Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/PdrfGUPIFFc
or read his story below…
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Life, actually…
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ROUSTABOUT WEAKLING
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Jimmy Three sneaks into the family living room to check his appearance in the cracked full-length mirror next to the doorway. Jimmy lives at this moment back in 1952, when the entire life ahead of him will extend at least another bunch of decades.
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As an eleven-year-old going on twelve, Jimmy is wrestling with nature. Nature is pounding him with new feelings, fanciful insights, reality-laden fantasies, imaginary realities.
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Right now, Jimmy Three cannot see himself objectively in the wavy mirror. His vision is clouded by random ideas scattered in his path. Ideas of what grown-guys-to-be should look like, ideas of whether he will soon become a heroically handsome dude or a wimpy 98-pound weakling.
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He flexes his meager muscles, turning in the light. Not so good an image. Okay, I’ll probably be the last teammate selected for today’s playground games. Maybe I’ll get lucky and be the next-to-last selection, should my scrawny pal Billy show up.
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Jimmy Three should be in despair about his future prospects, but it turns out that he eventually does find hope and adventure in his own way. He is happiest when huddling over a favorite book. He is content to sketch and write random stories of his own. He is able to entertain himself, a talent he later learns that many kids never experience.
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Through the years Jimmy Three morphs his life into what is tailored for his own strengths and flaws. Intensely observing others of his species he comes to know that people are immensely interesting. He also learns that each person seems to be on track to becoming whatever they once were. Each starts out dreaming dreamy dreams about things that will never be. Those who finally come to terms with themselves eventually discard those peculiar ideas that never bore fruit.
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Jimmy Three and his fellow star-scattered roustabouts find ways to navigate the world using their own individualized roadmaps, not the pre-ordained roadmaps structured by dogma and prescribed behavior and rule makers and bullyboys.
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Maybe these roustabouts who avoid and disdain all ironclad dictums, will bump into things more often. Maybe they will measure their successes by refusing to measure their successes. Maybe they won’t turn out to be rich and famous and helpless. Maybe they will find their laughing places of bliss by simply taking one last look at a mirror and thereafter building their own wings and soaring their own migrations.
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Maybe being a 98-pound-weakling is a safe way to hide out from the improvised shaming devices that unhappy wanderers seek to toss my way, Jimmy Three tells himself
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© Jim Reed 2026 A.D.