MADE WITH REAL INGREDIENTS | redclaydiary.com

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary at https://youtu.be/ejT7MGS8Fvs

or read his transcript below:

Life, actually…

MADE WITH REAL INGREDIENTS

Way back home during way-back times Down South, our little close-knit family occupied the time we had by piddling around with words and phrases and imaginings and ideas and spontaneous improvisations.

This was before Television, before the Internet, before ear pods, before video games, before cell phones and smart phones.

Yes, my childhood took place way before any of these wonderfully frightening inventions took over our lives.

So, what did we, the Reed Family, do to entertain ourselves? We had books and board games and jigsaw puzzles and anthills and crossword puzzles and coloring books and model-airplane kits and magic sets and toys that required our devotion—we assembled things and glued things and painted things and created makeshift tree houses and re-purposed so many objects. A discarded umbrella, held high on a breezy day, could transport a roller-skater an entire village block. Two fists clasped just-so together would become a puffed-cheeks doomsday trumpet for backyard battles. A worn-through blanket could turn into a superhero cape. A painted high heel became Cinderella’s long-lost slipper.

And because we had never heard of all those new-fangled inventions to come, we were perfectly happy with what we could discover. Everything became a burst of imaginary possibilities.

All this might explain why I still read fortune cookies, why I look for the daily quote in a newspaper, why I cherish every short anecdote that reveals something delightful about humans and the nature of humans, why I take notes. All this might explain why ponies are still findable in our scattered and checkered world.

MADE WITH REAL INGREDIENTS is a bold and enthusiastic statement printed on a package of edibles I just opened. Yes, I still read cereal boxes and candy wrappers and creepy instructions. Yes, I still get some pleasure and puzzlement out of disjointed statements such as THIS FILM CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. This basically says the movie contains content. Wouldn’t we all assume this…or can content contain content? Some things are worthy of consideration, some are worthy of a good laugh and a nearby trash can.

I wonder whether I’ll ever see a package that states MADE WITH UNREAL INGREDIENTS.

I wonder whether I can prove that I am made with real ingredients.

Is this an unreal expectation on my part?

Don’t bother answering. I’m busy trimming down a Quaker Oats box to form a trading-card-size image to slip into the bubblegum card display at the shop.

Can’t wait to watch the browser’s reaction