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Listen to Jim’s 4-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/2G32pLL3Kqo
or read his transcript below:
Life, actually…
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MY ’54 CHEVY OIL GUZZLER AND I GO EXPLORING
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I am now time-travelled back to the days before interstate highways were a thing. I struggle to legally-park the green machine—my very first car, a rusty 1954 Chevrolet.
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Today, I get lucky. It only takes six forward-reverse maneuvers to land between designated white lines. I creak open the driver’s door and check to make sure adjacent vehicles are safely distanced from my precious cruiser.
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I enter the Jitney Junior—what you folks in the future will call a convenience store–and select enough snacks to last me through my upcoming journey.
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As I head down the winding blue road, I feel my independence beckoning. While inside this upholstered automatic-shift rattler, I am my own boss. I am king of my own little booth of privacy.
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The AM radio picks up a staticky signal, providing me with a private performance by Nat King Cole. The green machine and I politely stop to allow a rattling locomotive to pass by. A quick glance and a smiling wave are offered to the engineer. He returns the gesture.
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Once the earth stops rumbling, once the flashing red signals are dampened, once the coast is clear left and right, I push gas peddle, savor rail bumps, and begin the journey.
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In the rearview mirror I see plumes of blue-gray smoke as acceleration occurs. In the trunk are unopened cans of motor oil. I use several quarts a week, not to mention the required gallons of gas. A just-in-case empty gasoline can shudders next to the oil containers. An oily rag rests atop them, useful when frequent fluid checks are needed.
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Eventually, I pass city limits signs and arrive in the village of Moundville. The state park is my destination. While it is only a short distance from home, it is a great distance from civilization.
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Moundville is the quietist place. Very few people travel here among the enormous mounds constructed by long-gone Native Americans. The quietness is appropriate. The quietness is homage to the thriving village that used to be here. Beautiful green grass covers the mounds. Silence hovers, forcing introspection and meditation.
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I drive through the enormous area, then enter the museum that displays instructive artifacts and exhibits that remind those of us living that there were once earlier families and tribes going about their daily lives.
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Since childhood, my infrequent visits to Moundville have infused my imagination with the idea that others came and went before me. And that I, too, have arrived and will eventually be replaced by future others who in turn will live their lives…
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My sobering moments completed, I am now ready to check the oil, test the faulty gas gauge, dispose of cellophane wrappings that once housed nibbles, brush away the crumbs, and head back to my tribe.
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As I pass shops and eateries and service stations and asbestos-shingled bungalows and dusty side roads, I ponder a bit about things like small temporary villages, passing behaviors, gossamer lives, love and life and death, passion and listlessness, moral high and low grounds…you know, things that are unsolvable but must be mentally massaged once in a while.
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I think about the joys and terrors that I may experience in the coming decades of life on earth. I struggle to write these feeling and observations down so that each moment will mean much more than just another day, just another life.
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I am destined to be a writer and recorder. I just don’t know it yet
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Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.
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