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Life, actually…

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WHITE KNUCKLES

 .

Mac McMack leans over sideways in the Yelloworange Traffic Threader, his right elbow indenting the moveable armrest, his left arm, attached to the steering wheel,  making little jerking motions as he weaves through traffic.

.

Mac McMack calls out his thoughts to no-one in particular.

.

“Damn Cadillacs take up most of the road,” he grumbles, as I, sitting in the back seat, scrunch my shoulder blades together hoping to magically decrease the width of the cab so that it won’t lodge between the passing Caddie on the left and a parked car on the right.

.

Mac puffs heartily on a cigarette while I cough and search frantically for the seat belts he has long ago surgically removed.

.

“Damn old people complain about a $2.45 fare to take ‘em six blocks,” he says in response to an undecipherable call on the two-way.

.

“They don’t understand what it costs to drive one. Spent $157.00 for brakes last week.”

.

There is a brief pause while he ponders his observation.

.

He thuds through one of the town’s obligatory potholes.

.

” Hmmph!” he finally says.

.

Mac McMack’s sandy 1950′s ducktail hairdo is about the only neatly-kept part of his being, and he is cutting corners—indeed, driving over curbs—to get where he is taking me.

.

The muffler bangs rhythmically on the underside of the cab. Mac starts blowing his horn at a red car that is leaking over into his lane. He never seems to see anything more than half a block ahead—so, unloading-trucks and stalled vehicles immediately cause the cab to stop and Mac to start cussing again.

.

He pulls up into a handicapped space at the Post Office so that I can pick up mail. I hurry in, wondering whether my Iranian carpetbag will still be waiting for me when I return.

.

Somehow we arrive at the bookshop, I give Mac McMack a tip in gratitude for my life. I quickly get out of his way.

.

Last I see of him, he is weaving across three lanes in his Yelloworange Traffic Threader, cursing the universe and all its purposeful obstacles.

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How I wish at this moment that I could return to my hometown as a child, getting on a bus to go downtown, a bus driven by somebody I actually know and feel safe around.

.

I kind of wish that Mac McMack could also remember how nice it was at one time in his life to be quietly and politely shuttled around in a yesteryear small town where people who don’t necessarily always like each other at least act neighborly towards each other.

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Because after all they would be crossing each others’ paths for the rest of their lives

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/cZ82suLes4w

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Life, actually…

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BROKEN NEWS AND TIME-TAKERS

.

Sometimes I grow weary of BREAKING NEWS. At times like this I want to unplug all the external influencers and take a moment to ponder what is really, really important.

.

Assuming the news is now officially BROKEN NEWS, I can do away with the idea of dancing to those constantly arrhythmic ALERTS and just try to listen to the quiet.

.

Listen to the quiet.

.

Gazing around this deep south village, I watch for the real souls who are otherwise ignored in my haste to Get There, my haste to be so busy Getting There that I can no longer recognize when I actually Arrive There.

 .

There’s one now. A real soul. Note that he is not part of the hive.

.

He takes his time. He is a time-taker. He wins my day.

.

Actually, he does not take time away from me. Instead, he nurtures and notices time. He does not hurry and squander. He rows slowly and closes in on what is really worthy of his time.

.

He is now the official spokesperson for all wise and kindly people who take time to pat the roses, assist the infirm, bolster the melancholic, comfort the disoriented.

.

Look, there’s another soul!

.

She is another official spokesperson for all wise and kindly people who do not realize how wise they are, who do not take time to describe themselves as wise and kindly because they are too busy being wise and kind.

.

I see them here and there as daily hours roll past.

.

They are easy to miss, these special people.

.

They are underappreciated because I am so busy basking in the goodness they exhale with every breath, the goodness that propels me to be better, to try harder. The goodness that refuses to fold under pressure of negativity and cynicism, power mongering and steamrolling.

.

Their goodness endures because its roots are invisible. Defoliants can’t get to them.

.

As I said, at this very moment, there is one of them walking toward me.

.

I can sense a free child basting within her smile.

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And oh, what a smile

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/FWQ4WacKMug

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Life, actually…

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WEARING MY MEMORIES

.

(Looking back some 35 years, just after I lost my one and only Father)

.

It’s just a tweed jacket that’s old before its time, but I hate to let it go.

.

I’ve been wearing it and wearing it and wearing it, and it feels as good as my skin. By now it’s about as baggy as my skin, and besides, who needs a new tweed jacket when you’ve got one that feels this nice?

.

I usually wear it all during the cooler months, most of the time with jeans and tennis shoes or khaki pants and tennis shoes.

.

Sometimes I vary my wardrobe and wear something besides a black shirt—my usual apparel. Get the shirts at a priest boutique—one of those stores selling religious paraphernalia. I like ‘em because they don’t have buttons showing and because nobody else (but priests and preachers) wears them.

.

So, you’ll usually find me going to the post office and the pharmacy and the shop on a workday (every day) wearing that baggy tweed coat, the black or grey priest shirt, and those smudged old tennis shoes complete with clean underwear and an old leather belt and jeans or trousers of some kind.

.

The closest I ever come to dressing up is to dredge out my previous-life dark suit, my current-life red bow tie and one of those priest shirts, along with the standard black dress shoes and socks that once were mired deeply in corporate intrigue, corporate sin.

.

The tweed jacket belonged to my father. Since he died, I’ve taken him with me via the old jacket to such places as relatives’ homes;

Washington, DC; Radford, Virginia; Cuba, Alabama; Lookout Mountain, Tennessee; Atlanta, Georgia; and home every day, to have him comfortably near the family as we go about our funny and furious routine of living.

.

The old tweed jacket was nice and new-looking when I first tried it on after the funeral, and I’ll have to retire it to the closet after a time, since Dad wouldn’t have liked thinking his clothes ever looked shabby in public.

.

The good memories of my father I can wear all the time, anyhow, so I’d best be about the business of weaning myself and remembering the times before I donned this nice old piece of cloth.

.

The important things my father left me aren’t shabby at all

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube:

https://youtu.be/eNCj3qO-b6k

,

Life, actually…

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THE FIFTEEN-MINUTE CHARITABLE DONATION SPREE

.

Let’s say that you plan to donate fifteen minutes of time to me. Fifteen minutes that I may employ in any manner I please.

.

Fifteen unconditional minutes of time.

.

When you make this charitable donation to me, how will I spend it?

.

Within the pages of my Red Clay Diary, here is a record of one fifteen-minute free space:

.

I sit in my car, motor idling and AC humming. With every tick of the tock, I am honored with sights and sounds and thoughts that might otherwise evaporate unnoticed. But this time I am paying attention to the donation.

.

I sit temporarily incarcerated before the double-padlocked whitewashed wood door of a solid barn-red building. A flea market resting quietly beside Highway 31, north of the village of Gardendale.

.

The otherwise empty parking lot is all mine for a few moments. I stare at the rusty tin roof, scan the plastic flowers in a show window, flowers awaiting the next funereal funeral, the next obit.

.

The elongated one-story structure archives thirty years of fond and curious memories, memories of hundreds of my visits made over the years, memories of trolling for all those artifacts that stand fragile and stoic.

.

Each artifact is a time capsule awaiting examination. Each is nonverbal company, each fond memory re-discovered stimulates a fresh diary entry.

.

Sounds silly, but this is a very real part of my Alabama life. So there.

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On the other side of the padlocked door, uneven floors covered with carpets and rugs absorb the deep humidity. On this side, small scraggly flowers and weeds intermingle with asphalt and concrete parking stops.

.

I speak to my journal and my journal reciprocates as a marker pen scrawls these captive snapshots. Fifteen minutes. Feels like all the time in the world.

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Does anybody dust the plastic petals? Does anybody douse them with liquid plastic?

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A car pulls up next to mine. A familiar orange-sweatered manager fiddles with locks, carries a box of sinfully-decorated doughnuts and pastries…provisions for the upcoming workday.

.

I sigh. My fifteen-minute gift is well-spent. The next fifteen minutes will be spent talking and signifying with the guardians of this rustic haven.

.

Then I proceed to cruise and form silent friendships with each archived memory on display within this special den of antiquity

.

© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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SOMEWHERE IN TIME IS WHERE WE ALL ARE

 

The time is a quarter of a century ago, when I am younger and enthusiastically touring the countryside spreading my joy of literature and writing and literary-type ideas.

.

I’m seventy-five miles thataway, speaking to a civic group about shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—of cabbages—and kings—and why the sea is boiling hot—and whether pigs have wings.

.

After attentive questions and a warm ovation, I step forth to greet anyone willing to approach me.

.

There is one attractive young woman with closely cropped shiny black hair who wants to talk to me, and it turns out that she hopes I can find an out of print book for her, so I guess my time off from work isn’t wasted in terms of income.

.

She also describes herself as someone who goes berserk over small things–tending to become obsessive over objects and ideas she becomes interested in, learning all about them, collecting them, hoarding them, ranting over them.

.

 

She is irritated with another, older woman who comes up to shake my hand, because for this minute this young blackhaired woman is in possession of me and my three minutes.

.

When they have both turned away, there’s a most pleasant surprise: An elderly woman, calm and elegant, comes forward and tells me she knew the turn-of-the-century actress Maude Adams when she was attending Stephens College many years ago.

.

“You know, she was a tiny thing—that’s why she was able to play Peter Pan and other roles like that,” she smiles.

.

I am amazed. I’ve never met anyone who knew who Maude Adams was, much less someone who knew her personally.

.

“She no longer acted, but she was very active on the campus,” she muses.

.

The whole subject had come up in my speech, when I was telling my audience about the reasons people collect things—it’s just plain fun, and it takes your mind off the world’s cares for a while.

.

There are people throughout the country who study and view the film SOMEWHERE IN TIME, which was inspired by author Richard Matheson’s love for the actress Maude Adams. Jane Seymour played her, and Chris Reeve and Chris Plummer played characters based on people in Ms. Adams’ life.

.

It’s a story of unrequited love—the kind of story you can’t get out of your mind.

.

Years later, the book BID TIME RETURN and its offspring, the movie SOMEWHERE IN TIME, can still make you cry and wonder and reminisce about impossible hankerings you’ve had in your life, thoughts about love and life and the hereafter.

.

So here I am, somewhere in time, speaking at a small-town country club just days after I’ve located a 1906 copy of Burr McIntosh Monthly Magazine sporting a color cover photograph of Maude Adams dressed as Peter Pan, and I’m talking with a woman who knows all about Maude Adams from first hand experience—everything there is to know about her, except for one thing: this woman has never heard of the movie SOMEWHERE IN TIME.

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It’s a fascinating world some days, especially when you aren’t planning for it to be a fascinating world

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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THE RELATIVITY OF RELATIVES

 .

Where I am now is in this Deep South town, on an overcast, damp, humid evening. It’s the place to be. Even when it’s cold and wet, even when it’s dry and steamy, this is the place I want to be

.

This is the place I have chosen to live. That’s because I believe that everybody around me is related to everybody else in every humid, dry, cold and steaming town in the world. We are family.

.

Einstein was right. Everything is relative. What Einstein failed to go on to say is: Relativity is everything. In fact, relativity is everybody.

.

We are all related in some manner, a fact at once beguiling and frustrating, at times horrifying to think, and at times provocative.

.

If we are all kin, most of us don’t like to admit it except when it’s convenient.

.

Lots of us humans like to go on and on about how we’ve traced our roots all the way back to Somebody Famous Way Back When. Notice the farthest-back relative is always a historical figure?

.

Not only am I a descendant of that notorious being, I am also descended from the forty-first second cousin of a blacksmith’s assistant nobody ever heard of. I’d like to know more about him. Or her.

.

We all share common ancestry—and you have to believe that, whether you’re an evolutionist or a religionist.

.

So, if we’re all in the same family, why do we sometimes treat cousins and sisters and offspring different from neighbors, foreigners and aliens? Why is my lineage so much more interesting than yours?

.

It’s not only a small world, it’s a world interwoven with genes and bloodlines and ancestries. Unfortunately, it’s also a world of many fences and few gates, a world of defensive weaponry that can become offensive at any given moment, a world of more should-have’s than can-do’s, a world where the meek, though blessed, are often oppressed simply because they do not place aggression atop their priority lists.

.

Where is the good in the world, then, you ask?

.

Well, it’s like everything else in the universe–the good is here, you simply have to fade the bad stuff out for a while so you can notice it.

.

An audience laughing at the same humor is sharing a commonality that transcends the petty differences of the moment.

.

A village elder stopping to pat a small child on the head is making a quantum leap in time and without knowing it, is by the same act massaging the cosmos with a bit of kindness.

.

A fire fighter who suddenly and without thinking risks life and limb to save the life of someone who in normal situations wouldn’t seem worth the extension of a cordial greeting…is unconsciously affirming the fragile but extensive thread of hope that cobwebs the world and makes itself available at the strangest times.

.

It’s out there, the goodness. It’s out there, the fact that we are all cousins.

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It’s not only Out There, it’s right here, in the Village of Everybody.

.

To embrace this enormous idea, the idea that we are interlinked, you have to either take time to notice it, or at least act quickly when the kindness urge strikes. 

.

Do it fast and well, so that you won’t have time to figure out why you shouldn’t be doing something so wimpy as generating an unconditional act of sweetness

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 © Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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CHICKEN SALAD SANDWICH ON TOASTED LIGHTBREAD

SLICED IN TWO

.

I am inside this toasted chicken salad sandwich on lightbread sliced in two, and I am eating it as if I’ve never eaten anything as good before in my entire life.

.

This lightbread is toasted just right—and it is extra special, too, because it’s been toasted in an actual industrial-sized toaster at H&W Drugs.

.

At home, we don’t own a toaster, so bread has to be placed flat inside the kitchen match-lit gas oven and watched carefully till one side is light brown, then taken out and turned over—OUCH! That burns!—and browned on the other side.

.

Since the oven door doesn’t have a window in it, the rusty-creaking sound it makes when you open it for a quick peek at the lightbread is all part of the ritual of toasting.

.

But here, in Downtown Tuscaloosa, I’m six years old and sitting in an actual dining area at H&W Drug Store on the corner of Sixth Street and 24th Avenue, sitting here with my young mother and my older sister Barbara and younger brother Ronny and eating the best chicken salad sandwich in the world as far as I’m concerned, since we never, ever have chicken salad sandwiches at home.

.

This sandwich is made from freshly-cooked chicken, chopped pickles, maybe a hint of onion and some thick pre-calorie-counter mayonnaise, the likes of which don’t seem to exist after six-year-olds grow up.

.

This chicken salad sandwich is what City people eat when they are dining out, and it’s about as Uptown as I can get in the tiny town of Tuscaloosa.

.

Eating this toasted chicken salad sandwich on lightbread sliced in two is true ecstasy, a reward for good behavior when the three of us kids tag along with Mother while she pays household bills and does some shopping.

.

Back home, I never even think of having a chicken salad sandwich—that’s because it would seem out of place. Home is where you eat heavy catsuppy meatloaf and fried chicken and peanut butter sandwiches. H&W Drugs is where you eat chicken salad sandwiches.

.

My Aunt Ann’s home is where you eat chicken and dumplings. My Aunt Georgia’s home is where you eat blackeyed peas. My Aunt Dinah’s home is where you eat collards and turnip greens.

.

Each location is food-specific, and each is independent of the other.

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But they will all crowd together into one big goulash some seventy years from now, when I am writing in my Red Clay Diary and remembering not only where and when and how and why, but also what I tasted and how it felt on my tongue and how it caught between my teeth and how it burned going down and how it filled my stomach and made me sluggish and secure-feeling all at the same time.

.

I’m filled with good warm and zesty-smelling food for thought, as only food for thought can be created by my Mother and Aunts and H&W Drugs in the six-year-old Tuscaloosa that some seven decades from now will be written down for you to read this instant

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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SCRAMBLING ME UP SOME SQUARES AND PADS

 .

“We ain’t got no scrambled eggs.”

.

This statement comes straight at me from a small speaker beneath a stoic security camera. I’m in an almost-fast-food drive-through, hoping to cuddle up with a single-handed breakfast during my drive to work. I’ve just requested an order of scrambled eggs and hash browns.

.

I say to the invisible basso-voiced employee, “No scrambled eggs?” The pictorial menu filling the view from my driver-side window lists “eggs” several times. I know they’ve never served poached or boiled or fried eggs.

.

Basso voice repeats his ain’t-got-no statement.

.

No reason to argue, I reason. I put a smile into my voice and say, “Well, what do you have?” since no alternative is being volunteered.

.

“We got some squares,” the operatic tones intone. He’s gruffing up, impatient with a customer who cannot read his mind.

.

I get it. This fast-foodery calls scrambled eggs Squares. Got to use the correct term or I won’t be fed this morning. I give in.

.

I start over, “I’d like one order of square and one order of hash browns.”

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Something goes clickety-clickety, basso names a price, and I drive forward to my unscrambled destiny.

.

Later in the week, I try another drive-through where employees are generally friendly.

.

“Good morning,” I emote to the metal speaker. A surprised voice returns my greeting.

.

“One order of scrambled eggs and one sausage patty.”

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“We don’t have scrambled eggs.” this pleasant voice replies. Silence. No offer of alternatives. The menu stares “eggs” at me.

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“Well, what do you have?” It’s deja-vu all over again.

.

“We have egg pads.”

.

My brain quickly processes this as, “We have scrambled eggs in the shape of soap bars.”

.

I order, using the correct term, and all goes well.

.

Yet another time, I’m doing a quick run to an appointment, pull in to a nearby drive-through, and order a small Diet Coke.

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“We don’t have small Diet Coke.”

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Silence, while I read the words Diet Coke on the large menu before me.

.

“No Diet Coke?”

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Impatience again, “We have Diet Coke but we don’t have small.”

.

Hard to fast-process this thought, so I re-boot to my fallback question, “What do you have?”

.

“We have medium, large and extra-large Diet Coke.”

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“Er, give me the smallest you have.”

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“You want a medium?”

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“Yes,” I enthuse. “Please.”

.

Clickety-clickety.

.

I drive away unscathed and wiser, waxed paper cup of medium Diet Coke in hand.

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“We don’t have sliced tomatoes.”

.

I am breakfasting at a sit-down diner, meeting with friends. I’ve just ordered sliced tomatoes, eggs and bacon and grits to warm up my tummy.

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This particular server looks no-nonsense and frowny, so I skip the sliced tomatoes.

.

When our meals are served, my companion’s omelet is filled with fresh tomato chunks.

.

My buddy grins and says, “Here are your sliced tomatoes, Jim.”

.

My head spins, I laugh. If I’m ever here again, I’ll order tomato chunks.

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All I can deduce from these encounters is this: I am out of touch. I know I am out of touch, have been all these years.

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Being totally out of touch means I get to learn something new each day, as I play the game of never-quite-catching-up.

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It’s kind of like being from another planet. I just beam down and start taking notes

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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Hear Jim’s podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/z1nixFA2zUU

or read his story below:

Life, actually…

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WORDS ARE US

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As a Deep South native who loves being a Deep South native, I spend a lot of time trying my best to hold on to the rich language of this region.

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It’s not easy, some days.

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I resist being influenced by the shaky usage and  frail pronunciations slung at me by media both social and asocial.

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It’s hard to keep it in the road when an airwaves announcer says, “She was feeling LOW-gee one day.” Maybe, just maybe, the speaker meant to say “logy.” Or maybe LOW-gee is on some musical scale. Hard to tell.

.

Yet another authoritative-sounding voice tries to ex-TRAPP-puh-late meaning. Probably never heard extrapolate being pronounced aloud. Or, could he be right. Could I be the ignoramus? 

.

Stopping at a traffic light, I am momentarily mesmerized when a pundit rails against the TIE-ruh-nee of a political party. Tyrannical is even worse, don’t you think? A tooting horn behind me signals that the signal before me has changed to green.

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“That school may lose its uh-cre-duh-DAY-shun,” according to the news reporter. Accreditation may come once the offending institution learns to pronounce it properly.

.

Am I being picky? Well, I don’t pick them, they just come at me.

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For instance, a pompous political entity wants to rule by FEE-at. Sounds ok to me, so long as he doesn’t mean fiat. If he is a hew-muh-TERR-ee-uhn (his word, not mine) he can be forgiven. But only on humanitarian terms.

.

I’m not trying to be snooty here, I just prefer words and meanings to be so clear that I won’t waste time trying to close-caption people before I can grasp what they mean.

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Even signs of the times slow me down until I can interpret them.

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BRIDGE MAY ICE WHEN COLD. Do I need to be told this? It’s not likely to ice when hot.

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Why not BRIDGE MAY NOT ICE WHEN HOT.

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or

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BRIDGE MAY MOISTEN WHEN DRIZZLING

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“This thought was para-DOX-uhl to him.” Huh? Does he mean paradoxical, or has another new word emerged today on the neverending internet?

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It’s not just words that jump the tracks. Thoughts can go awry, too.

.

“Jazz is America’s art form,” this promo for an upcoming documentary spouts forth in dignified and lofty language. Jazz is America’s art form? Let’s run it by our Native American historians and see what they say about that.

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And don’t forget to “help people conquer their goals.” Does that mean we need to help folks overcome or pillage their goals? Really, “help people conquer their goals?”

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I’d better bring this rant to a close before some attorney begins supp-PEEN-ing me, as one NPR announcer reported. Said lawyer might decide to call me one of those HIGH-nuss criminals. No kidding. That’s what I heard.

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Let’s just hope the Word People like me don’t rise up and commit a “series of violence” or conduct some “ree-TALLY-torry” actions against ill-informed pundits.

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To quote another bespeaker, all this means I feel “LOW-gee” when all this wordflow overstays its welcome.

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As one mouther-offer of words was heard to say, “Why don’t we look for alternative options?”

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As an educator once said, “I’m a educator.”

.

And that man should know. I are an educator, too

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© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

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