Life, actually…some forty years ago when the world first blossomed…

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THE GREAT WHITE MOBY-LESABRE

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The front driver seat is bent both backwards and sideways. It is askew because I am in the habit of driving with the left hand, my right arm draped over the back of the front passenger seat. You know—like cool and dreamy.

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Over a period of time, such unnatural pressure transforms the back-rest, thus guaranteeing that nobody else wants to drive the car in such a peculiar position.

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Nobody in the family wants to drive the car anyhow, since it is very large, very white, very dusty on the outside. I have washed it perhaps three or four times in ten years.

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It is a 1979 Buick LeSabre four-door and looks rather like Moby-Dick on wheels, according to my kids.

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It has faded red cloth upholstery and black wall tires and a decidedly third-world look.

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As I drive, the car tends to sway gently back and forth over potholes and speed bumps, kind of like a boat. I can’t hear anything outside on the road when the windows are closed, so I drive in a soundproofed booth.

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As I cruise I barely have the sense of driving since the car has automatic transmission power steering power brakes power transmission and the like.

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I love this car. Somewhere along the way my wife gives me something I’ve wanted for years: a car tape deck that not only plays cassette tapes, but records them, too.

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So, I can tool around the countryside dictating to the tape machine, recording my Red Clay diaries, singing at the bottom of my lungs into the microphone or screaming at the top of my lungs when I feel I can’t get away with screaming at anyone or anything else.

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And I can enjoy my very own music.

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It is grand self-therapy, driving this monster car and talking to myself,  afterwards dating and labeling the tapes so that I can someday transcribe and share them with you, whoever you may be.

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One day, Moby-LeSabre is stolen from in front of my home, and I never see that great white vehicle again.

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Gone is the comfort of a portable sound booth, gone the electronic voice- reproducing machine. Gone is my private little portable universe.

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I don’t spend too much time feeling sorry for myself, but I still dream of the day I can afford to purchase a 1957 Lincoln Continental or one of those other old restored cars that are tons heavier and inches longer than even Moby-LeSabre.

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Wonder if they will still be manufacturing audio cassette recorders when that day comes

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© 2022 A.D. Jim Reed

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Life, actually…

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MAKE YOUR DAY BETTER

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1. Never sniff your armpits in public.
2. Never sniff other people’s armpits in public.
3. Always wear shoes within Lego playrooms.
4. Never say “No problem.” Ever.
5. When you catch yourself frowning, smile broadly and hold on to it.
6. Remember, when someone is railing on you it means they are in pain, pain that you cannot readily identify. Don’t tell them you know they are in pain. Just listen intensely.
7. Come to a full stop at all stop signs. Assume that a law enforcement official is watching. Use wisely the time and money you save.
8. Limit yourself to two daily whines.
9. Never stare at cleavage.
10. Always say Good Morning or G’day.
11. Hold open the door for the person behind you. Don’t expect thanks but appreciate it when it happens.
12. Always thank the person who holds the door for you.
13. Leave the seat and lid down. Always.
14. When entering someone’s kitchen always ask, “How can I help?”
15. Dance first with the most ignored person in the room.
16. Never say “No thanks, I don’t drink,” when offered a drink. Simply smile and say “No thanks.”
17. Don’t proclaim that you are on a diet. Simply don’t eat what you do not wish to eat.
18. When trapped in an offensive political conversation back away and say, “Got to leave. I left my baby on the bus,” or something equally improvised. Do your part to avoid escalation.
19. If someone hands you a drink without asking, accept it. You can politely hold onto it without drinking.
20. Never assume you know the gender of a stranger. Pick your words carefully and politely.
21. Check the burners when you close the kitchen for the day. Always.
22. Tip generously except when asked for a tip.
23. When racing to a meeting or rendezvous always allot getting-lost time.
24. Show up two minutes early. Every time. Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.
25. Ask permission before examining someone’s tattoo or tee-shirt slogan.
26. Do not tap dance on shag carpeting.
27. Don’t tiptoe in high heels.
28. Proudly say “It’s a pleasure for you to meet me,” for the 864^th time. Everyone else lost count long ago.
29. Ask permission prior to hugging.
30. Do not mock or tease others’ flatulence. Your turn will come.
31. Do not honk. The life you save may be yours.
32. Smile and wave. It counts.
33. Suppress your belch.
34. Behave as if you are being filmed and recorded.
35. Don’t roll your eyes. People can hear.
36. Allow your good feelings to emerge. Make them show.
37. Crank down your cranky.
38. Leave a good impression. People remember how you make them feel.
39. Only use four-letter words that do no harm, such as grin, help, love, give, heal, hold, save, ease, boon, play, kiss, nice, earn…
40. Notice who you hang out with. First-class people associate with first-class people. Second-class people associate with third-class people.
41. Do nice unto others as you would have them do nice unto you.
42. Pay attention to paranoid people. Sometimes the sky really is falling.

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These 42 ideas get me through the day. What gets you through the day?

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I hope you have the greatest of all possible days

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Catch Jim’s podcasts on youtube: https://youtu.be/6WGsPQbUm2w

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Life, actually…

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THE ROTC UNIFORMED CUSHMAN TIME TRAVELLER LANDS IN PETERSON

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If I close my eyes, I am suddenly transported back in time more years ago than you have been alive.

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It is the early 1960s…

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I have a busy if not full life in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. As a student at the University, I keep myself occupied by not studying, by being an on-air announcer at several local radio stations, by attending class in order to catch naps.

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One class I am required to attend twice a week in full green wool uniform is the U.S.-run military program for male students called ROTC.

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Part of the reward for mandatory service in ROTC is the fact that the Army, needing soldiers for the neverending war in  Vietnam, has the theory that each of us will fall in love with the idea of giving up parties and romance and the good life to go to jungles far away, teaching enemies to do right.

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That is why I am wearing a full Army outfit after my classes are over. That is why, this day, I hop aboard my tattered Cushman motor scooter and drive as far away from the campus as possible, as fast as possible, to create a breeze on this 80-degree afternoon.

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The duct-taped vehicle is my only means of physical escape from T-Town.

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I head for the nearby tiny town of Peterson because I know how to get there. And because that’s where my grandfather’s general store is located.

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I pull up next to the Sinclair pumps, park the scooter out of harm’s way, take a look at Grandmother Effie’s flowers in the front yard, open the Miss Sunbeam Bread-bedecked screen door, and enter the store.

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Store and home are physically connected, and my grandparents’ lives are played out in a situation where they are never away from home, never away from work.

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Uncle Brandon is down on the concrete floor, constructing shelving out of cut strips of old Coca-Cola signs.

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Uncle Brandon looks like a cross between Stan Laurel and Will Rogers and is as funny as both of them.

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We palaver a bit and I go looking for Grandfather Robert. “Hey, Granddaddy, how are you?”

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We shake hands instead of hugging, since I am almost grown up now.

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“Doing OK,” he replies, monosylabically answering my questions about life, liberty and the pursuit of Grapico drinks.

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I wander around, inhaling the rich aroma of mildew, kerosene, bubble gum, ripe vegetables and leather combined with the powerful fragrance of my grandfather’s ever-present cigar.

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I observe off-shift coal miners stopping by for a drink and a chaw on their way home.

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“Gimme a Dope,” one of them smiles, slipping a dime onto the counter and grabbing a bag of Tom’s Toasted Peanuts which he carefully pours down the neck of a Coca-Cola bottle. Coke is Dope in these rural parts.

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I salivate at the thought of that heavy salt combining with the cane sugar fizz and making an unforgettable snack.

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I’ve made my visit. Shown off my ROTC uniform. Bragged about my radio jobs. Gossiped a bit. Now it’s time to head west toward Northport for my evening duties at WNPT.

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I am refreshed. I’ve seen my grandparents and uncle as well as postmistress Aunt Gladys, I’ve sniffed the memories of my early childhood. I am refreshed and energized.

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On the highway, I wend my way back to responsibilities and the feeling of purpose that to this day I get out of going to work each day.

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I want to remain in Peterson and live the quiet life. I want to be an on-air star and impress people with my talent. I want to toss this cotton-pickin’ wool uniform and hide from the draft, I yearn to date coeds, laugh with my younger siblings Tim, Rosi and Ronny, hug my mother, talk to older sister Barbara, try to get through to my stoic dad, lie abed late at night and listen to reel-to-reel tapes of Bob and Ray shows, fall asleep to the jazz emanating from WWL in New Orleans.

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All these generations later, I haven’t changed. I still want to be everywhere at once, every time at once. I still am happy at end of day in my solitude, floating in memories most textured and pleasing

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Listen to Jim’s Podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/therotcuniformedcushmantimetraveller.mp3

or read his story above.

Life, actually…

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TIPTOEING THROUGH THE TROUBLES

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Now and then I find the energy and inner fibre required to hoist an invisible bat. You know, the bat it takes to shoo away all those negative rants that keep hurling themselves at me.

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My best defense against loud and squeaky pessimism in these worrisome times is…humor.

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Yep, humor.

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I’ve tried just about everything else in this quest for peace of mind, quietude of attitude, calming of the stormy seas.

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Yelling back gets me nowhere when expert and practiced yellers abound.

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Logical rhetoric bounces off the negative screeds of doomsayers.

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Scientific evidence goes nowhere when wrestling words with a true believer.

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Even screaming into a pillow can only comfort me for so long.

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So, in order to get through the day, in order to cling to sanity and goodwill, in order to stay the course of a day worth living…I reboot my attitude with a dash of humor.

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BOTOX FOR PRUNES

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This seems like an idea worth pursuing. What could be more important in the middle of a political argument? I just step back silently and contemplate wrinkled prunes and their possible salvation.

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STOP PLATE TECTONICS

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A great way to fritter away the time I do not spend listening to gossip or crazed media shouters. I merely contemplate impossible projects.

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The great thing about hopeless causes is that they are never resolved. There is no danger of running out of project. It’s like building a pyramid with small pebbles. Let’s ban plate tectonics!

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When cornered by a hovering loquacious spouter of unfounded data and imagined magical solutions, I once again reach into my capricious mind and sink pleasantly into denial.

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INVERT ALL FROWNS

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What could it hurt? Take a frown, turn it upside-down, and I have the beginnings of a nice day. Just freeze that smile in place till the latest grim forebodings have passed on by.

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DUCK!

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As otherwise decent people resort to memorized what’s-this-world-coming-to rhetoric, I tend to look them in the eye, pretend to pay attention, and quietly dip into my trove of funny thoughts and merry musings. I duck.

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This is survival at its gentlest.

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Gentle is the only approach worth remembering when all the un-gentle actions of daily life run amuck.

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AMUCK OR AMOK. YOUR CHOICE!

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See, I do have choices that evade woke and dogma and power grabs and exploitation. I can just meditate on which fork in the road to take on my lifetime journey.

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I am the only person who can decide whether to run amok or amuck.

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I can tiptoe on by, hoping no-one will notice

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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THE DAY OF GOULASH AND GALOSHES

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I am a mere eight years old, in memory green.

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Some days I feel that eight-year-olds only come in groups of meres. One day I hope to become more than mere.

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I lie still, hiding in early morning bedclothes as I drift upward, slowly ascending from a deep sleep and even deeper dreams.

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In my dawn slumber I am swimming in a sea of heavy rubber galoshes. The galoshes change size and distance as they surround me. I try to grab one to try it on. Maybe wearing galoshes will help me survive this fantasy.

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Then, suddenly, I am awake, relieved by reality in the tiny bedroom.

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I examine my surroundings. All is well. The galoshes I wear on rainy treks to school sit right by the closet, safely dry and patiently awaiting my small toes.

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When I follow the sounds and fragrances of breakfast, I find my mother multi-tasking in her kitchen. Each stovetop burner is bubbling into life a different surprise. Grits and eggs prepare themselves under her watchful eye, biscuits call out from the oven as they transform from doughy to fluffy.

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On one burner, a covered pot produces its own aroma. I wonder what it contains.

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“Goulash,” Mother proclaims. “We’re having goulash for supper.”

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My mind, just having suppressed a multi-galosh attack, immediately imagines a cauldron of steaming rainwear. Will the end product be chewy and tough?

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I race back to the bedroom and grab the tattered dictionary, so filled with mysterious words and meanings and spellings.

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“Soup’s on!” Mother calls. Now I’m really confused. Does she plan to serve a stew of galoshes? That can’t be, my struggling-to-grow-up brain tells me.

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There it is! The dictionary reveals all! Goulash does not ordinarily contain shoe fixings, so I won’t be dreading suppertime all day.

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I return to the kitchen and help Mom set and serve for us three kids.

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To this day, the special flavors and textures and odors of a lovingly prepared fast-breaking homecooked meal can make my stomach rumble in anticipation.

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I finish eating just as Mom says, “Better get you galoshes. It’s going to be a wet walk to school.”

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My eyes widen. I bravely go to the bedroom, glancing deeply into the rubber footwear for signs of goulash. I sit on the floor and poke my shod feet into the dark interiors.

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I am now girded for the next adventure

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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RUNNING HOT AND COLD

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When life runs hot, I run cold.

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One good way to survive these oven days is to slip into some cool thoughts.

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Many years ago, my daughter Margaret and I figured out how to manage

our un-air-conditioned home in mid summer. We dug up some old Christmas music LPs and cassettes and pretended it was snowing.

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It got us through.

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So, here is a freezing frozen memory of our Deep South village, not that many Januarys ago…

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Dear Red Clay Diary,

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Last week seems like a week ago. Wait—it actually was a week ago.

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Remember how uncharacteristically cold it was in this Deep South city? How blindsided we all were when the Sunny South became a deep freeze? When short sleeves and toeless shoes suddenly seemed precisely the wrong things to wear?

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Here are crumpled notes I found in my pockets, once the temperature rose a bit:

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The cold day surrounding us tells its own story, while we attempt to survive being within the belly of this icy beast.

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Babies’ rosy cheeks become chapped.

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Out-of-shape adults walk the Tim Conway walk to avoid sprains and breaks.

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A woman sheds tears and wrings her hands out of fear that she won’t make it home to warmth and safety.

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Helpers appear magically out of nowhere, making themselves available to those of us who feel helpless.

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The snow cushions sounds and makes the world seem tranquil amid the chaos.

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Some stranded drivers decide to remain calm. Others panic. Others curse.

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Others just take notes for later stories.

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The Southern tradition of going barefoot suddenly seems a laughable concept.

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Visiting snowbird tourists wonder at The Sunny South they are seeing.

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Heroes abound: hospital and nursing home workers, firefighters, self-sacrificing motorists, teachers and school staff, good neighbors, police officers, 911 and Crisis Center operators, little kids rescuing little birds, city street workers.

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Caring instantly trumps Selfishness.

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What lessons did we learn from the Great Disruption?

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1. It doesn’t take much to bring out the best in some of us.

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2. It’s nice to know that people can be kind when given the opportunity.

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3. Strangers can became lifelong friends in just a few hours.

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4. Whether we like it or not, we do depend upon each other.

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There were more lessons learned. Can you add to this list?

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Perhaps it would be an uplifting exercise for all of us to compile a list of lessons learned.

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It could always be referred to next time we wonder what this world is coming to

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 © Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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Listen to Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/Rjs7gKIU36k

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or read his story…

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CAUGHT WHISTLING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LIFE

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Roy Rogers is standing horseless on the big white movie screen before me. I’m just a kid sitting in the darkened theatre, watching Roy’s every move.

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I munch my popcorn slowly, since I can only afford a small bag, since I must share it with brother Ronny, since there is only one watered-down cola drink between us.

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Roy-on-the-screen has just punched out a bad guy. Now he needs to rush to the defense of a far-off damsel in distress, but where is his pal Trigger? Roy wipes away the smudge on his cheek, grabs his white hat, and whistles loud and clear. From outside the screen, a beautiful palomino races to his side, barely slowing down as Roy hops astride. They gallop to the rescue to save the day.

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A whistle is all it took.

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Ronny and I sit through Roy’s movie a second time, impatiently tolerating the animated cartoon, endless previews of coming attractions, and episode six of an action-packed serial.

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I can’t wait till Roy whistles again, since I’ve never been able to whistle like that. My whistles are kind of under-the-breath affairs that don’t pierce the air. Whistles that never produce a golden horse with spangled saddle.

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Ronny and I step into blinding sunlight and head for the bus stop, knowing we have to be home by late afternoon. I whistle a tune much like the kind produced by Bing Crosby to accompany his songs. Ronny hums background music in imitation of the movie score.

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Bad guys and good guys alike are always backed up by dramatic music played, I suppose, by an orchestra just out of screen shot.

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Now it’s today, countless decades later, and I hear Roy’s whistle just out of screen shot. I am suddenly alert and turn to see a scaffold-high hard hatted workman signaling for the attention of his down-below assistant on a construction site.

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I start whistling under my breath in fond memory. As I enter the market, I whistle to accompany another man of a certain age who is whistling to himself in a nearby aisle.

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He and I and many other old-timers whistle so much we don’t even know it, much to the bemusement of shoppers and family.

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I remember my mother telling us kids that she heard my father long before she ever saw him. She would hear him whistling to himself in the neighborhood and wonder what he looked like. Apparently he passed muster and helped produce five children and a lifetime marriage with her.

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I became because of a whistle. Imagine that!

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When you hear an under-the-breath whistler whiling away the day, think kindly of me and my heroes: the workers, the shoppers, Roy Rogers, Tommy Reed, and all the other dudes who roam their imaginations while awaiting their golden stallions

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© 2022 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Life, actually…

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ONE LITTLE GIRL, ONE MAGIC DOOR

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One magic wand is all she lacks this sunny morning.

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I’m in front of a certain pharmacy, one that sports these automatic sliding aluminum-and-glass doors. Doors that open and close depending upon who or what triggers the electric eye that never blinks.

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One person, and only one person, is transfixed by these sliding doors.

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The small girl standing inside the doorway has no inkling of what makes these doors open and close, so when she moves near them in order to go outside, they quickly and Star Trekkily whoosh open.

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She stops, gazes up at the doors in abject wonder and surprise. She backs away to get a better look.

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Backing away causes the doors to whoosh closed, thus making the little girl in the red dress freeze in her tracks in an attempt to figure things out.

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She’s temporarily unsupervised, so at this exact moment, she exists only in her self-made world and must bravely use her own mind without the stiff intervention of adults.

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Her eyebrows go up, an idea pops like a light bulb above her head, and she decides that she possesses magical powers, just like those magical powers that characters in her storybooks use.

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She waves her magic-wand arms toward the doors and they open.

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Now she has proof that the Power is hers!

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She steps away to survey her tiny kingdom. The doors close again.

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She jumps up and down, claps her hands and smiles Cheshire-like into the morning air.

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The adults around her do not notice her drama. She tentatively repeats it now and then.

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Just as suddenly as it all begins, the little red-dress girl is pulled by her adult companion towards the rear of the store, and the magical spell is broken.

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Only she and I know that we just witnessed a miracle that nobody else will ever understand quite the way we understand it

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Visit Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/JmymRx2Kr4k

.

Life, actually…

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(A note from my Red Clay Diary: Many years ago when things were different but always the same, this happened right in front of me. I often wonder whatever happened to this frantic, disoriented soul and her baby.)

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JUNKER JUNKIE

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She’s struggling to get that big junker of a belching-fume car into a parallel parking space in front of Tony’s Terrific Hotdogs up on Second Avenue North in the tattered remains of downtown and the kid beside her is screaming its head off and she’s trying to shut it up and at the same time keep the lit cigarette from falling off the hand she’s using to guide the big, power-steeringless vehicle into some crooked semblance of a resting position and it’s hot and muggy and steamy already and it’s only 9:30 on a Saturday morning, for God’s sake, and the car’s air conditioning system died about ten years ago and was never resuscitated and her bangs are beginning to mat to her forehead and she’s hoping that the drugstore across the street from Tony’s is open on Saturdays because she has to get some Preparation H for her invalid mother and her absentee husband is three years behind on child-support payments and her sleazeball lawyer keeps sending bills to get her to pay for the work he’s done to try and get the guy to make his child-support payments and the lawyer sure managed to generate a lot of paperwork that never quite caused the fictitious payments to start appearing in the mailbox but he expects to get his attorney’s fees anyhow which means that she is basically supposed to start paying the child support fees she isn’t getting from her estranged husband to this attorney so that even if the support money started coming in it wouldn’t do her any good because she’d have to turn around and pay it to the lawyer and how did she get herself into this mess in the first place?

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Well, she guessed it had all started one adolescent evening at Roebuck Park when she decided that intimacy and marriage would have to be better than living with broken parents in a broken home within a broken neighborhood in a broken city so she stopped saying no after the hundredth time and said yes just one time and that about wrapped up her date with fate and determined the course of the next fifty-odd years of her life unless some miracle occurred to change all that and since being a Baptist hadn’t seemed to help much about all she could hope for now was a UFO abduction or the lottery or a good horoscope to change her life and she could not imagine what else might change her life except maybe if she stopped worrying about her no-good husband and no-good lawyer and decided to say yes just one time to that good-looking beeraholic neighbor with the relatively new pickup truck who kept asking her out just maybe if she said yes to him he might save her and change her life and help her get this damned junker fixed and sweaty screaming kid made happy and her invalid mother the correct kind of medical care and then life would be just about complete, wouldn’t it

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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