Listen to Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/nYg-Sbq1gCM

or read the transcript (below):

JOLLITY AND FEAR JOIN FORCES IN A DEEP SOUTH VILLAGE

One slightly hopeful result of this self-imposed exile of anxious souls is that we have more time to regard one another. And ourselves.

Taking time to take a deep breath does not come easy. Rote habits tend to override the opportunity to pause and assess our trajectories. The day-to-day rush to meet obligations distracts us from having to deal with anything too uncomfortable. When a free moment does occur, we impulsively turn to social media to make us feel as if we are busy and engaged.

Well, here in isolation, my untethered mind is free to cast about for new experiences, fresh attitudes. I have time to re-animate routines, rearrange deck chairs, tweak  agendas, re-regard family and friends and customers and vendors and servers, reassign their value in my life.

It’s quite a task, this arising from the depths of self-concern to look about and say, “What have I been missing?”

It turns out I’ve been missing out on what passes for real life down here on earth.

It’s interesting that the more people mask-up for protection, the more they become human, engaging, humane to each other. I suppose the masks are signs that pass between us, saying something like, “I’m trying to protect myself, but I’m also trying to protect the lives and well-being of people I love as well as people I don’t know and may never know.”

Suddenly we are becoming helpmates to a common good we were too busy to notice in pre-isolation times.

I know, I know—masking up frightens us, makes us feel we’re giving up something we once treasured, makes us a tad suspicious of whether facts on hand are being manipulated, whether we are being manipulated, makes us grumpy at times.

But what I am noticing in the heart of this village in which I ply my trade and live my life…what I am noticing is that some folks are feeling pride for their tiny sacrifices, some are reaching out beyond their masks and doing good deeds for other, more vulnerable people.

In a surprising way, these masks and distancings are constantly reminding us that, as independent as we are allowed to be in this country, we are still free to do good for ourselves and others, of our own free will. We are exercising our right to show kindness to one another.

Maybe that means we are all worthwhile. Maybe there’s hope for the world.

Just sayin’

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

DEEP SOUTH CASTAWAY FINDS COOKIES AND HOPE

In my evergreen memories of being a Deep South child of the 1940s and ’50s, I am re-living a moment in time…a time when reading a book was the best adventure imaginable.

I cannot wait to turn the next page of the novel Robinson Crusoe.

I lie on the hardwood floor of summertime, invisible to those around me, because I am cast away upon a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, trying to survive by wit and mettle.

Robinson and I dive deep into an uncontaminated ocean to retrieve all we can of supplies stowed away upon the sunken ship that stranded us here. We frantically look for food, shelter, protection from cannibals and mutineers. We witness the solitary beauty of nature and the best and worst of humankind.

As isolated as we are, Robinson Crusoe and I find a way to survive on our own for 28 years, never knowing whether we will be rescued and re-birthed into a cantankerous civilization, or whether our bleached bones will be discovered centuries hence by a society that has never heard of books and totally unplugged independence.

I can feel the sun’s heat and the ever-present mosquitoes and the sand between my toes on this island, and…

“Jim, where are you?” calls my Mom.

I am jarred into reality.

“Uh, here, Mother!” I am in my room, hoping that I won’t have to tear myself away from this engrossing tale.

“Time to take out the garbage,” Mom says, politely failing to mention the fact that the trash can overfloweth because of my avoidance of unavoidable chores.

Back in these childhood times, in this particular generation, all kids have chores and duties. We also have our books and toys and playmates. We are also allowed to let our imaginations run wild, as long as we do our part to maintain the family.

I groan dramatically, find an H.G. Wells bubble gum trading card to use as a bookmark, carefully hide Robinson Crusoe and Daniel Defoe from sight, should a sibling happen upon it.

I head for the kitchen and the duty, grab a fresh-baked cookie from the window sill, and sally forth to my next somewhat trashy adventure. Not as exciting as hiding from cannibals, but definitely a sign of hope…hope that, once chores are completed, I can rejoin my pals, Friday and Robinson and freshly-snared fish.

Later, as I swim the pages of the book, I am almost disappointed when rescue occurs, when 18th-century society snatches us up and makes us all comfy again.

Sure, I like my chocolate-chip snacks, but to this day I can’t rid myself of all the fantastic and deadly and hardy escapades that took place on that tiny bit of land jutting from an azure sea, deep in the center of a fertile imagination

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

Hear Jim’s podcast at: https://youtu.be/4LmqQFsuPPk

or read his transcript below:

ONE LIFE ONE MOMENT IN EVERY VILLAGE, USA

 You can see him right there, next to the fast-food diner in the heart of downtown, in the center of this village.

You can see him if you pause to look.

Here’s what you can see should you take the time.

Slow down and peek right and left. Lower your windows so that you can both see and hear what is outside your vehicle.

You can see him if you dare—yes, dare—to drive slowly, just beyond your comfort zone.

Yes, there he is, right next to the eatery.

He’s lying there flat on his back on the sidewalk just inside an alcove of an old building next door, and he looks dead except for the fact that one arm is stuck straight up and a lighted cigarette is being held firmly within direct view of his upturned face.

He has his eyes closed and there’s a look of blissful satisfaction on his face since he’s just eaten some kind of generic food, judging from the wrappers lying there right next to him and the half-full paper coffee cup resting nearby.

He’s just had his meal in his own dining room of a city and is lying there on his own city-sized bed and his ceiling is as high as the sunny sky and his shade is provided at his leisure by a tall building that nobody can take away from him since he doesn’t own the building in the first place and the building isn’t going anywhere in the second place.

One good breakfast one good cuppajava one good cigarette and a nice hot village day at his disposal, and the next moment seems hours away.

And isn’t right this second just wonderful and aren’t all those ragtags passing by in their air conditioned conveyances just plain missing this split second that’s so important so precious so long

 © Jim Reed 2020 A.D.

Listen to Jim’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/asapImi3m5U

or read his transcript  below:

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when I had time to be a teeny, time to experience the passages of youth. SCENES FROM A MEANDERING TEENHOOD…

SOMETIMES THE ECHO ANSWERS BACK

My imaginary flying carpet carries me beyond hither, way past yon. I am having great fun until I have to pull up to a gas station to re-fuel. Did Aladdin have to do this?

Floating in outer space, awaiting free fall, I suddenly realize that I need to go to the bathroom.

I spend weeks flirting with a coed in English class. My teen longing produces zero effect until, one day, the English coed responds and indicates she would be willing to go out with me. Suddenly, I realize that I do not have a car or a driver’s license. What was I thinking?

I’m standing atop a great pile of abandoned strip mine dirt. I look across the green water below and see another pile. Maybe I can yell and create an echo. I call out, “HaaaaaaaThere!” The echo hollers back, “So whattayou want with me already?” I skedaddle and never tell anyone else what just happened. Later, I wonder where my “HaaaaaaaThere!” went off to.  Is it still circling the globe?

My teen buddies, Dot and Jim, are joining me in wading across Hurricane Creek, heading toward a little island. Suddenly, Dot jumps a couple of feet in the air and climbs aboard my back. I follow her gaze and see a large rattlesnake lazing in the sun, slowly aroused. The three of us skedaddle. Lots of skedaddling occurs when you’re a kid.

My father takes brother Ronny and me hunting in a forest. Ronny has a rusty .22 rifle and I tote the double-barreled shotgun I’ve been gifted as part of a rite of passage. Dad fires his weapon at a high-up dancing squirrel. I don’t want to kill anything or anybody. To divert attention from my wimpyness I fire both barrels at the squirrel’s tree and hope I don’t hit anything. I still have that shotgun these generations later, but I’ve never fired it since. I believe the squirrel survived and is still dancing.

My playmate Jimmy and his kid brother are excited and frightened, and a bit nervous. They just observed several UFOs in a vacant lot near their house. I am a total skeptic, meaning I want more data. Jimmy describes in great detail what the flying saucers were doing, what they looked like. He even diagrams them. He really saw them. Again, as a skeptic, I am still awaiting the verdict, even though my own brother, Tim, also had a UFO experience years later. I secretly doubt that intelligent space aliens would ever bother to visit such a flawed species as Earthlings.

My best friend since second grade, Pat, tries an ESP experiment with me one evening at her home. We sit and focus and sort of meditate, then she asks me to guess what she is imagining—a number between one and 100. For some mysterious reason, I suddenly envision a large three-dimensional number 17 emanating from her forehead and gliding through the air toward me. It is the exact number she has written down. Like the UFO experiences, this has never happened again. We could not replicate the experiment. Being fairly smart, we did not obsess about it and went on to other activities. But isn’t that interesting?

One night, walking alone with nothing to do, I gaze up at the top of a very tall smokestack on the campus of an abandoned military base called Northington. Something comes over me. Since no-one is looking at or judging me, I decide to climb that smokestack, just to test my own courage. I grab a rusty iron rung and begin the ascent, not daring to look down. When I get about ten feet up, I figure maybe I’d better descend. Descending turns out to be more difficult than I imagine, because it involves looking down. What the heck, I tell myself. I’m already this high up. Might as well go for it. The smokestack gets taller as I climb, some of the rungs are rusty and slightly loose. But I gotta do it because I’m a teen and this is one of the insane things teens do. I finally make it to the top, gaze down the large dark hole, imagine myself becoming stuck there and being found as a skeleton years later. The rest of the story does go on. Let’s just say I finally made it safely to the ground and vowed never to do anything this stupid again. And if I have done stupid things since then, I’ll not reveal them to you.

Just a few scenes from my childhood. If you don’t like these, I have others.

Why not share your own scenes with me

© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.