then, the dome lifted, no longer needed, since all the good times were permanently embedded in my own memories and the memories of everyone who ever spent time with her. Now we can carry her sweet smile and bawdy laughter with us as inspiration for how we will treat our own family and acquaintances.

Margaret and Frank were the models for what good neighbors can be.

And rather than wistfully rue their passing, it’s fitting that I carry their legacy forward and become a model neighbor myself. As difficult as that might be

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/themysteryofthetiltedskirt.mp3

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In memory most fertile, my time machine takes me back to THE STAGE….THE THEATRE…THE COMPANY OF THESPIANS.

I’m way back in time now, when I am  a young teenager who loves nothing better than to be On Stage, acting in a play. Performing gets into my blood early on, in grammar school, when I learn that the only time anybody pays attention to what I do or say is when I am in front of an audience.

Don’t ask me why this is true, I don’t understand it myself. Other shy people have shared similar experiences—being shy, some of them naturally gravitate toward the performing arts.

Anyhow, being an ACTOR is fun. Mainly, because I get to be around ACTRESSES—they pay attention to me while girls at school primarily ignore me.

The fact that I’m an ACTOR instead of an ACTRESS is quite a relief. I’ve learned that wearing a dress or skirt or toga on stage is no fun at all.

For instance, I go down to the high school auditorium to try out for a part in a touring PASSION PLAY—the theatrical troupe needs local extras and I’ve never been in a national production, so I hang around till they cast me as one of Jesus’ disciples. I’m in yet another play!

During first rehearsal, I learn two valuable lessons—first, never do anything to distract the audience. I’m sitting at the Last Supper and Jesus is passing around bread and wine. As the bread nears, I notice that a cup is blocking the way and will probably be knocked over by the distracted actor sitting next to me. I quickly move the cup—just in time—but am also quickly chastised for the unrehearsed movement. Oops! I just upstaged Jesus himself!

The other lesson I learn is that biblical garb is airy—I’m wearing a short gladiator-length tunic and feel about as naked as a newborn. How do women adjust to this kind of potential exposure? Being a “pro,” I pretend it’s not a problem and manage to perform in the play and retain my modesty, but a major life decision is made: I’ll never accept a stage role that requires any garb other than pants. I’m not cut out to dress like modern women or ancient men.

My father is partially relieved, since his generation quietly fears that, by hanging around gay men and loose women in the theatre, I just might “become” one of the former or carouse with one of the latter. I wind up carousing with less-than-loose women a bit, so he replaces his homophobia with loosewomenaphobia. Talk about mixed emotions—he’s relieved I’m not gay, but now he’s worried I’m going to get into trouble with them female types!

Anyhow, I still enjoy the fact that women usually wear dresses and skirts, but I’m glad I’m not required to wear them. After acting, I know how it feels, and I am left with a kind of awe at how self-confident women must be compared to men. Makes me respect them that much more.

Guess I’ll hitch up my pants and see whether Liz would like to carouse

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Outside-in socks, neatly folded underpants

and buttoned-up Book-Em Danno shirts as evidence of character

This evening, I open the first big bag of wash-dry-fold from an unfamiliar neighborhood laundry and wish for the best.

After all, for decades, the Laundry Ladies at the just-closed Flamingo Cleaners have been taking care of us—the Reed family of 17th Street South. Each week, I gather everything dirty-but-washable into these drawstring bags and toss them over the banister to the foyer below. The resultant THUDS are part of the ritual of the morning. Then, I lug the bags to the car and drop them off on the way to work. At the end of the day, there are few things more satisfying than still-warm gently-sorted-and-folded sweet-smelling garments ready to be tucked away in closets and drawers. The most satisfying part of this ritual is the fact that, in all these decades, I haven’t had to wash a single item of clothing myself!

Back in a previous life, the task of sitting for hours in a laundromat usually fell to me, and I always considered it to be an incredible waste of perfectly good time. I recall as a small child watching my mother literally toil over clothes-washing, having to stir  and scrub them by hand in a tub, rinse them, wring them out, hoist the water-heavy garments onto her shoulders to the backyard, where they were one by one tidily smoothed straight and hung out to dry, later to be brought inside, pressed, sorted, folded and put away.

But, as I say, I got out of having to feed quarters into broken machinery many moons ago, and my mother eventually got some machinery that made her life somewhat easier. I just never got her toil out of my mind and hoped my wife would never have to do what she had to do.

Anyhow, the Laundry Ladies always took care of the task, usually with good humor and silent professionalism. And, unlike Mother, they were paid to do so.

But today is the first day I’ve had to use a new wash-dry-fold facility, and I’m hoping for the best.

As I empty the clothes onto the upstairs master bed, I’m pleasantly surprised. And grateful! That’s because I begin to realize, as I put things away, that the new laundry folder has added personality to the process. My socks, always turned inside-out because I wear them that way, have been methodically matched and turned outside-in, because that’s the way socks should be. My BOOK-EM DANNO shirts are not only folded, but they are buttoned up—something I’ve never experienced. Everything is categorized and ready to use.

This might be evidence of someone who truly loves the job of washing-drying-folding, someone who takes pride in the task, someone who gains some degree of satisfaction from having done well what could be considered an uninteresting and repetitive chore.

So, what’s the difference between this service worker and my previous Laundry Ladies?

Not much, on one level—the Laundry Ladies were very proficient, friendly, poorly paid and overworked, but they kept on keeping on, doing what they could do, and doing it dependably well. The mysterious new laundry worker is equally task-driven and polite, but that extra bit of care, that WILLINGNESS TO DO MORE THAN THE JOB REQUIRES, speaks of an earlier generation, an almost forgotten work ethic that only us geezers with good memories recall.

This makes me wish to do a shout-out of THANKS! to all people who rise above their potentially humdrum jobs. The people who take time to find some joy and satisfaction in the hands they are dealt. The people who tend to do that special one little thing beyond the call of duty and cause an involuntary smile to appear on a customer’s face.

Makes me want to be a better worker myself

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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15 IMMUTABLE RULES OF REAL LIFE

Listen to Jim:

http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/immutabile_rules1.mp3

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1.    Things don’t sell for what they’re worth, they sell for what they go for.

2.    An outgoing smile is no indication whether there will be an incoming one.

3.    Smile only if it makes you feel good…don’t expect it to be returned.

Appreciate it if it is.

4.    A fake smile is almost always detectable.

5.    If you find it hard to smile, just think about what is worth smiling about in your life

and go with that.

6.    A smile may not be your umbrella on a rainy rainy day, but it can help you have fun

getting soaked. Imagine Gene Kelly, who was running a fever the day he filmed the

famous rain scene.

7.    If you’re afraid you’ll lose face, trying to smile when you don’t feel like it, just sneer

and turn it upside down. Post this sign in front of you at all times: SNILE!

8.    First-class people associate themselves with first-class people Second-class people

associate themselves with third-class people.

9.    Do nice unto others as you would have them do nice unto you. But if they continue

not doing nice unto you, drop them and associate only with those who do.

10.  Smile a lot, at nothing at all. It will make people think you know something they

don’t. It will drive your enemies crazy. It will draw nice people to you and help you

identify people who aren’t.

11.  Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.

12.  Those who do not find their mittens do not get pie. Even if they find their mittens,

they still may not get pie.

13.  Sometimes, the sky really is falling.

14.  Every good idea eventually backfires.

15.  Even if something can’t possibly happen, it might.

© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

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“Hmm…this is…superb!” I say to Liz, who is sitting across the table from me at Cracker Barrel, digging into her Sunday lunch veggie plate.

I’m referring to the crunchy, heavily breaded and deep-fried boneless chicken part that just disappeared into my mouth. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted chicken that seems fresh and moist and crumbly all at the same moment. It’s as if someone just prepared it from an old family recipe. Is the Fast Food industry losing its touch and getting better?

I offer Liz a piece and she agrees with me. This is good stuff.

The restaurant crowd is loud and boisterous and mostly obese, but I’m happy to sacrifice peace and quiet and unattractive scenery for food that tastes like my aunts used to make in the old days.

We’ve fogotten that just-past-churchtime is the busiest time of the week, and the Cracker Barrel staff is more focused on processing incoming customers than sharing pleasantries and anecdotes. I try to break the ice anyhow: “This looks like Baptist Happy Hour here,” I say to the pale waitress with a smile, hoping she’ll smile back at my little attempt at humor. She thinks I mean that this is a peaceful period, so she comes back with, “This is the worst time of the week, and I’m not even supposed to be working this shift.” She strains a smile and goes about handling several tables at once.

Later, she offers more insight into her life. “I’ve been working for three hours today for just $22 in tips. These people don’t know we (the waiters) are paid $2 an hour and have to earn the rest from customers.” Turns out she’s desperate for money. “I broke my tooth and it really hurts—it’ll cost me $500 to get it fixed.”

As we finish up, the harried waitress buses the next table, picking up a $3 tip from a $50 tab. She grumbles to the busboy, who is sympathetic and tries to help.

Birmingham is not known as a town of big tippers. We’ve not gotten the 20% memo that much of the rest of the nation has received. They must not know our zip code.

I’m thinking I’ll give her a 50% tip as a gesture of understanding. Liz adds another $5. We leave, knowing we haven’t solved the $500 dental bill problem, but we are slighly proud of the fact that we listened to the server, as opposed to haughtily making small demands as if we’re the upper crust and everybody else is the Help. I see people doing that a lot in restaurants these days.

“Two dollars an hour?” I quip to Liz as we head home. “Is this a great country or what?”

There oughtta be a law

Lesley

Listen to Jim: http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/the9andonehalfmostprofoundthoughts.mp3

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The 9 1/2 Most Profound Thoughts Anyone Ever Had

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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