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Life, actually…

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THE TALE OF THE FRITO THIEF

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The most thoughty thought I’ve had so far, on this beautiful Down South day:

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Be unafraid. Be very unafraid.

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A couple of sideways thoughts can’t hurt you. After all, thoughts encroach, then they dissipate if you don’t chase them.

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That’s what the “be unafraid” idea is all about. It just means that you—yes, You—are totally in charge of the Thoughty part of your mind.

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When a weird or disturbing or otherwise unwanted thought sneaks in and attempts an insurrection, I have choices. I can open myself up, accept on face value what is being tossed at me, and become a minion to this thought.

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Or I can make an unwanted thought diminish and eventually disappear.

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When I fear the thought will stick to the interior lining of my mind, when I fear I can’t rid myself of this nagging idea, I verge on panic. Usually I come to my senses and find a way around this obstacle and get on with life.

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You ask, “I don’t know how to get this thought out of my head. How do you do it?”

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In my case, I resort to the techniques I know best…the techniques that keep me going well beyond the many speedbumps rumpling my path.

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I recall how bullies operate. I recall how I deal with bullies over my considerably extended lifespan.

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I make ‘em laugh. My first deflection of any bully’s encroachment is to find something silly and laughable to say, something unexpected and distracting. This unwanted bully of a thought is laughable.

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Sometimes this does not work.

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If the bully’s rage is so ingrained that it cannot stop to listen or contemplate or laugh, I have to find another way to solve this dilemma.

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From my learned playground guerilla tactics handbook I think, SURVIVAL FIRST. I run and hide.

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This confuses the bully, who can’t confront me using heft or girth or furious energy. I’m not there, so bullybeing goes in search of me, while I spread the defensive measure I know best—I satirize and mock and playfully surround said bully with goofy ideas designed to make everybody take this unnecessary thought with a grain of salt. Nothing disarms a bully like not being taken seriously.

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Make that danged thought shrink and shrivel, my defense team screams.

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Make ‘em laugh at the laughable. It helps clear the sinuses and refresh your unafraidness mechanisms. Before you know it, this thought has slipped into obscurity and is now filed safely away.

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You can breathe now.

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Next thought needed to replace the bullythought: What actions should you take to make sure a Frito thief does not repeat this heinous crime? No-one, especially me, wants a Frito to be stolen. I need that Frito to make certain my sense of humor and well-being is fresh and salty and crunchy and basically harmless.

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See? Much more interesting to dwell on Frito theft than on those jackbooted sideways thoughts that constantly seek to overthrow and overtake our better selves

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© Jim Reed 2024 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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REMEMBERING THE ROLLING BASKET LADY

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I remember the rolling basket lady as if thirty years ago equals yesterday.

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She lives rent-free in my fond memories. She is in crowded but friendly company.

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The first time I meet the rolling basket lady, she thanks me for opening the door for her at the Post Office…using a loud and husky voice, “Why, thank you…a real gentleman!”

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Her musical delivery makes my morning a little nicer. That is because I come from a generation often reminded that being a gentleman is a virtue…and that, furthermore, virtue is a wonderful thing to possess.

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The rolling basket lady is of a certain age, years ahead of me.

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She is dressed, as we say Down South, for Sunday school and her outfit includes lavishly applied makeup, hose and a frequent smile beneath her carefully arranged blonde hairdo.

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She walks slowly, pulling behind her a metal wheeled basket—the kind office assistants use to pick up the morning corporate mail. Long before email conquers all.

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I see her often, the basket woman, sometimes moving deliberately along 11th Avenue South, chatting merrily with herself.

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Once I enter F.W. Woolworth and find her eating breakfast at the counter, a bit of grits on her chin and a napkin poised while smiling across the way at a sullen server.

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At the same time I see other elderly diners at Woolworth’s, people who eat there just to recapture an old memory of what it felt like so many years ago when this was a thriving social center in each community, competing with S.H. Kress for the place of honor as bus stop and gathering place for everybody you knew who wanted a dime bag of popcorn that could last an hour.

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That was back when servers were polite even when you couldn’t tip much, back when you felt safe leaving your purse and bags on that little ledge beneath the lunch counter while shopping around for one more item.

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The rolling basket lady is the only person who calls me a gentleman, and I like it.

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Even though later generations don’t quite “get” it, I still hold the door open for women, as well as men, if I get there first—and I often smile and nod to strangers on the street in tribute to my father and his generation, who always tipped their ever-present hats to known and unknown strollers.

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Perhaps the memory of those gentler days is why the basket lady never forgets to smile for no reason at all at passers-by

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© Jim Reed 2024 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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RE-GIFTING A WORTHWHILE DAY

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Today’s Deep Thought: Isn’t being reincarnated simply re-gifting life?

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Uh-oh, here goes that Red Clay guy, thinking above his pay grade again.

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I hereby leave the idea of re-gifting a life to the philosophers and self-appointed Big Thinkers. All I’m trying to do is let you know what I’m up to these days—thought-wise.

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Here’s what I’m supposing:

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Whenever I have a really good day, I want to share it. Unfortunately, a really good day only lasts 24 hours and will soon disappear along with all the other really good days.

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How can I preserve the good and ignore the bad?

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Here goes.

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Sometime during the day my far-away sister sends me a 1950s snapshot of me…me in my teenage world, wearing bathing trunks and sitting on a rock in the middle of Hurricane Creek in Tuscaloosa. Water is flowing and splashing all around me, and I seem to be happily clinging to the rock and having the time of my life.

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Here’s the funny part of that day. I am young, thin. I have a full head of hair. I even look a bit buff…like a young hunk. This surprises me no end, since I am now a balding, tubby octogenarian whose appearance causes young’uns to avert their eyes in horror.

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How is it that, for at least a day, I was a hunk? How is it that today, I’m a chunk?

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What happened in the ensuing years?

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Of course, I’ll not know the answer to these questions, but I do have to admit that I never considered myself to be good-looking. As the years go by it becomes evident that each of us has at least one moment in life during which we feel worthy of perusal.

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Maybe that one moment for me was the Hurricane Creek moment. All other moments slip and slide away—unless a thoughtful Big Sister takes time to remind me that every good moment in life is filed away, ready for revival, if somebody is willing to re-gift it

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© Jim Reed 2024 A.D.

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