Hear Jim’s thoughts: https://youtu.be/-v-kKmL_6q0

or read his words below…

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Life, actually…

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INHALE EXHALE INHALE EXHALE AND SO ON

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My brown leather book satchel is fraying at the handle. I lug it along with me on the way to grammar school, this now-remembered morning.

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The brown leather frayed book satchel contains a broken pocket knife still serviceable should saber-toothed beasts approach, a beat-up textbook stamped approved by unseen boards of education, a number two yellow pencil in case of sudden learning, an overripe apple to nibble during recess, one Big Little Book about the Phantom should I have a chance to advance the illustrated adventure…

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What else snuggles within the cracking leather?

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Oh, a black-and-white snapshot of me and my sweet dog Brownie, a child-sized Aspergum tablet, a paper-wrapped tooth that ejected itself yesterday, and a yellow crayon that nobody loves. 

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I am young and innocent and self-contained at this moment in time. I wend my own way across the abandoned military encampment, a once-vital encampment that played its part in the recent war. Post-war grounds are now my playground, my beaten path to school, my nobody’s-land space between home and the rest of the world.

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On the rusty orange ground at my feet, something glitters and beckons. I stop and stoop and peer. It is a severed expansion-band ownerless wristwatch.

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I pick it up. I’ve never owned a real watch–only a frozen-time play watch that tells time twice a day.

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The face of this timepiece is also frozen. But just in case, I wind the stem and feel the satisfying notching that activates the inner workings.

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The watch still works, still tells me the correct Central Standard time, makes me aware of the minute-to-minute seconds that escort me through the day, still hides in my loose-change pants pocket. My first watch!

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I stand a little straighter, gaze smartly at the nearby abandoned red-brick-buildings, and continue my trek to school. I am now assured that now I can consider myself an important member of the tribe of men and women who keep up with time and make things happen.

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My initiation within the tribe will be complete once I own an unbroken expansion band that will allow the broken watch to join society on the wrist of a scrawny kid.

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A scrawny kid who just wants to get through the day in one piece, in order to get back to the Phantom and his righteous quest for truth and justice

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 © 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s podcast here: https://youtu.be/7pGw_wTQftY

or read his entry below…

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Life, actually…

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THE SPOILS OF PEACE

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There will always be peace and rumors of peace.

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This is what I keep telling myself.

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Peace does have a habit of breaking out once in a while. Before you know it, somebody somewhere slips up and discovers that there are quiet hiatuses to be enjoyed between wars.

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Just a thought. Maybe this thought arises as a symptom of stress and confusion. There are fifty ways to leave your peace of mind behind, when venturing into the streets each day.

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Wars overlapping wars, conflicts bumping into one another, intolerances busily compounding themselves, grisly thoughts arising from media-driven gossips who creatively puppet-master those who forget to close their eyes or stop up their ears.

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Even the most happily optimistic among us get blind-sided now and then by a plethora of hand-wringing and gnashing…news of the day becomes gloomy doom-saying mantras that are hard to ignore.

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Try to recall the goodwill we experience between the wars. Memories seem elusive after brutal times extend themselves. But memory and artifacts need tending to. Constant reminders do help us scrounge around for hope.

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Not nourishing my good memories is like drinking powdered milk from an anemic cow.

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While despots and self-involved bullies pretend to rule the world, we the people of hope continue to ply our trade. Our job is to fan the embers of good memory, good hope, goodwill, loving gestures. Our task is to embrace the idea that there will always be goodness and mercy. Even if we don’t envision it clearly, we know it is there. It is there because we imagine it. It is safely secured in our hearts and minds.

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Those anti-peacemongers can’t take it away from us because we preserve it out of sight disguised as invisible ideas and dreams

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© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s latest Red Clay Diary true story:https://youtu.be/XhdB16otMUc

or read it below…

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Life, actually…

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JACK IN THE BOX

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A brief glimpse into my little corner of Paradise…

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In the middle of the shop in the middle of the morning I’m in the middle of a 90%-sided conversation with a caller who wants to know which books I will purchase unseen from her simply by her phone descriptions…when a streetman walks in and hovers before me hoping to deflect my attention from the phone-in book lady.

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All the while, other customers ebb and flow among the stacks.

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Since the phone lady is first in queue, I’m asking the streetman to cruise around and browse until I’m finished—until the phone lady is finished, that is.

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Got to be nice to everybody all at once, in the tradition of good old-fashioned over-the-countering.

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The streetman’s body-shifting tells me he’s not here to buy anything, so after a while, I politely place the phone lady on hold to find out what’s up.

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“I need some meat on the table…I got this jack-in-the-box that’s old.”

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Oh, he wishes to sell me something.

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“Are you wanting to sell it?” I ask. “Yes,” he says.

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I notice that he isn’t carrying anything with him. “Do you have it here?” I ask. “No, but I can go get it,” he replies. “OK,” I say.

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I continue listening to the caller as she names the names of books, most of which I can’t purchase because 1) they are not titles that my regular customers wish to purchase 2) I already have multiple copies on hand 3) they’re in bad shape 4) and so on and et cetera.

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But I keep listening, because about every fifteenth title is indeed something I might consider buying once I examine it. She continues the litany, I continue checking on my other customers to see whether they’re finding what they need.

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The streetman re-enters the store with a shaggy canvas bag, so I motion that I’ll be with him in a mo’. He is sweating from the asphalt heat.

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By now, the phone lady has mentioned perhaps a boxful of books that I would consider purchasing should she bring them in…but she’s not through. I realize what I have suspected all along: despite my imagined super powers I simply cannot properly handle a dozen transactions at once.

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“Could you call back in an hour so we can continue this?” I ask, since I need to deal with the customers and the streetman. She agrees, I hang up and go around the counter to see what’s in the bag. My insatiable curiosity is what drives me and my business.

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 He pulls forth a metal-and-plastic cube from the early 1980’s, and I immediately begin turning the handle to see whether the mechanism works. The tune is unrecognizable, so my next hope is that the pop-up figure will work, allowing me to at least give the streetman something for his trouble and his table meat.

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A clown pops up on cue and looks rather cute, as beat-up music box clowns go, so I press him back into the box to see once more whether it’s a fluke or something an overgrown child might love to fool with once it goes onto a counter at the shop.

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The music doesn’t work this time, and the streetman is getting apprehensive. At this point, I’m ready to pay him something just to be a good Samaritan—uh, good Down-Souther—but he tries once again to make the box work, holding his mouth just right.

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It does work this time, which is enough for me. I offer him five dollars and he is grateful and leaves the shop gracefully, leaving me stuck back here in the best of all possible worlds—at an ancient bookstore where broken toys and busted memories co-exist and, on some days, make a rather nice home for themselves

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© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/lOVfuPhJDr8

or read his new true story below…

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Life, actually…

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THE Y’ALL-COME BOOK LOVERS OF THIRD AVENUE NORTH

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“Air conditioning!” Rhondrae enters the bookshop, smiling full speed ahead, and inhales deeply. “Do y’all know how lucky you are to have air conditioning?”

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Rhondrae freezes in place for a moment, experiencing the breeze. Her Goodyear Shoe Hospital is just across the street from Reed Books. It is more than a century old. Her youthfulness keeps it going.

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Rhondrae is one of many visitors today, each of whom arrives with tailor-made light and spasmodic energy. There are two New Yorkers enjoying the Bama vibe. There is a tattooed black-tee-shirted couple on their way to needle and ink sessions next door. There is a wee bit of a four-year-old who is excited about Dr. Seuss books and books about steam shovels.

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The sunshine these browsers gift to the shop produces an ambient glow that is hard to describe. You have to be here.

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Meanwhile, Rhondrae produces a bag of nibbles and sweets to share with us. She’s always feeding us with her energy and her goodies. Another customer bounces in and is ooing and ahhing at the plethora of books and goofy collectibles on display. She has found her bliss.

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I am grinning ear to ear. I am pleasured by the good feelings that pop up each time the door clangs open. Who will be next?

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A young man from DC arrives to roam the aisles and let us know what is happening in Xanadu these days. A family from the Panhandle is chuckling over a joke book, a nearby loft dweller pops in to add Agatha Christie to her hefty collection.

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I suppose this could be called Mr. Reed’s Neighborhood. At least it feels that way at times.

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Civil rights students and Louis L’Amour fans mingle with Nietzsche seekers and Lewis Grizzard lovers. Studiers seek Calvin and Hobbes and E.O. Wilson and King James Bibles and Mad Magazine. You just never know what people will ask for.

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I’m happily grinning again. I guess this is the kind of day I love recalling later on, when I’m home resting up for the next day’s onslaught of random goodwill and well-lit souls

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© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed