Deep South Memories from a Red Clay Diary…

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or read his memoir below:

TEMPTATION IS WAY TOO TEMPTING

After spending ten years as a new member of my species, I begin to realize that I am in way over my head.

Way back yonder—right now, inside my diary—in the 1950s, everything seems so new, so fresh, so exciting, so…tempting.

Fortunately for me, I have my family and playmates and neighbors and teachers and relatives to keep me in line. Mostly. They are here to protect me, show me the way, warn me when I venture too far off-track, mend me when I crack or bruise or break.

This protective dome of caring and nurturing is keeping me alive and well till I can strike out on my own, which won’t be for another few years.

But the temptations remain.

When I am all alone and no-one is looking, I still am not really all alone. I keep picturing two funny and scary characters who people my world: upon my left shoulder smolders a tiny laughing, horned and pointy-tailed little red devil who eggs me on when I want to misbehave or bend unwritten rules or snap commandments in two. Upon my right shoulder resides a tiny angelic whispering little guy who whispers goodness in my ear, who pulls me back from the brink of sin and misbehavior.

These small beings are real enough in fertile imagination to balance me in my lifetime tightrope walk. Much of the time. And they fill in when I meander through solitude.

Characters like the devil and the angel formed themselves out of B-movies, comic books, Sunday school dogma, radio dramas, and stern adults who look out for my safety.

In these 1950s I don’t get away with much, at least until teenagedom encroaches and those temptations take on a hormonal power that cannot be ignored.

Now, some numerous decades later, I no longer see the angel and the devil, I no longer enjoy the safety of my long-gone grown-up protectors. Now I am fully aware that I am on my own, that I must answer to myself when I stray or when I have unacceptable inclinations. I am my own boss…which means I cannot blame anybody but myself for infractions, I cannot delegate guilt or regret to anyone but Me.

Dang! Being a grownup means I don’t look like a kid anymore. But it doesn’t mean that I am not still a kid deep within, a kid enjoying the idea of temptation, if not the reality of it.

I have become the avatar of all those families and playmates and neighbors and teachers and relatives who jump-started me. I feel free and confident and ready to face the snarkies and the meanies…most of the time.

But I keep an imaginary swatter nearby just in case the shoulder critters return one day to once again take over and confuse me. I never forget to thank them silently, these real and imaginary people who ushered me across the darkened chasm. These beings who slapped me together, patched and instructed me, brought me safely from way back then to right now, to this very minute.

Who kept me around just long enough to impart my fragile wisdom to an unexpected reader…You

© 2019 A.D. by Jim the Reed