Listen to Jim’s podcast: https://youtu.be/RF2ZPW5PdoI

or read his words below. Or do both.

RISE OF THE ELECTRIC DREAM REARRANGER

“Be the last kid on your block to discover the wonders of television!”

The excited announcer on my small Bakelite radio receiver extols the endless joys of owning a television set. Only what he really says is, “Be the FIRST kid on your block to discover the wonders…”

To me, a 1950s kid accustomed to living among neighbors and playmates and closely-tied family, the arrival of a television set means the end of childhood. Almost the end of neighborhood. Certainly the end of playmates.

I find out about The Electric Dream Changer the first time I hop off the front porch and go yelling for the attention of my buddies—the kids I play with each summer day in this tiny world of Eastwood Avenue.

This one day, one of us is missing.

“Oh, Lenny, his folks got a new tv set,” Bubba tells me.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, when is he coming over?”

Bubba chews on a small piece of sugar cane and gazes down the street toward Lenny’s house. “He’s waiting for the show to come on. I don’t think he’ll be here for a while.”

“The show” is a black-and-white test pattern that stares back at the viewer, waiting to be replaced by Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody.

I reassess the playtime situation and wonder how gazing at a glass rectangle could be as much fun as playing Tarzan of the Apes in the back yard.

No more than a few days later, Bubba is gone, too, whisked away by another new television set.

Soon, I am playing by myself. Or playing with brother Ronny. Or, now and then, with any other tv-less kid on the block.

Sitting on the front porch after sundown, I await the usual passers-by, the neighbors and friends and relatives who visit and chat and gossip. Familiar faces now and then bearing gifts of pie or cookies or goodwill.

They stop coming as often. They are home, watching television.

I sigh and retreat into my small room and do what I always do when bereft of companions. I read. I write. I take notes. I ponder. I read some more.

It’s always comforting, being alone in my exciting land of books and imagination. But now I have to adjust to the fact that there will be no break-time for running amok outdoors. I rearrange my dreams to match my small reality. I become comfortable with myself.

But now and then I still miss those spontaneous play times, those instant yells and laughs, those boisterous and corny jokes. The ease with which we all share childhood.

Nowadays, as a writer, I get to remind myself and anyone paying attention, that there was once a time when face-to-face was so much fun.

When we just entertained one another.

When we didn’t delegate our so-precious time to faraway strangers

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary 4-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/wlKwWahQkyc

or read his story below:

QUESTIONS NEVER ASKED NEVER ANSWERED

I am lying in the backyard playground of childhood right now, facing the skies.

Fond memory takes me back.

Back to a moment in time when a rickety wood-and-canvas lawn chair is the only thing restraining me from falling to the twilight firefly-scattered grass.

As the western horizon of Tuscaloosa glows and dims, stars begin twinkling one by one by dozens. Planets renew their steady colors. Sounds of the neighborhood are so familiar I don’t hear them right now.

The dew glistens a bit under a rising moon behind me to the east. At this moment I am alone. Family members are scattered elsewhere, attending little league games, the scent of mustard and hot dogs beckoning. Attending movie theatres with friends.

My imagination has time to unleash itself during these caressing solo moments.  Now I am free to ponder all the imponderables of a fertile mind.

Questions, questions, tumbling about and prodding me to ask more than I can answer.

For instance:

When I am no longer earthbound, will my shadow know I’m gone? Shadows seem real because I can see them. I never take them for granted, for they are as much of the landscape as I. But no-one can tell me where shadows go, what they do when we are not looking, what they sense about me. Are they as real as me? If shadows are real, perhaps I am the ethereal being, subject to being birthed, living a life, going away someday.

Leaving the shadows to fend for themselves.

Pondering is so much fun. It makes me think outside my knowledge. It causes me to massage the universe on my own terms.

I shift in the lawn chair as a meteor flashes itself into joy, then disappears.

Another question:

When I am gone, will mirrors miss me? As long as I am around I can see my reverse self living a separate life in every mirror I pass. Is that reverse country the real country, am I just a reflection?

These are questions I never ask teachers or parents whose philosophies cannot absorb them. Sometimes these questions make me laugh, but I laugh only because they are serious and real. I enjoy them because they are unanswerable.

A high-flying airplane blinks from north to south, barely audible. Critters sing their songs. A lone puppy yaps twice, then resumes sleep.

The stars are out in full force now. Back in these days, before electricity forces nighttime away, there are so many stars above that I feel I can reach just a little higher than usual and touch them.

Right now, floating above earth on canvas, floating beneath the untouchable heavens, I can think my thoughts, write my notes, squirrel them away for future reference.

Right now, I am building an index to my life. And later, as late as the 21st century, I can dig the notes out, arrange them at will, and share them with you, whoever you are, wherever you are.

And, sharing these memories and dreams and reflections, I can ponder whether you are real or whether I just made you up in order to imagine that there are other dreamers like me, cruising the galaxy with nothing holding them back, at least for this precious moment

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s audio podcast: https://youtu.be/hrHYlBAf1JA

or read his story below…

PULLEY BONE WISHES, DRUMSTICK COMPETITIONS

Oh boy, I hope I hope I hope I get to get the only thing worth getting today.

I’m sitting here at the tiny dining table in the tiny dining room adjacent via swinging door to the tiny kitchen at my childhood home on Eastwood Avenue at the fulcrum of the tiny town of 1940′s Tuscaloosa.

My younger brother Ronny and older sister Barbara and handsome father Tommy and beautiful mother Frances are about to dine together this Sunday-after-church afternoon.

The fragrance of fresh-fried crunchy-breaded chicken blends with all the other fragrances of the hour. Steaming mashed potatoes. Hot corn bread. Carrot sticks. Gravy. Catsup for newly-shelled black-eyed peas. Salt and pepper for boosted flavor. Hot pepper for Dad. And maybe, just maybe, sweeter-than-sweet lemon meringue pie made from scratch.

This magical and flavorful event pales  in comparison to my lust for one big drumstick. Just one.

It’s more than desire. More than mouth-watering anticipation. More than hunger. We are always well-fed, no matter how scant the income, no matter how high the food prices. My parents find a way to shield us kids from the realities of scraping by. The drumstick will make everything feel right, feel secure.

Mother is always the last to sit down, for she is captain of the ship. She backs into the dining room from the kitchen, pushing the door behind her just enough to slip through, carrying a steaming platter of chicken.

I’m at the ready, hoping to get first dibs on a drumstick.

Everything is negotiable. Should Sister Barbara decide she wants first choice, she will get first choice. The privilege of being eldest child. Should my father be of a mind to have a drumstick, so it shall be. Should Mother want a drumstick—wait, Mother never gets the drumstick because she waits till everyone has chosen, then meekly selects from what’s left. Being youngest voter, Ronny takes whatever he’s served, at least till he becomes older and more assertive.

Today, Dad serves himself a thigh. Barbara grabs a drumstick. And, miracle of miracles, I get one, too! Life is good. Life would be even better if chickens came with five legs.

The feast is talkative and noisy and filled with laughter and signifying.

But one more ritual must be observed. One more punctuation mark must be applied to this happy mythology.

Who get’s the pulley bone?

Lunch-before-dessert will not be complete until two of us get to make wishes, then tug apart the pulley bone. Today, it’s Barbara and yours truly.

She holds one half of the slippery arch, I hold the other. We close our eyes and make our silent wishes. We pull hard. The pulley bone cracks.

One of us has a wish fulfilled

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed