Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/4Upi-kTkOHo
or read his transcript below:
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Life, actually…
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SHARING OUR LOAD SIDE BY SIDE
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“Oh we ain’t got a barrel of money, maybe we’re ragged and funny,
But we’ll travel along, singing a song, side by side.”
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I am plying my trade at the pc keyboard. Trying to make sense or silliness of the world around me.
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Either will do for now, you know. If I can’t delve deeply and discover the good the gooder and the goodest in life, at least I can search for silliness and a good laugh.
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Sometimes silliness and a good laugh will guide me through the day.
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“Through all kinds of weather, what if the sky should fall,
Just as long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter at all.”
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That song, that song. It keeps circulating through my daily activities. It is reaching out. Maybe it wants to tell me something.
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It does go on.
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“When they’ve all had their troubles and parted,
We’ll be the same as we started,
Just trav’ling along, singing our song, side by side.”
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At last it occurs to me that this is an old, old, 1920s song. A cheer-up song. A merry-distraction song.
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And now I recall the best performance of this song I ever witnessed.
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It is grammar-school time in my life, a time so far back that you could not possibly have been present to witness it. Here’s what I remember:
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Schoolmates Betty Jean Raiford and Betsy Boyer are all decked out for a short show they are about to perform right in front of the classroom of small students such as me.
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They wear coveralls and straw hats and imagine themselves to be merry hoboes on their way to who knows.
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Betty and Betsy are dancing and singing this old song. It is fun and funny.
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Here’s the best part: It’s bunches of decades later and I still remember the lyrics and the dancers and the schoolroom and the slanted wooden desks. I still feel the electricity in the air, the toothy smiles of the best-friends-for-life duo, the sound of soft hands applauding.
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Whatever happened to the bandanna-wrapped walking stick these merry hoboes waved about during their skit?
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Anyhow, Betty and Betsy did a good thing that day so long ago. They created a fond memory for me. A fond memory I can recall anytime I please.
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Incidentally, Betty Jean Raiford and Betsy Boyer remain best friends to this day. They are still a great team though they live far, far apart.
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All my far-back pals and playmates and friends still run amok and amuck in soggy, happy old memories, side by side by side.
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They can’t become mortal and finite because I won’t let them
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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed