Listen’s to Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/nOYfwszMCy8

or read his story below…

ROMANCING THE HEART OF THE ARTIFACT CITY

Ten years ago, the Red Clay Diary splayed open beneath my writing hand. Here are some of the notes and scribbles therein. Let’s go back to Then and forget Now for a few seconds…

A day unlike any other day, but curiously familiar…

OUTSIDE THE SHOP

It’s like a bolero out there, everybody choreographing their unique dances in rhythm with life…

Remon grabs another of his many daily smokes outside my shop, on the way to the smoking parking lot, where so many others leave their cigarette filters…relics for future archaeologists to uncover and puzzle over.

INSIDE THE SHOP

Everybody brings baggage, everyone has a story—even if unconsciously so…

Geoff drops by and donates a brass-and-velvet theatre stanchion, so that I can place some psychological boundary between myself and the occasional hovering customer.

Carolynne picks up copies of the latest Birmingham Arts Journal to spread the gospel of art and lit.

Randy decides to read Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald. There is hope!

ACROSS FROM THE SHOP

I can see the parallel businesses and activities going about their cycles…

Rhonda soaks the cooling sun and smiles her wisdom, surrounded by shoes and leathery artifacts.

The Matron of Metering carefully prepares penalty notices for people who don’t know the rules and mysteries of Downtown Parking.

A customer donates a bag of wonderful old books.

MEANWHILE, BACK INSIDE

The imaginary reality of each customer swirls about them, influencing the way they see the shop…

Kid customer purchases an enormous football-shaped balloon and a Wimpy Kid title.

A grown-up attorney takes the life-size Marilyn Monroe stand-up home with him, along with Bradbury.

Another kid customer buys a flashing red disco light for his room, to go with a Star Wars novel.

Outside, one pedestrian ogles the Leg Lamp and model train and Piggly Wiggly head and Laugh-In switchboard and Red Lady statue in the display windows.

Yet another purchases a wind-up bunny astride a tricycle, and a Peter Rabbit book.

One customer selects century-old postcards and comes back for more.

Somebody else stays in the front corner for five hours and reads ancient love letters and diaries from within my grandfather’s old post office boxes. Her bliss is unmistakable. The names of my relatives in Peterson, Alabama are on each box.

A Regular ushers and tours her friend through the shop.

Giggles emanate from the back of the store. Collectible books entertain them.

One girl seeks and finds Gulliver’s Travels and carries her smile home with her.

And so it goes.

You go climb Mount Everest.

I’ll remain here in my shop. I suspect I’ll have much more fun

© 2019 Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 4-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/g9xzjWamgC8

or read his tale below…

TODAY THE NUMBER 3 DOES NOT EXIST

This very morning, I am boldly going where no person has gone before: the land where 3′s do not exist.

Beaming down to the post office parking lot, I list to the right while left-hand-toting a red-and-white polka-dotted bag filled with books wrapped and ready to mail to distant lands.

It’s a several-times-weekly trek that is sometimes routine and predictable, sometimes surprising and quite funny.

Some mornings, I startle the dozing postal clerk from her nap. That’s when no-one else is on duty or patronizing the place.

She is always on automatic at first, rapid-firing the required routine script provided by absentee bosses, “GoodmorningmayIhelpyou?” Then, once she sees that it is only I, the elderly gentleman from the bookstore, she manages a smile and even, when prodded,  a bit of small talk.

The postal clerk, as demanded by the Postal Gods, continues the script, just in case someone is viewing her through dispassionate cameras. “Anything liquid, explosive, sticky or dangerous in these packages?” she asks (actual words are different, but this is what I understand is being meant).

I tap the computer button several times to awaken it and verify that I am not a terrorist or sneaky felon of any kind.

She diligently weighs and sticky-labels each package. She has learned long ago that rather than wait for a patron to double-check her keyed-in address to verify it is identical to the label provided, she just quickly taps the “this is incredibly accurate” button and gets on with the processing. Much to my relief.

As the receipt begins printing, she frowns, leans closer, and notes, “The threes are not working on this machine.” I laugh and make a lame joke about a world without threes, she smiles slightly as best she can, then hand-inks 3′s wherever they are missing on the tape.

I wait, acting as patient as possible, since she has enough to deal with in this strange little branch that is missing half its ceiling tile, that sports vinyl peeling from the walls…this little branch where service windows behind her are papered over so that patrons cannot see what goes on within the mysterious sunless bowels of the building.

Threes are not the only objects missing. Unkempt displays and puzzling signs sit bedraggled and forlorn, some out of date, some indecipherable. The floor tiles and stanchions are situated much the same way that Disney World controls crowds—even when there is no other customer about, one still has to walk the curving line and wait at a certain point to be summoned.

It’s hard not to laugh, not to feel sorry for the painful rules governing each postal employee. And, after chatting with her day after day, I learn bits and pieces to the silly-ruled life she has to tread while at work.

She always smiles when I mention approaching postal holidays and breaks. I always smile when she smiles, feeling that I have mustered a ray of light to share with her during these brief-enough encounters.

My books eventually get mailed, I gather up re-three’d receipt and polka-dot bag, wish her a good day or a good day off, and make sure I leave her with a big grin. My harmless but effective gift.

As I leave, another, less friendly, patron arrives, primed for battle with plans to make the clerk’s day a little less pleasant.

I duck and weave to avoid hearing the ensuing encounter.

I head for work and prepare to make intense customers slow down and relax, and slow-mo customers to focus their attentions on the things they really wish to purchase but are too shy to verbalize right away.

I am now beamed in.

I beam and get on with the remainder of the day

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

www.jimreedbooks.comhttp://redclaydiary.com/

www.redclaydiary.com

Listen to Jim’s 4-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/HTlVetEAfJE

or read on…

TAKING A LIGHTLY EDITED DEEP SOUTH DAY OFF

I am strolling, trolling the aisles of a sacred site, what I call the Cathedral of Books.

I pause for a moment, close my eyes, and try to remember what the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez once said:

“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”

I have cruised thousands of book lanes in my bookie life. How can I make this particular moment different and memorable? What is the opposite of browsing?

I close my eyes. I extend my right arm straight out to the side. I feel the spine of an invisible book. I tell myself, This is the book with which I will surprise myself today.

I pull the book to my chest, hold it close for a moment, then raise my upper lids and look down to see what’s being cradled.

A title I’ve never read. Hmm…

I am ready to feel the heft and texture and fragrance of an object produced by an olden bindery. Upon close inspection I note that a  modern publisher has reproduced this book to give the first impression of early times. It is actually a recent copy.

I excitedly examine the title page inside, then the back of the title page to see who has loved the author’s work so much that it has been re-animated for this century’s readers.

Then, two words jump at me. Words that cause fear and loathing in the heart of any lover of prose and poetry. These most disturbing words are just below the copyright data on the back the first title page:

“LIGHTLY EDITED.”

I close the volume. I consider whether to purchase it, then hide it away from all possible prying eyes. I feel I am in the presence of a sacred object that has been vandalized.

Why would anyone LIGHTLY EDIT an ancient author’s prized work?

My imagination gets the worst of me and I suddenly envision great literature LIGHTLY EDITED.

The Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then, he took a day off.”

Mustn’t burden the reader with extraneous information.

Moby Dick: “Call me Ishmael. I got to go sailing and saw a big whale.”

That’s story enough. Our readers have to get back to whatever it is they do when they are not reading.

Goodnight Moon: “Goodnight, Moon. The end.”

LIGHTLY EDITED.

Someday, when books I have written are discovered at some obscure yard sale, will the electronically internetted cyborged purchaser pick them up, unopened, tie a silk ribbon around them, arrange them artfully on a coffee table with an old pair of wire rimmed eyeglasses atop, then abandon them till they become dust repositories?

Till they once again wind up in a thrift bin or another yard sale?

I pause again, affectionately pat this orphaned and transmogrified work of art, extend my sympathies and condolences.

Then, I continue trolling the aisles for an unedited copy of this work, one unsullied by abridgers eager to remake the world in their own image.

That’s the version I’ll gladly read on the next day I take off

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

www.jimreedbooks.com

https://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast/

Hear Jim’s audio podcast: https://youtu.be/bT4QEuUC2z4

or read on…

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DEEP-SOUTH CHICKEN CAPER

This incident actually happened to me one childhood day while I lay abed in my family’s Tuscaloosa garage apartment. My mother and grandmother were fussing about, conducting activities of daily living. Suddenly, a neighborhood free-roaming chicken appeared through the open screen door and a moment of chaos and joy ensued. As proof that all of life is poetry, or at least poetic, here is the poem that emerged from my memory…

.

PLAYING CHICKEN

.

Once upon a time or two

when I was less than three

A chicken jumped into my bed

and gave a fright to me.

.

She fluttered up and cackled ‘round

the room for all to see,

She made me cry, she made me laugh

and clap my hands in glee.

.

Granny chased her with a broom,

Mama shoo’d her loud,

The chicken left us with a zoom

and flew up to a cloud.

.

Later, when I saw her pecking

all about the grounds,

I cackled and she laughed at me.

We both made funny sounds.

.

I waved and smiled and whispered,

“Come back another day,

so we can scare each other

into having fun at play.”

*

See what I mean? To this day, my life remains a poetic journey in progress.

Thanks for hitching a ride for a moment

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

 jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

www.redclaydiary.com

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