Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/9HO3b6u9yig

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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A TASTE OF COOL CLEAR WATER

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Cousin Little Pat Hassell is slowly pulling an old rope downward, leaning over the side of a deep front-yard well. As he pulls, a clunking sound from below signals the ascension of a wooden bucket filled with water.

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Eight-year-old Jimmy Three watches coverall-clad Little Pat as he labors to secure the bucket, swings it to rest on the edge of the well, then reaches for a large ladle.

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We’re back in actual time now, some seventy-five years ago. Jimmy Three and Little Pat stand in sight of a breezeway clapboard family home on the North River  of Tuscaloosa County.

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The well is the source of all water for the Hassell family. Jimmy Three is just visiting. A nearby outhouse stands guard, as does a grunting plow mule and Aunt Dinah’s simmering collard greens.

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Jimmy Three licks his lips in preparation for the well water that he considers to be magical, coming from the depths of the earth and all. At home across the Black Warrior River, Jimmy’s family has indoor plumbing, thus indoor running water on tap at all

times—no effort required.

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This is like being a Davy Crockett explorer, this retrieval of deep water from the original source. He learns later that Davy himself once explored the North River country and entertained the idea of settling down here. That did not work out, but the pioneers and Indian tribes who populated the area did drink the same water that Little-Pat and Jimmy Three are about to drink.

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The ladle is full of cool, clear water. Nothing ever tasted as good as this water. Jimmy savors its fullness, its heft, as he glugs.

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Little-Pat does the same, but in a more routine fashion. This is an everyday occurrence for him, a once-a-year adventure for Jimmy Three.

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For the rest of his childhood, in fact for the rest of his life, Jimmy Three will cherish this baptism from sacred groundwater.

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Whenever he slurps from a public fountain, sips from a garden hose, peers into a plastic restaurant cup of suspicious fluid, grabs a convenience store bottle of unknown-sourced refreshment…whenever he splatters his face in the wee morning hours, whenever he tilts an earthen mug, whenever he wonders how all those fizzy bubbles showed up in that cola…he recalls the North River and Little Pat and deep dark places where water hides out.

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All this time later the grown-up Jimmy Three is still momentarily captured by memories past whenever he hears the Sons of the Pioneers sing,

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“Can ya see that big, green tree where the water’s runnin’ free? And it’s waiting there for you and me? Water, cool clear water.”

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The squeak and clunk of rope and bucket remain sweet music just in time to take me back to the loving protection of memories that refuse to go away

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/4Upi-kTkOHo

or read his transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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SHARING OUR LOAD SIDE BY SIDE

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“Oh we ain’t got a barrel of money, maybe we’re ragged and funny,

But we’ll travel along, singing a song, side by side.”

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I am plying my trade at the pc keyboard. Trying to make sense or silliness of the world around me.

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Either will do for now, you know. If I can’t delve deeply and discover the good the gooder and the goodest in life, at least I can search for silliness and a good laugh.

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Sometimes silliness and a good laugh will guide me through the day.

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“Through all kinds of weather, what if the sky should fall,
Just as long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter at all.”

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That song, that song. It keeps circulating through my daily activities. It is reaching out. Maybe it wants to tell me something.

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It does go on.

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“When they’ve all had their troubles and parted,
We’ll be the same as we started,
Just trav’ling along, singing our song, side by side.”

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At last it occurs to me that this is an old, old, 1920s song. A cheer-up song. A merry-distraction song.

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And now I recall the best performance of this song I ever witnessed.

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It is grammar-school time in my life, a time so far back that you could not possibly have been present to witness it. Here’s what I remember:

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Schoolmates Betty Jean Raiford and Betsy Boyer are all decked out for a short show they are about to perform right in front of the classroom of small students such as me.

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They wear coveralls and straw hats and imagine themselves to be merry hoboes on their way to who knows.

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Betty and Betsy are dancing and singing this old song. It is fun and funny.

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Here’s the best part: It’s bunches of decades later and I still remember the lyrics and the dancers and the schoolroom and the slanted wooden desks. I still feel the electricity in the air, the toothy smiles of the best-friends-for-life duo, the sound of soft hands applauding.

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Whatever happened to the bandanna-wrapped walking stick these merry hoboes waved about during their skit?

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Anyhow, Betty and Betsy did a good thing that day so long ago. They created a fond memory for me. A fond memory I can recall anytime I please.

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Incidentally, Betty Jean Raiford and Betsy Boyer remain best friends to this day. They are still a great team though they live far, far apart.

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All my far-back pals and playmates and friends still run amok and amuck in soggy, happy old memories, side by side by side.

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They can’t become mortal and finite because I won’t let them

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Visit Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary at https://youtu.be/ZbcLI9F1NwM

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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SPAM: THE FINAL FRONTIER

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It is one of those make-do nights in my Down South home.

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The refrigerator is filled with stragglers from dinners past. Now that the family is fed, it is my time to determine what is edible for me. Time to pick through what’s left and prepare something for my dining pleasure.

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What’s here?

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There is always mayonnaise. I retrieve it and place it on the stove counter.

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Some peanut butter rests next to the sink. It goes next to the mayo.

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Let’s see…there is a semi-ripe banana within easy reach. I could use that.

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Lettuce. Hmm…is there usable lettuce in the crisper? Yep, here’s a wedge. It clusters next to the other victuals awaiting their lonely fates.

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OK, what else will satisfy me on the run? My main criterion is to feel temporarily full, so what can I add to the mix?

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Half a loaf of seed-strewn brown bread is hiding behind a block of butter in the fridge.

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Two slices coming up.

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Wife Liz is munching on her own leftover meal and warily observing my meanderings.

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She is a patient soul.

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Shall I add marmalade? Nope, not this time.

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I grab a can of dried fried onions from the wall cabinet, place it in the display.

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What about salami? Nope, my stomach is not as tough as it used to be.

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I find a small red plate and place it on the counter, arrange side-by-side two slices of seedy bread.

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Next I kitchen-knife a dollop of mayo and spread it evenly onto one slice. Using a second knife, I drop a hunk of peanut butter onto the other slice and caulk the surface.

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With yet a third knife I peel and slice the banana, then row up the mushy circles onto the peanut butter.

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A couple of lettuce leaves top the peanut butter and banana disks.

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Where was I?

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Oh, a sprinkling of onions will add crunch to the meal. And maybe a palmful of shredded cheese I just remembered to fetch from the crisper.

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I glance at Liz, who is successfully not verging on nausea.

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I pick up one slice of bread, flip it face-down onto the other slice. Yet another knife is employed to slice the sandwich into four symmetrical finger foods.

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I generously offer Liz one of the mini-snacks, she politely declines.

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Now I grab my nearby fizzy drink and transport the red plate and myself into the studio, where we will eat side-by-side, chat about the day, enjoy each other’s company, and marvel over the fact that we can still appreciate our mutually exclusive eating habits.

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Damn! I suddenly remember that there is a can of Spam in the pantry. Guess I’ll save it for another day. I can only push the relationship so far

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 © 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/wbtKFmcZRn8

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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BIG BOTHER IS WATCHING ME

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As a big-hearted and lovely region of the country, My Down South manages to escape some of the steamrolling distractions that chase the day-to-day quest for peace and quiet and smooth sailing I hunger for.

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As Mister Cool himself, Ferris, said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

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Noticing can make my day a tiny bit better.

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I discard most of my random thoughts as being, well, random. Random and useless. But now and then I listen to the Voices, just to see if anything new vies for attention.

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For instance, it feels good to believe what it is convenient to believe, even if it is fake. No joke. This is a thought deserving a second take. Quick, before it sinks: Sometimes it is good to believe something just because it is convenient and pleasant, even though deep inside I know it to be temporary and rather worthless.

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Another passing fancy: Today is the day when happening almost happens. You know, what I want to happen, what I am certain will happen, simply does not happen—at least for today. I can live with that.

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Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/booksidwanttoreadifonlytheyexisted.mp3

or read on…

Sometimes I just gotta pause and get something silly off my chest. These book titles are cluttering my mind. I wrote this entry eleven years ago. Nothing has changed.

BOOKS I’D WANT TO READ IF ONLY THEY EXISTED

Think and Grow Sluggish

 The Count of Monte Crisco

Apocalypse Week Before Last

The Lord of the Bathtub Rings

The Kindle Thief

The Next to the Last of the Mohicans

Munchies at Tiffany’s

The Whining

The Rise and Fall of the Third Facelift

Madame Bovine

Putin on the Ritz

Love in the Time of Croup

The Canterbury Tweets

Moby Bernie

Catcher in the Gluten Free Rye

Gone with the Breeze

Pride and Aimlessness

As I Lay Scheming

50 Shades of Puce

For Whom the Bull Toils

Mein Kampfire

Withering Heights

Fahrenheit 17 1/2

The Electric Band-Aid Ouchy Test

Abraham Lincoln’s Aerobics Class

The Outsiders Go Shopping

In Lukewarm Blood

Harry Potter and the Hangnail of Death

Twelve Years a Slave to Fashion

The Full Monty Python

© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s youtube podcast: https://youtu.be/a1Rk8kKfaFY

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Life, actually…

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HOW TO RE-REVIEW AND RE-RENEW YOUR WORLD

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“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore…”

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The lyrics of an old Yuletide carol fade from memory, quickly replaced by a  New Year that is happening with or without my permission.

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Here it is, ready or not.

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So, what will this newborn era bring to me? What will I bring to it?

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Is it in control of me, or am I the baton-wielding conductor?

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How can the world as it is, co-exist with the world it could be?

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Enough with the soul-searching questions, away with the philosophizing. It’s time to get on with life.

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Happy New Year!

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Sometimes, stopping to smell the roses can be thorny. But sometimes, it’s a good way to re-start, re-boot, refresh, renew.

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You might even consider getting up close and allowing the roses to enjoy you.

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Let me toss a thought or two into the atmosphere. Here are some notions about gaining control of your world on your own terms:

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Sit still in a park or restaurant or window and carefully observe the first village elder who passes by. Memorize every graceful move, scrutinize all limited motions, note the assuredness, the insecurity, the constant overlap of mind and matter, the recollections that must be occurring.

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Sit still and carefully consider the fact that you are gazing through a portal to a future time. You are observing yourself as you might be some future day.

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Then, consider what suggestions you the future Elder might offer to this present-moment version of You.

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If nothing occurs, consider what you would like to say to that distant-future You.

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Be kind.

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Carefully observe the reactions of both selves.

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Close your eyes for 90 seconds and bring your selves together in peace, understanding and harmony.

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Snap!

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Some other harmless but notable things to do:

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At a public event, pretend you are about-facing in order to view the audience behind you, ignoring what’s up front. 

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The audience is the real show. Everything else is artifice.

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Carry snapshots of your parents and grandparents and brag about them every chance you get.

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Have someone read you a bedtime story.

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With eyes closed, clutch a very old book to your chest for an hour and imagine what is happening inside that volume. Then, open it up and view the pop-up world within.

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If all this unsolicited advice is too strange for you, make your own list of ways to view this new year. You are a passenger, but now and then you can occupy the driver’s seat.

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Turn the world upside-down for a day and tell me what that was like

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© Jim Reed 2024 A.D.

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Hear Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/xcpKRptHlRw

or read the transcript below.

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Life, actually…

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GIVE US PATIENCE RIGHT NOW!

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Encroaching holidays give me an excuse to examine the ol’ Red Clay Diary for signs of intelligence past…in this case, Christmas past.

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Here is an entry from more than a quarter-century ago. A long time gone. Another era. Lives passed by but always on call in the journal of your heart…

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Well, Christmas runs hot and cold down here in the Deep South. The temperature in Birmingham will be below 20 for the next two nights—that’s cold for us Alabamians!

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Will Phil (my philodendron here at the shop) make it through the night? Will our pet finch make it? Will water pipes freeze despite the fact that we’ll be practicing the trickle-down theory of thawed-plumbing-flow all night?  Will I be able to get the fire started without kindling, just to make us think we’re Christmas-warm in our century-old house? Or will I cop out and place a particle-board log under the real one to make it burn well?

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Will my daughter’s car start in the morning or will I have to grumble-crank it myself?

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Will I think kindly of all those people in other parts of the world who are roughing it in a deep winter with multi-footed banks of snow? Will they think of us as victims of tornadoes and prickly heat?

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And will I have just the right book to cuddle if we get frozen in by one inch of snow (really—that’s about all it takes to shut down the city here under the right conditions)?

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Of course.

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Even though I wander among thousands of books in my shop, I do sneak a few home every night to rummage and ruminate through. Can’t get enough.

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Maybe tonight will be catalog night. I’ll look at what other people might be buying for themselves…might have been buying for themselves a generation or two ago. Nothing in the catalogs will be as oddly diverse as the titles around me right now.

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My book patrons and I—we the book guardians—wait patiently. As browsers pause and examine, brows furrowed, lip corners turned upward, what will they adopt? What will they carry home?

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We watch patiently, fascinated by the mysterious process.

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The suspense is beautiful and maddening.

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O Book Cosmos, please grant us patience—and of course we want patience this very minute!

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The Season is sneaking closer. Prepare ye for unconditional moments of pleasure blended with the jittery knowledge that each good moment may be jumped by a snarling unpleasant moment. But that just means that yet another good moment is preparing to pounce

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© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/fEqTNh-KCDA

or read his transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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THE SNOWMAN WHO WOULDN’T MELT

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Just this week, a young father with two happy wiggly kids in tow came into the shop and purchased a most wonderful lighted top-hatted Snowman for Christmas. I dug through decades of the Red Clay Diary to find this note about the ancestry of Mr. Snowman. It’s all about appreciating whatever we eventually have to let go:

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In my bookshop and museum of fond memories, a large lone Snowman keeps watch over the many dreamy items you can find if you get lost here for a few hours.

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This is the kind of Snowman any child would love.  That’s because he never melts.

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This is the kind of Snowman you can trust to be on duty day and night, pleasantly glowing white, always in a good mood, and within protective view of a nearby fifty-year-old life-sized Santa Claus who stares out over the village.

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Around my meltless Snowman’s neck is a violet Slinky, a breezy year-round scarf that offsets the blue and green 3-D glasses he wears.  This is one Snowman who sees the world through tinted glasses and, though he has a carrot for a nose, the carrot will stay fresh forever because it, like the Snowman himself, is made of plastic.

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Years ago, the magic Snowman was the last display-model snowman in the annual Fix-Play Display sale—you know, the gigantic Christmas decoration sale that used to be conducted by this long-gone downtown business.

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I adopted the icy figure at the Fix-Play sale and put him in charge of the shop.

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Thousands of suburbanites used to trek here once a year to purchase the kinds of decorations you can’t easily locate anywhere else. Third-and-fourth-generation customers came to Fix-Play, looking for just the right Meltless Snowman or Ancient Santa Claus to keep watch over their Christmas trees by night.

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They went away confident in the knowledge that a Snowman who won’t melt is just about as magic a Christmas present as you can possibly imagine

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© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 6-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/jHNUTru2IJU

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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THREE DAYS A SPIT APPRENTICE

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Remember back some twenty or so years ago when we wrestled with imperfect desktops and cranky printers?

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I remember:

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HOW TO CONVERT ELECTRONIC-SCREEN-IMAGE PRINT INTO GOOD OLD-FASHIONED INK-ON-PAPER PRINT IN THIRTY OR SO STEPS WHILE KEEPING BEPTO-BISMOL HANDY

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Got to print as many copies as possible before the machine revolts again…

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Must cross fingers and hope for a miracle…

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I’m right in the middle of trying to produce a bunch of copies of the Alabama Writers’ Conclave brochure announcing this year’s seminar, using my trusty HP Deskjet 940c Hewlett-Packard printer, when the damned thing stops printing and flashes this little yellow light while at the same time producing on the computer screen a message that basically says, “You’ve got the wrong toner cartridge installed, so un-install it and install the correct toner cartridge, you imbecile!”

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The machine stops printing the brochures, which means that I can’t meet half the writerly deadlines I’ve imposed upon myself, so that I hand-deliver what I have managed to print thus far.

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I cleverly un-install the printer cartridge and install one of the old cartridges (one that’s supposed to be out of ink), and the little yellow light immediately stops blinking.

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There is hope.

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I start printing more brochures, but then a sign comes up on the screen saying, “This cartridge is low on ink. Replace it. That means un-install it, you imbecile!”

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I continue running copies anyhow, keeping a close eye on the brochures so that I can stop as soon as the ink gives out, which it never does, except now the message of the screen tells me, “You’ve installed this cartridge improperly, so do it again until you get it right, you imbecile.”

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Where does a machine like this learn a term such as imbecile? I wonder.

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I make the screen message disappear and the machine keeps on printing. Wanting to stay ahead of the impending demise of the cartridge, I again place a new one in the printer and get that damned blinking yellow light again. So…I go downstairs and next door to Kinko’s and purchase a brand-new cartridge (paying premium price), thinking that perhaps the old one is faulty. As soon as I’ve tried the new cartridge and found it not working, I return to Kinko’s and get another one—which also does not work.

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Now I have to face the inevitable Fork in the Road: Do I call the local printer-repair company and pay for a house call, or do I contact Hewlett- Packard’s “help” center and sit around for hours listening to really annoying music while another computer places me on hold with some message like, “Just sit there like the imbecile you are and listen to this irritating music while a techy finishes his bologna sandwich and recreational pharmaceutical out back…then we’ll get with you.”

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The next day, having had no success in contacting either the local printer repair company or the internet technical help department, I go to Office Depot and purchase yet another cartridge, just in case the two at Kinko’s are part of a conspiratorially faulty pack. No luck with that cartridge, either. After calling and talking with three different printer repair staff members over a period of three days, none of whom is a technician and none of whom gets the message I’m leaving correct, I’m ready to give up. But I call back one more time and try to see whether a technician is available. The operator says, “You said we delivered the wrong cartridge to you?”

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“No!” I say, “I just wanted to get the printer working again.”

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“Oh,” she says, “I thought you wanted to talk with a technician, but they’re all out.”

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“I don’t care whether I talk with a technician or not,” I say, “I just want the printer repaired so that I can use it.” I’m getting snippy by now, and I’m suddenly turning four years old.

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Meanwhile, a Hewlett-Packard guy calls back (after charging me $30 via credit card) to see if the problem has fixed itself. “Well, as a matter of fact, it did fix itself,” I say, which is true, since about a half hour ago, a technician from the local printer repair company walks in unannounced, to look at the printer person-to-machine, so to speak. I tell him the problem, he takes the offending cartridge out of the printer—exCUSE me, he un-installs the cartridge—and licks his right thumb, then runs the wet thumb over the copper-colored contact surface of the cartridge. He sticks the cartridge—uh, INSTALLS it—back into the printer, and the printer starts working immediately. I try the other cartridges I’ve bought and sure enough, they don’t work until I’ve rubbed an even compound of spittle onto the contacts with my thumb.

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The technician gives me a philosophical, “Well, our job is done here, Tonto, we’d best be moseying along” look and leaves, not charging me a thing for his visit.

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When the internet Hewlett-Packard guy I’ve paid $30 calls up, I tell him what happened, and he just says, “Remarkable. I’ve never heard of such a thing,” to which I reply, “Maybe you should add this instruction to your list when making suggestions about printer repairs.” Then, as an afterthought, I say, “On the other hand, it might not work where you live. Southern spit is probably unique in its healing qualities.”

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He can only agree.

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My printer works fine. Now, I just have to un-install my attitude about printers and try to make friends with this one. After all, I’ll be spitting on it regularly from now on

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© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s 4-minute podcast on facebook:  https://youtu.be/Q6mXlIMAQ0o

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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FISHWRAPPERS ARE ME

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I’m making my way from early-morning creaky front porch to dew-sprinkled automobile this morning. Should you pass by my home at this moment, I will wave and smile. I like doing that.

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My right hand slides down the damp metal bannister to the speckled sidewalk. I head toward the dusty white picket fence gate and pry it open. It always expands and contracts as humidity rises and falls. On the sidewalk just past the gate lies a blue-bagged folded newspaper awaiting my free hand. The other hand holds my morning liquid, my bag of necessities, my container of munchings.

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I toss the newspaper into the open car door. It lands on the front passenger seat. It is quickly topped with bag and paraphernalia. I’ll retrieve it later.

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Ever since I tenured as an adult, I have been happily addicted to the newspaper and its contents and its attending rituals.

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After a mile or two, I sit within idling vehicle, waiting for a store to open. I open the blue plastic bag, check the freshly-gnawed hole at its edge—a daily sign that some critter, hearing the PLOP of the paper on wet grass, rushed over to see whether it is edible.

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Unfolding the front page I brace myself for whatever horrors and joys will leap out—as, usually, they must do.

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Then, I search for the inside table of contents that will point me to what I want to know. First, what page will contain today’s obits? There is no better way to briefly encapsulate someone’s life. A morning short story with beginning, middle and end neatly arranged.

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Then, the quote of the day. Somebody somewhere said something worth repeating—sad, mad, glad, goofy, inspirational…whatever. Then I dive into the editorial page and its litany of grumblings and wisdoms and angrified letters. Enough to make the head swim…or at least tread.

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I unfold and expand the paper with print-smeared fingers and noisily search for the science page. I find relief within the science page because at its best it provides me with nonpolitical nonfictionalized nonagenda data. A respite from the noise of pay-attention-to-my-life or please-believe-my- exaggerated-truths or won’t-you-buy-my-product-or-my-service-just-because-I-present-it-so-charmingly.

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The  shop before me opens its doors. I stuff the newspaper parts onto the car floor and get ready to face the day. I am filled with info both new and recycled. But at least I find a way to jump-start the next 24 hours, the 24 hours till my next critter-pecked newspaper grins at me from the sidewalk or some nearby shrubbery.

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HOW OLD AM I?

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I’m so old I must hold in my hands each and every morning…a newspaper! Don’t wish to experience mornings without such a crinkly object at hand. Don’t know how I would get along without the news of the day stretched forth before me. Don’t wish to know.

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So there

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© 2024 A.D. by Jim Reed