Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube:
,
Life, actually…
.
THE FIFTEEN-MINUTE CHARITABLE DONATION SPREE
.
Let’s say that you plan to donate fifteen minutes of time to me. Fifteen minutes that I may employ in any manner I please.
.
Fifteen unconditional minutes of time.
.
When you make this charitable donation to me, how will I spend it?
.
Within the pages of my Red Clay Diary, here is a record of one fifteen-minute free space:
.
I sit in my car, motor idling and AC humming. With every tick of the tock, I am honored with sights and sounds and thoughts that might otherwise evaporate unnoticed. But this time I am paying attention to the donation.
.
I sit temporarily incarcerated before the double-padlocked whitewashed wood door of a solid barn-red building. A flea market resting quietly beside Highway 31, north of the village of Gardendale.
.
The otherwise empty parking lot is all mine for a few moments. I stare at the rusty tin roof, scan the plastic flowers in a show window, flowers awaiting the next funereal funeral, the next obit.
.
The elongated one-story structure archives thirty years of fond and curious memories, memories of hundreds of my visits made over the years, memories of trolling for all those artifacts that stand fragile and stoic.
.
Each artifact is a time capsule awaiting examination. Each is nonverbal company, each fond memory re-discovered stimulates a fresh diary entry.
.
Sounds silly, but this is a very real part of my Alabama life. So there.
.
On the other side of the padlocked door, uneven floors covered with carpets and rugs absorb the deep humidity. On this side, small scraggly flowers and weeds intermingle with asphalt and concrete parking stops.
.
I speak to my journal and my journal reciprocates as a marker pen scrawls these captive snapshots. Fifteen minutes. Feels like all the time in the world.
.
Does anybody dust the plastic petals? Does anybody douse them with liquid plastic?
.
A car pulls up next to mine. A familiar orange-sweatered manager fiddles with locks, carries a box of sinfully-decorated doughnuts and pastries…provisions for the upcoming workday.
.
I sigh. My fifteen-minute gift is well-spent. The next fifteen minutes will be spent talking and signifying with the guardians of this rustic haven.
.
Then I proceed to cruise and form silent friendships with each archived memory on display within this special den of antiquity
.
© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.
.