*

THANKSGIVING: THE HAPPIEST SAD DAY OF THE YEAR

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

*

Oh there are many other sadnesses you can find if you look hard enough, in this variegated world of ours, but a little old lady dining 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.

*

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.

*

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

*

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.

*

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.

*

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 every thought of eating them except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were home free the rest of the year!

*

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

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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 glance and a smile

*

(c) 2009 A.D. Jim Reed

HALLOWEEN IS NEVER OVER

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/scariest_stories1.mp3

or read his story below:

Once you’ve read the scariest books ever written, Halloween is never over, and you are never the same.

Now that the silly and frolicsome Day of the Living (the commercial free-for-all that Halloween has become) is done and gone, let’s contemplate some really scary stuff…the stuff that nightmares are made of.

The scariest book I ever read: CASTAWAY by James Gould Cozzens, published in 1934.

I don’t know why every teacher of literature, every writing instructor, isn’t assigning this book to students who are interested in really writing scary, writing well. This book leaves a lifetime impression and may even defy categorization. It could be called a horror story, though nothing really supernatural occurs. It could be called a dark fantasy, but there are no levitations or spells or exploding heads. It could be termed a remarkable work of avant-garde fiction, but nothing about it is pretentious. It might be a mystery, but it’s even hard to define what’s mysterious about it.

I won’t reveal more, because I want you to read it for yourself. Let’s just say it’s the story of a man trapped in a department store. Let’s just say it might be a re-telling of ROBINSON CRUSOE. Let’s just say it’s a survivalist tale, a morality tale.

Let’s just say it will stick with you.

The amazement of books such as this is that one short line can make you jump, can make your neck-hairs stand on end, can bring chills…

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So…here’s my list of the scariest books/stories ever written…and a tiny excerpt designed to make you cringe and read on…

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CASTAWAY by James Gould Cozzens

(“What he would do if he heard it, Mr. Lecky did not know. In despairing anticipation he feared to hear as much as he feared not hearing anything. To be pursued and know it was hardly better than to be pursued and not know it…”)

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DRACULA by Bram Stoker

(“As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not

repress a shudder…”)

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IT’S A GOOD LIFE by Jerome Bixby

(“Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops–but it was a good

day.”)

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ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe

(“…my only way to go about an attempt for an escape was,

if possible, to get a savage into my possession…”)

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THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells

(“And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again,

and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.”)

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I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson

(“A coughing chuckle filled his throat.

He turned and leaned against the wall while he swallowed the pills.

Full circle, he thought while the final lethargy crept into his limbs.”)

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NIGHTMARE ALLEY by William Lindsay Gresham

(“How do you get to be a geek? I can’t understand how anybody can

get so low.”)

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OCTOBER GAME by Ray Bradbury

(“Then…some idiot turned on the lights.”)

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THE THIRTEEN CLOCKS by James Thurber

(“Even if you were the mighty Zorn of Zorna, you couldnot escape the fury of the Duke. He’ll slit you from your guggle to your zatch…”)

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–Jim Reed © 2009 A.D.

I am a hugger.

Not a mugger, not a lugger, not a slugger…but a hugger.

I generally keep my emotional and/or physical distance from strangers, but when I really like somebody, and when it’s safe to do so, I tend to greet them with a hug—or at least a handshake.

Over the decades, I’ve evolved. One of the few advantages of aging is that I now see patterns in things, cause-and-effect phenomena in things…so that my behavior has subtly shifted.

Some things I’ve learned about hugging:

1.  Some people respond readily to a quick hug and seem flushed with pleasure at this nice surprise.

2.  Some people respond but quickly back away, as if they don’t know what to do after a hug.

3.  Some people stiffen and don’t respond to the hug. These are folks I won’t hug again, unless they initiate.

4.  Some people back away and will do anything to avoid a hug in the first place.

5.  Some people hug a little too long and make me want to back away.

6.  Some people, at first reluctant at each hug, now approach me as if they will actually miss the hug if I don’t provide it.

7.  Some guys are huggable, but others try to avoid it because, well, they don’t think it’s guyish. These are often older or elderly guys, whose generation doesn’t cater to this kind of behavior.

8.  Some people exude a kind of sensuousness when I hug them, so I tend not to try to hug them again, lest something happens. This used to occur a lot more when I was young…with sometimes pleasant results. No more—I’ve been happily monogamous for more than three decades.

Even after studying hugging for sixty years, I still don’t know why most huggers pat each other on the back.  Maybe it’s a kind of sign language that says, “Just hugging! Nothing more is meant!”

Anyhow, there’s lots of horror and sorrow and grief in the world that’s beyond my control. Maybe hugging is something I can do that reminds me that people can be pleasant to one another, even when they can’t think of anything comforting to say aloud

© Jim Reed 2009 A.D.

www.jimreedbooks.com

THOUGHTS WORTH HAVING

Question: Does the Universe comprise a series of acts by an absentee god?

Question: When we congratulate a winner, are we glad the winner is glad but at the

                 same time jealous and resentful?

Question: Is the product Harris Famous Roach Tablets marketed solely to famous

                  roaches? Archie was one famous roach, but I don’t recall any others. Or

                  are the tablets themselves famous, and marketed to people who want to

                  kill unknown roaches?

Question: Is a trash can actually a time capsule? A receptacle of memories?

Question: How do graduates of the DUI School celebrate?

Question: In the film The Sky’s the Limit, Fred Astaire gets to dance on a bar and

                  angrily kick glasses to pieces. The song is One More for the Road. How

                  come I can’t get away with doing that?

Question: I think I’d like to be a medium fish in an insignificant pond. Wait! Isn’t               

                  that what I  am?

Question: An optimist sees the glass as half full. What is a person who sees the glass and wants to know who drank half the water?

Question: Is it true that deceased Veterans didn’t die for me, they just died instead of me

–Jim Reed © 2009 A.D.

WE LOOK BEFORE AND AFTER, AND PINE FOR WHAT IS NOT

Just behind me, hanging from the 103-year-old mantel of our 103-year-old home, is a passel of eyeglasses.

These eyeglasses are gathered there for the temporary distraction or pleasure or horror of anyone who cares to try them on or watch somebody try them on.

Come into our dining room/writing room/art room and take a look at the world through these eyeglasses…or let the world marvel at the new and altered you in the act of wearing these eyeglasses.  Let’s see…what glasses can I spot at this moment?

There are the Backwards Shades, a double-whammy of a young person’s dream—when you don these, nobody can see your eyes, so they don’t know what you’re looking at. But, more interesting than that is the bonus fact that the inside edges of the dark lenses are mirrored. That means you can see whatever is behind you, too! There are things you will enjoy spying when nobody knows you can see them, such as a quick smooch. There are things you are sorry you saw, such as somebody snickering or rolling their eyes at you.  It’s almost as good as that adolescent fantasy of turning invisible and being able to see people who can’t see you, or entering forbidden places undetected. These are cool glasses! And no batteries needed!

How nice to not only watch where you are going, but where you have been, all at the same moment.

Then, there are pairs of 3-D eyeglasses, both the polarized gray ones and the red-and-green ones. In my adulthood, I’ve spent much time viewing the Mars Rovers’ 3-D images direct from Mars…and in my early youth, I gazed in wonder at Wonder Woman’s bosom and Superman’s fists in 3-D comic books.

How nice to see a flat world suddenly have depth and perspective!

I wish somebody would invent 2-D glasses so that I could view people who get in my face as non-threatening and paper-thin.

Of course, I never know when to stop. I also own X-Ray Vision glasses (better wear your lead underwear when you visit!), nerd glasses, psychedelic glasses, rose-colored glasses, telescopic glasses, and even the dilated-pupil-protector glasses you get at the eye doctor’s.

Why is all this stuff around?

Maybe because reality is repetitive and sometimes needs a pick-me-up view.

Maybe because the limited world presented to me out of habit has many angles and details that can only be viewed by changing the spectrum a bit.

Maybe because it’s fun to see somebody giggle when they wear these things or see somebody else wear them.

Maybe just because I’m the one who needs to giggle once in a while, just to get outside my pink, wrinkled body bag and take an oblique look at an all-too-real world

© Jim Reed 2009 A.D.

Listen to Jim:

• 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 2009 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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JUST GIVE ME A GOOD LAUGH NOW AND THEN

One of the funniest sight gags I ever saw was in a Bob Hope-Bing Crosby movie back in the 1940’s. 

 As a tad, it probably didn’t take much to make me laugh, because the aging process had not yet presented life’s back-stories to me.

Anyhow, in this Hope-Crosby Road movie, Hope has pulled off his shoes and is ready to go to bed. Note that Hope and Crosby always slept together, as did Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and a lot of other comic teams. Anyhow, Bob Hope’s toes are showing through the ends of his socks, when Bing says something like, “Better get some shoe polish to cover that up.”

May not sound like much to you, but this was exactly the kind of humor a six-year-old could grasp, and it opened the door to many more sight gags that other comedians would make me laugh out loud over: Abbott and Costello enter a restaurant when the headwaiter says, “Walk this way!” meaning “follow me to your table.” Of course, Costello walks with the same snooty sway as the headwaiter. Now, that was easy to understand and very funny to me and my friends.

Back then, before a theatrical movie began , we’d be entertained by a cartoon, a serial chapter, some previews, and–wonder of wonders–what we called a “Pete Smith Short.” In one of those brief Pete Smith movies, a bus stops, a woman gets off and walks through a shallow mud puddle, then the man behind her disembarks and sinks into the same puddle over his head. Again, how could life get any funnier than that?

The most beautiful sight gag I ever saw was Red Skelton, at the practice bar with several ballerinas, getting ready to place one unbent leg straight out to rest on the bar, which he does. Then, in an astounding act that looked as logical as any six-year-old’s idea of logic can become, Skelton raises the OTHER unbent leg to place it on the bar at the same time. Now, it happened so fast, in those days before slow-mo’ photography, that you just knew for a split second that it would work. Of course, it didn’t, which makes it funny to this day, in my mind. Even later, when Ed Wynn did the same thing, it again seemed logical.

Now, there are worse things than being brought up watching Bob Hope and his contemporaries do silly things on the silver screen. I needed those funny folks to get me through the tough times, and I grew to expect them to be there when I needed them.

And they always were.

Before you send me to the nursing home to languish away my final days, put a stack of old movies in my lap in the wheelchair, and let me watch them. Bring on all the Benny Hill, Mr. Bean, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Bob & Ray, Laurel and Hardy, Trevor Noah, Red Skelton, Steve Allen, Chris Rock, Soupy Sales, Mort Sahl, Henny Youngman, Phyllis Diller, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, Groucho Marx, Clevon Little, Jacques Tati, Stan Freberg and company stuff you can afford and let me sit there chuckling at the guys and gals who got me through to this age.

If I’m lucky, I’ll take the chuckles and the sight gags with me.

Thanks for the memories 

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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