Category Archives: respecting the past

The Seventy-Cent Four-Minute Shopping Spree

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Historic Downtown Birmingham is my neighborhood, and my little bookstore and museum constitute the center of my personal universe. Most days, I live in the peaceful world by staying out of the way of gypsies, tramps, thieves, wolves and cranky people…but the one thing I can’t seem to avoid is the plethora of City Employee Attitude Provokers. These folks are scattered here and there, and they appear to pounce only when I least expect it…only when I am otherwise having a nice day.

We can take care of the elephants, but the gnats are annoying to the max.

FROM MY RED CLAY DIARY, JUST LAST WEEK:

It’s first thing in the bustling morning of the big city, and I do what I do at least three times a week—pull up to a parking space in front of the town’s only variety store, FAMILY DOLLAR, this time to pick up some trash bags and paper towels for the shop.

I check the winking metal meter and scrounge around for a nickel, which I know will provide six minutes of parking time, just enough for me to do my thing. There’s no nickel, but the dime I find will suffice—what the heck, I can spend twelve minutes looking at the gewgaws and jawing with the employees.

I stick the dime into the winking meter—and it just keeps on winking. Oops!  It’s another broken machine in the traditionally broken-meter ethos of Downtown. Maybe it was dozing instead of blinking…so I stick another dime in the slot. Blinking continues. At this point, I have to decide whether to risk receiving an overtime ticket, or just dash in, hoping to beat the system. Then, I notice a Meter Maid (don’t know what her real title is) who seems new to the beat. She’s checking cars and issuing tickets and she’ll soon be coming my way. I decide to let her know about the meter, so I won’t have to worry about the fine.

“Hi, I notice that this meter isn’t taking my money.”

She snaps, “What did you put in?”

“Two dimes.”

“Well, you have to put in a quarter,” she replies impatiently, which I know not to be the case—just guess she’s new to the beat and trying to seem efficient. I do not mention this fact.

“Hmm…wonder when they started requiring dimes only?” I say, searching my pocket for some quarters.

She doesn’t reply and huffs away to look at another meter.

I insert a quarter into Winky, and, sure enough, it continues to wink. No results.

“Uh, it isn’t taking quarters, either,” I say, since she’s only a few feet away.

She grimaces and snaps, “Well, how do I know you put anything  in the meter? I didn’t see you put it in.”

I’m stunned but still on task—I just want to make my FAMILY DOLLAR purchases and get to the shop before opening time. The only thing I can think to do is seize the moment. Maybe I’ll even check out those stylish satchel bags everyone’s been raving about—they’d make a perfect addition to my everyday look.

“Well, please witness this for me, I’m about to put another quarter in, but can you watch me this time?”

She freezes, can’t seem to think of any snappy comeback, and stands about two feet away looking at the meter while I place the quarter where it’s supposed to go. It doesn’t work. She WHAPS the side of the meter, hoping that will solve the problem, but the winking continues.

The Meter Maid starts to walk away, turns back for a second, waves her hand dismissively, and says, “You’re OK.” I take that to mean she won’t issue a penalty.

I make my purchase (it only takes four minutes) and am relieved that there is no ticket when I return.

I hop in my time machine and head for work, where I will spend the rest of the day laughing at the incident, marvelling at the unnecessary energy required to have just one tiny justice done on the streets, and hoping to avoid any additional encounters with City Attitude employees, at least for the rest of the day

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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The Six-Smile Double-Grimace Tapdance Trek to Fond Memoryland

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Wending my way from abode to workplace each morning is an experience roughly like driving a bumper car down the freeway or tapdancing around hidden land mines. I’m so relieved and happy to arrive unmolested that I have trouble remembering what it was that made the trek such an adventure.

Let me go back ten minutes in time and examine what happened:

I’m grateful for the smiles. The clerk at the pharmacy is so pleasant and anxious to please that I just can’t help smiling right back. She always asks if anyone ever told me I look like George Carlin. I always reply that she’s the only one, but that I’ll take it as a compliment.

A close-cropped-hair young man stands at the corner outside the pharmacy and begins his panhandler routine. I just say no and wonder how he affords the cigarettes and cell phone if he needs to solicit.

There’s a sign at the corner, FUNKY FISH FRY, which is three days out of date. If I’m to enjoy the fish, I’ll need to re-tool the time machine.

At the post office, the clerk is all smiley and friendly today, primarily because I drew the one who knows how to converse. We have a good, informative time. Yet another smile.

I drop my laundry off and have a pleasant interchange with the employee, who by now knows way too much about me, since she’s been cleaning my clothes for decades. That’s yet another smile.

Driving on toward the shop, I have a revelation—one that I can share at a speech I’m giving this evening. My generation says DUH (pronounced DUUUUUHHH, as in stupid). This generation says DUH (pronounced sharply, DUH!, as in disdainful). There must be some metaphor there. Another smile, this time from me. 

Two large ladies, lawfirm employees, never see me, though I walk past within inches of them outside the shop each day. All they can concentrate on are the cigarettes they’re frantically puffing on, and the gossip they are loudly sharing. All I can concentrate on is not inhaling, since secondary smoke is inescapable on my block.

I finally arrive at the front door and get a special, gigantic smile from the Piggly Wiggly mascot head in the show window. Within seconds, I’ll be safe from dread, boredom, addiction, neediness and superficial patter, all of which I’ve experienced between home and store.

For a few seconds, I’ll be peaceful and secure.

Then, I’ll roll the stone from before the entrance and open myself again to the World, the friendly shoppers, the saber-tooth tigers and the constant surprises that I later can write about on my little computer screen, just for you

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Notes in Bottles Float to the Center of the Universe

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Some days at the shop, my visitors remind me of notes sealed in bottles.

Each customer brings a message to me. Often, the customer is not even aware.

But I see the message and treasure it.

Some examples of messages plucked from bottles that floated to the center of the Universe, which is what Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories is, most definitely:

1. One reader tells me how he discovered his first John D. MacDonald book by accident, while staying at a rat trap motel back in the 1980′s. Since MacDonald was so good at describing the underbelly of Florida night life through the eyes of its movers and victims, it was the right time. I sell the customer a bio of MacDonald, wishing I had read it first. Travis McGee was one dude.

2. A good ol’ boy browser noses about with his wife, and manages to do something any ventriloquist would envy. He talks without touching his lips together. You’d have to be there, if you don’t already know what I’m experiencing. “All right” becomes “awe ITE” and “yeet yet?” is actually “Have you eaten yet?” and so on. He was a cool cat back in high school. His ducktail has thinned.

3. Another junkin’ couple cruises the shop, and the male partner expounds on his store of imcomplete knowledge: “See that Ray Bradbury book? You know, he created Star Trek. He’s dead now.” 92-year-old Bradbury is not in great health but he’s still happy to be alive, according to all reports. Don’t know whether the late Gene Roddenberry is happy.

4. One more curiosity-seeker walks around with his pal and is heard to say, “With all them computers, people ain’t even gonna need books no more.” Employee Marie Peerson overhears this and reports back. She, too, is entertained by messages in bottles, even if the bottles sometimes leak and make soggy the messages.

5. A large baseball-capped man is awed by the life-size stand-up of Elvira, Mistress of the Cleavage, or whatever her stage name is. “She got me through my formative years,” he chuckles.

6. One silent customer forces me to read his mind, as he looks at an old publicity photo of Lauren Bacall. “Does she feel as pretty as she looks?” and, studying a Rolling Stone Magazine with Tina Turner thereon, “Does she do it like she dances?” I distract myself from further mind-reading. As Bugs Bunny said, “Enough is enough, and too much is plenty!”

7. One enthused customer is everywhere at once, overwhelmed at the variety of literary treasures she’s unexpectedly finding in the shop. Her shoes defy gravity, and she finally purchases more than she intended. I wish for a moment that I possessed a remote control that would allow me to replay her energy for the inspiration of other customers.

8. A happy young man picks a leatherbound Robert Louis Stevenson collectible book for his library and is already looking forward to the next visit. Yet another collector spends the entire day carefully deciding upon which century his next selection will time-travel from. He loves it all.

9. A Lincoln-conspiracy scholar has me order two more obscure assassination study volumes for his collection. He and his wife are always smiling and satisfied when they leave. Wish I could bottle them, but they are already bottles, and I their opener.

So it goes.

Anybody anywhere anytime who claims the old-book business isn’t fascinating and educational and riveting just hasn’t dared to take the time to come in, spend an hour or two, and allow the tomes of yore to whisk them away to better lands and imaginations

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com