Catch Jim’s podcast at: https://youtu.be/hVeiYvF8T-Q

or read his original transcript below:

Life, actually…

ADVENTURES IN PHONELAND

IN OLDEN DAYS…this is how we make phone calls:

1. Lift phone from cradle.

2. Dial number.

3. Phone at other end of call rings.

4. If no-one answers, hang up and try again later.

5. If called person answers, conversation begins.

IN TIMES LIKE THESE…this is how we make phone calls:

1. Retrieve palm-sized phone from bag or purse or pocket.

2. Enter some kind of code.

3. Search for number of party about to be called.

4. Punch automated number.

5. After phone rings, listen to recorded message.

6. When beep occurs, leave message.

7. If impatient, text a thumb-animated message.

8. Disconnect and wait.

TODAY, CALL MY BOOKSTORE, USING OLD-TIME METHOD OR CURRENT METHOD…

1. Tapping fingers impatiently, wait for phone to ring three times.

2. Listen to message: “Happy memories from Reed Books and the Museum of Fond Memories. If you’re calling during business hours, this recording means I’m down the hall or on the other line. Please leave a message and I’ll call back. We’re in the shop Tuesdays through Saturdays. Phone and email and internet orders are available, along with curbside store pickup. All charge cards and paypal available, gift cards, too. And we really want to help you. Y’all come!” BEEP.

3. Leave your message. No texting available.

4. Should you not leave a message, I will not know you called, since I live in pre-caller-ID-land.

IN DAYS OF YORE, I NEVER HAVE TO RETRIEVE YOUR MESSAGE, SINCE NO MESSAGE MACHINE EXISTS. I just wait for you to call again.

IN TODAY’S WORLD, I must obtain your recorded message in order to find out what’s what.

1. I dial a ten-digit number

2.  A robotic voice asks me to enter area code and telephone number, then something called a PIN.

3. Voice chastises, “I‘m sorry, the number you entered does not match our records. If you have forgotten your number…”

4. I override rest of message and enter correct PIN thingy. It was nice of the robot to apologize.

5. Robotgirl shouts out, “Welcome to AT&T voice mail. You have one new voice message and no saved voice messages.” (The voice is answering a question I did not ask.)

5. Voice continues, “Main menu. To get your messages press one.”

6. I comply. After a beep, I’m told, “You have one voice message received today at 2 zero 9 pm from number 205-555-5555.” Why do I need to know the time and the number? I just want your message.

7. I listen to your message at last. I make notes.

8. Further robotic instructions: “To repeat, press 4.” Please, don’t repeat. I’m done.

9. I punch “7″ in order to hear that lovely voice again, “Erasing message.” Then, “You have no more messages.” OK, I get it. I have no more messages because I just erased them. Robot is beginning to sound condescending. 

10. I realize I am having an emotional reaction to an emotionless machine. Isolation has gone on too long. I need human contact.

Arrgh!

Did I spell “arrgh” correctly?

Now I’m talking to myself

© Jim Reed 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Listen to Jim’s podcast: http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/macysghostclerksinvade.mp3

or read his transcript below: 

Here is a five-years-ago page from my Deep South Red Clay Diary. It seems worthy of re-visitation. Maybe you, like me, hate to go shopping for new clothing. On the other hand, if you are a happy shopaholic, you probably at least know somebody as grumpy as I, hopelessly unstylish and fashionably unconscious. 

Ghost Clerks Invade the Aching Feet Treatment Center

I used to be an unreconstructed creature of habit, but now that I am of a certain advanced age, a new realization has come upon me.

Now my habits have habits.

And speaking of habits, even the clothes I don each day look something like nuns’ habits—-dark blazer over dark shirt above dark trousers anchored by dark shoes. I don’t have a particularly wise and witty reason for wearing black all the time. It just seems easier to match everything, easier to minimize my blobby girth. I don’t have to expend energy and time figuring out what I will wear today.

Anyhow, eventually even I—the guy who pays no attention to clothing—realize that my jacket is looking frayed and feeling poorly. So I make the long-dreaded trek to Macy’s to see whether the chain still carries a clone of the coat I’ve worn to a frazzle.

My fantasy is simple: I won’t even have to try on anything. I’ll just walk briskly to the Men’s Department, show the lining label to a clerk, and say, “I’d like to order two more of these, please.”

But you know and I know that nothing is ever as simple as it is. Everything is more complicated than it is. Everything costs more than it does.

I enter Macy’s and suddenly feel as if I’m in a haunted-house movie. Well-dressed clerks are scattered about, each maintaining a post in a specific department, each customerless, each staring straight ahead with pleasantness frozen on their faces just in case a supervisor wanders by for a pleasant-expression inspection.

What daydreams may come to these clerks, what soreness of foot and aching of back syndromes do they endure?

After a lifetime of encountering clerks from every walk of life, after decades of chatting with them and listening carefully to what they say aloud to one another, I have learned this: No matter how pleasant or dismissive or distracted they look, each one is glancing at the clock in anticipation of the next recess, the lunch break, the shift-ending hour. Each is hoping to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

The male clerk destined to assist me is pleasant, business-like, and robotic. I’ve never yet had a salesperson say, “Gee, that looks like crap on you. Don’t buy it—people will laugh.”

The clerk knows this silent truth, I know this to be so, thus I have to make my own judgement about whether I should purchase this jacket or that jacket. I’m always fortunate when Liz is able to accompany me and provide some feedback. Left up to me, I would buy the first thing I see (and I often do that), just to escape Robotics Land.

I make a selection, in the process learning that men’s clothing departments no longer offer alterations. I have to take my three-inches-too-long-sleeved blazer to another store that specializes in tailoring. The entire process takes an hour, not counting the return visit I will make to pick up the altered item.

See? As Liz Reed always says, “Everything takes longer than it does.”

In my 3 a.m. wide-awake insomniac meanderings, I add to my TO DO LIST: Send each Macy’s clerk a gift packet containing Epsom Salts, dark chocolate, aspirin and a thank-you note reading, “Be of good cheer. We’ve all been there, and you will get through this.”

The clerks won’t know what the heck that means, but at least I’ll feel better

© Jim Reed 2021 A.D.

WEBSITE

Catch Jim’s podcast: https://youtu.be/-C-2WaROSZA

or read his transcript below:

DODGING THOSE GERMY GERMS

The book browser leans forward, just inches from my face, and tells me all about the books he would love to find in the shop. Normally an enthusiastic exchange like this is pleasurable. But today it is frightening.

I suddenly realize that each time he speaks, he lowers his COVID mask so that I can hear him clearly. Each time he pauses to listen, he returns the mask to its secure position. I back away and hide behind a poster, as if I have something important to do. I have not yet learned how to diplomatically suggest that he keep his face covered. He is oblivious to the problem.

Another browser likes to tell delightful stories, but I have no idea what he’s saying because my attention is riveted. As he speaks, his mask slowly descends, revealing lower nose, then nostrils, then upper lip, then entire mouth, until nothing is safe but his double chin. He is unaware.

One customer walks briskly in, completely maskless, so focused that she only later realizes what she’s done. Embarressed, she covers face with hand and quickly gropes for a mask.

As time goes by, I become braver and more outspoken. I call attention to my concern by saying things like:

“Oops. Did you forget your mask?”

“Uh…if you don’t have a mask, we have a supply behind the counter.”

“I’m trying to avoid endangering my family, so that’s why I wear this mask.”

Most of the time, people respond without being asked, simply by noticing that I’m all masked up. Often, they apologize.

At the beginning of this pandemic, a rough-hewn family of seven enters the shop, no sign of masks.  This time, I just stay behind the counter, since no-one else is present. It is obvious that they are not there to buy books–just need to wander about, then leave. They don’t seem to be from around here. My cowardly behavior makes me vow never to remain silent again.

But on the other hand, I never want to be that old guy who yells, “Put on your mask!” or “Get off my lawn!”

Times are different now. I can see those danged COVID germs scattering themselves everywhere. Ducking doesn’t help. Wishing is useless. Posting notices creates a negative atmosphere. So, I just pleasantly and firmly–sometimes with humor–help folks cover up. Some, I have to instruct, since they don’t know that a bare nose is part of the problem.

Way back in the 1940s and 50s, when Nature and I were learning to negotiate the terms of my future life, I heard about germs at school and at home. For a while I thought that I could actually see the critters. So, when washing up, I pretended I was sending them to germ heaven, down the drain to a land they would understand.

Maybe staying ahead of germs is what got me from way back then to right now.

Or maybe I’m just plain lucky.

Mainly, I don’t want to be part of a preventable problem to others, so my life as a masked bookdealer is becoming a thing now.

It could be that masks will be all the fashion rage for years to come

© 2021 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/yUpXQVBTcuA

or read the transcript below:

THE SECRET LIFE OF OLD BOOKS

The seventy-year-old greeting card spins itself out of an old book I am opening. It falls gracefully to the floor of the shop. I bend to pick it up, forgetting for a moment the volume from which it escapes.

It’s a pink and lavender card all prettied up with a sleeping kitten, a vase of spring flowers, and spritely accents. It reads, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Daughter DEAR.

I can’t help but open this evocative little keepsake. My interest in the book wanes. What could possibly be inside this personally-addressed communique?

The printed verse is  perfect for the time in which it materializes. “Just as you’ve fulfilled our dreams, And made them all come true, We hope your future, Daughter, dear, Will do the same for you!”

Clearly signed in ink, “Love Mother (over).”

“Over” means that seventy years ago people actually wrote extended notes inside cards, on the blank page you find by unfolding it completely.

Here, in bold cursive script, is this particular message:

“Dear Virginia! Sugar I didn’t forget your Birthday but it is kinda hard for me to do things that I need to get around to. I am sending a Xmas pkg. I hope you want open it I dont know your new address but hope you get it O.K. I know you all are enjoying your new home. I hope you all have a merry Xmas. Write to me–I love you–Mother.”

I re-fold the card to its original form. I regard it as a tiny treasure long forgotten and squirreled away within the pages of a forgotten novel. I wonder what happened to the well-loved daughter who received it. I hope that her remaining friends and family recall her and her mom fondly. I hope somebody someday finds this cheerful little love note inside this old book. I hope it will endure as a marker.

As I acquire books of olde for my library, for my bookshop, I am careful to fan all pages for notes and keepsakes and notations and secret messages.

I should be satisfied enough with simply preserving and enjoying each book that finds its way to me. But in the process of examination and cherishing, what lies within becomes important, too.

Judging each book by its cover hardly even begins the treasure hunt that awaits me

© 2021 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/GjUhMuK-ldc

or read the actual diary below:

MEAGER GRUEL VS HIGH MORAL FIBER CEREAL

Sometimes I think that who I am today is a result of all those thousands of childhood breakfasts that boosted all those thousands of childhood mornings.

“Rise and shine, rise and shine!” That’s my mom peeking through the morning bedroom door at zombielike me aslumber on the top bunk. Brother Ronny below me wriggles awake, younger and more eager to embrace the morning.

I drop to the cool hardwood floor, dodging sunlight until my eyes adjust to the brightness of yet another day.

Ronny darts to the bathroom first while I search dresser drawers for clean trousers. I rub my eyes awake and head for the kitchen, the metallic creak of the hallway floor furnace grating croaking a Hello! Ouch! to bare feet.

The tiny kitchen already exudes the fragrances of the day, since Dad has already risen with the sun, broken his fast, and headed off to work, tin lunchbox atow.

Mom’s singsong voice creates the best part of the morning, “Let a little sunshine in, let a little sunshine in…open wide the windows, open wide the doors, and let a little sunshine in!”

Two cereal boxes beckon from the dining room table. Raisin Bran and Wheaties initiate my education at the moment. Perry’s Pride Homogenized Pasteurized milk bottles bring  dried flakes to life. The wrinkled raisins puff up, and reading and eating begin.

I take in the super-sports-hero blurbs before me, simultaneously searching for sugar cubes. Buttered grits are making their way to plastic place mats while sister Barbara joins the three of us with a pan of sinfully luring bacon.

Crunch and munch and slurp are accompanied by toasted light bread, and apple jelly is sure to follow.

Eating breakfast is just not eating breakfast without all those informative ads.

I avidly read milk bottle, jelly jar label, margarine wrapper, place mat inspirational slogan. Marveling over mysterious phrases, making a note to look up words seen for the first time, I am informing myself in the comfort of a loving home, learning my lessons without stern teacher overlords, getting excited just by bouncing about inside my own young imagination.

The kitchen table textbooks shamelessly promote themselves, making even federally-mandated contents disclosure an adventure.

Today, as an adult in these times, I still wonder why some people see mealtime as a meager gruel ordeal while others equate high fiber breakfast fare with high moral fiber.

As a writer of words, as a storyteller of tales, I have learned never to assume that what I am thinking or feeling or fearing or enjoying is beyond important enough to share. Each moment from childhood to geezerhood seems too precious to squander.

The fun I experience while sharing my tiny anecdotes with you is worth expressing. I hope that you are encouraged to make sure the split seconds of your life are cherished while the cherishing is still worth cherishing.

And I wish you many high moral fiber mornings

© 2021 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s podcast:  https://youtu.be/e9KrmDJ5uvE

or read his transcript:

JUST THE WRONG WORD AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME

I am idly scrawling, penknife-sharpened number-two pencil tightly clutched.

Even at this early age—a few generations back in time— I am an aimless writer of words. I note things I notice in this long-ago childhood southern village.

Even though my home back then is a modest bungalow, my parents tightly budgeted and careful about things like providing ample food and shelter for us kids, I am never in need of paper and pencil.

My masterly thoughts pour forth onto the backs of discarded family utility bills, advertising flyers, cancelled household checks, envelopes, whatever is handy. I live in a home where filling time with doodling and drawing and composing and reading is approved behavior.

Words and phrases are appearing on the page beneath my hunched-over frame. “I declare.” “I swan!” “I swanee.” “Sho’nuff.”

I like these words because they explain themselves, no dictionary needed. When Aunt Ann laughingly says “I declare!” it is clear that she is expressing amazement at something she just heard. Amazement and maybe a bit of disapproval.

When Uncle Brandon says “I swanee!” I know he’s basically substituting a phrase for something more colorful. Because he is around us little ones, his generation does not allow him to use profanity. He saves that for hunting trips with his buddies.

Every time Uncle Pat shouts “Sho’nuff!” I suppose that he is stifling a more dramatic phrase.

I make notes to verify all this someday when I become a full-grown scholar.

When someone says “Yikes!” it is immediately clear that amazement and humor are being conjoined.

When Mother says, “This ain’t the way you do that!” with a smile on her face, she is purposely using slang to make a point. She corrects us when we say ain’t, because she wants us to understand that her hero, Will Rogers, only used this word to elicit chuckles. In his newspaper columns, he employed both correct and incorrect expressions to make a point…and to let us know he knew better.

So, just sitting here bent over scraps of paper, getting ready to re-sharpen a number two pencil, I have already, this early in the day, learned a few things:

Different expressions, different dialects, can be tailored for appropriate audiences.

Surprisingly ungrammatical words become grammatical for a moment, mainly for effect.

A sense of humor can be used to teach harmless lessons, to gain attention, to force an unexpected laugh.

Some decades upon decades later, when I am setting down these thoughts for you, I smile at myself and realize that the world is still open for examination and subject to kindly criticisms and gentle corrections.

I may not be a world-famous writer, but my satisfaction comes from the momentary break in the day I bring to readers who could certainly use it in times like these.

I declare, it ain’t so bad, is it

© 2021 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay diary on youtube: https://youtu.be/2SbFCQQtdgk

or read his transcript below:

Life, Actually

 SMALL WISDOMS, HIDDEN COMFORTS, UNEXPECTED JOYS 

A New Year in this Deep South Village is just another year, right?

Well, maybe it is not just another year. Maybe this year, this instant in time, is as special and unique as it can possibly be.

Calling this just another year is like calling a brand new double-scoop ice cream cone just another ice cream cone.

If all ice cream cones were that boring, wouldn’t I give up on them?

That’s the thing about living life in the Deep South or anyplace else on earth or in space—every day is the same, every day is special at the same time. It’s the promise of what good things can happen, if only…if only this day were better, if only the next ice cream cone were the best of the best.

I like the fact that, lurking within most people, there is fresh hope, there is abiding love, there is resident happiness.

I know, I know, the on-site heckler will quickly point out the terrors and fears and us-and-them-is’ms that get in the way of antiquated concepts like love and hope and happiness. The heckler will point this out as if I don’t already have this knowledge.

I do have this knowledge. But if I dwell on the idea that at any moment the ice cream cone will fall to the ground, the ice cream cone may melt, the ice cream cone might be swiped and carried away by ice cream cone hoarders or ice cream cone kidnappers…if I dwell on this, where lies my enjoyment?

If I show only my sour disposition and pessimism to you, would you look forward to hanging out with me? Sure, I harbor negative thoughts, but here’s the thing: If that’s all I show you, what good am I? What is my worth? What is my reason for being anywhere?

It’s the dream of that next ice cream cone, the reality of that next ice cream cone, that keeps the hopers among us going. I can be a heckler or a hoper. It’s my choice.

It’s the difference between a chocolate ice cream cone topped with sprinkles  and a sauerkraut-filled cone topped with garlic.

You take your pick

© 2020 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: 

Life, Actually

A 1940s Deep South Christmas memory, both true and actual…

UNCLE ADRON & THE MODEL-A DANCING MOON CATCHER

My earliest impressions of the big city of Birmingham, Alabama came from the simple act of visiting there when I was very small.

My Uncle Adron and Aunt Annabelle Herrin would load us kids, their kids and my mother into their Model-A Ford and take us from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham by way of the old Old Birmingham Highway.

In my lifetime, there have been three Tuscaloosa-to-Birmingham routes. There was first the old Birmingham Highway that ran right past my Grandfather’s General Merchandise Store in Peterson, then there was the newer Birmingham Highway that bypassed the older road and began the demise of many businesses along the way, including, eventually, R.L. McGee General Merchandise.

The newer Birmingham highway was made of light asphalt and ran by Hamm’s Pottery and a host of other landmarks in Tuscaloosa County. Then, much later, both roads were consigned to oblivion when the Interstate 59 highway made travelling to Birmingham a lot faster and a lot less interesting.

But way back then, in the late 1940′s, the only logical route to the City was via the old Old Birmingham Highway, a black-asphalt, curvaceous two-lane route that took us past Peterson into Brookwood, from Brookwood to Bessemer, where we looked excitedly for the landmarks that would tell us Birmingham was near, such as the old Wigwam Motel—you could actually spend the night in a motel shaped like an Indian teepee, though I never got the chance to do it.

Then, we would look to the far right horizon in Bessemer to see who could spot the gigantic iron statue of the Roman God Vulcan, the world’s largest cast-iron statue standing atop Red Mountain. Once we saw this rusty icon, we knew we were near the end of our voyage.

Speeding along the old Old highway on a clear cold December night, you could see the near-full moon ahead of the Model-A, flying high in the purple-black sky. The moon would dance over the twisting road, touching the treetops, dipping out of sight, rising instantly high up as we followed that snaking trail and rose and fell with the hills and valleys along the way.

Uncle Adron, always a speed demon, would make that Model-A feel like a roller coaster, and he would always remind us that our primary goal was to catch up with that moon.

On the way to the annual Birmingham Christmas parade, we kids would wiggle all over the back seat in impossibly tortured anticipation of seeing the Meccas of the season: Santa Claus on a parade float, and S.H. Kress and F.W. Woolworth, where everything Santa could ever dream up would be on display.

Coming into Birmingham, my first impression was a lasting one: I had never seen so many Black people, and they were a beautiful sight to a small boy, since they seemed to be dressed up in brightly-colored outfits and stylish hats and shoes, the likes of which I had never seen in Tuscaloosa. I thought it would be wonderful to be able to dress so boldly, for bright mixtures of colors always signify to a kid happiness, good times and playfulness.

I noticed that White people didn’t dress nearly as well.

The big wide streets of Birmingham always seemed littered and not very well kept, compared to our little town of Tuscaloosa, but that didn’t much matter to us kids.

It would be unbearably cold on those Birmingham streets, but that was part of the excitement, you understand.

The parade would be gigantic, the stores brightly decorated, the city blocks long and arduous to walk, and the whole experience thoroughly exhausting and delightful.

Then, Uncle Adron would pack all of us and our purchases back into the old Model-A and start the long trip back to Tuscaloosa. By then, the dancing moon and the cold stars in the purple sky would be forgotten because we could snuggle down into our musky blankets and sleep the safe sleep of children who knew nothing bad would ever happen to them as long as Uncle Adron was in charge, as long as Uncle Adron was running away from that dancing moon and aiming us all back toward Tuscaloosa and our own sweet-smelling beds

© 2020 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/IT3KWMfHzW8 

or read his transcript below:

THE CHRISTMAS AFTER THIS ONE

 Let’s pretend today is the day after Christmas.

 Pretend it’s a few decades ago in the Deep South:

 What was that that just whizzed by and left us breathless, heavier, broker…and did we get anything out of it?

 What it was, was Christmas.

 Thought we had gotten the latest Christmas out of the way, but its vestiges are everywhere apparent, still.

 On the road back from Fort Payne, Alabama, this weekend, a plastic mailbox wreath blew tattered in the warm wind. On the baby grand piano in our foyer at home, a few wind-up toys and an electric train remain partially dismantled, and soon the small ceramic houses and latex Santas will take their long winter’s naps in tissue-padded gift boxes.

 The toys and trains and holly plastics are little jabs into the past, small probes I issue each year in an attempt to regain an old feeling or two that I can safely identify as the Christmas Feeling.

 I no longer feel self-conscious about it.

 The word has gone out: don’t get Poppy (me) anything but toys for Christmas.

I don’t care for clothes, don’t need a screwdriver or a tie, don’t want a gift certificate, have all the books in the world. Just get me toys, toys that are simple and whimsical and inexpensive.

After years of proclaiming this, the family has gotten the hint, and toys R me!

 The toys do help, and each one opened is one played with by adults around me who haven’t gotten a toy in years. I went around asking each adult I ran across before and after Christmas: are you getting toys for Christmas? Did you get a toy for Christmas? Each time, the same response: a defensive twitch followed by something nameless crossing the face, and then an almost forlorn, “Well, no, I guess I didn’t get a toy.”

 And I watch visitors to our home at Christmastime. They are first taken a bit aback by the toys I pull out and put on display each year. And within minutes they’re fiddling with them self-consciously, then, later, they sneak back to the piano, and we’ll find them winding and switching and playing by themselves with little grins of private satisfaction they probably haven’t had for a long time.

 Allow me a few dollars to spend on a gift for you and I’ll find a toy that meets all the requirements of a Christmas toy: it’ll puzzle you, delight you, make you chuckle out loud, and if all is according to schedule, it’ll break before the day is through. But that’s OK. Part of the joy is taping and pasting it back together and making it work again—gives me an excuse to take it apart to see what makes it tick.

 Of course, I can’t diddle like this all year, or folks will start thinking up reasons to put me away safely.

 So, I’ll store those Christmas toys away sometime this week, just minutes before my wife is finally exasperated beyond all patience, and I’ll give her a hug she may not have time for and assure her that her foyer and her piano are all hers again for another eleven months.

 And I’ll gleefully think of the day next December when I’ll casually say to her, “Why don’t we get the toys out this year for the kids to enjoy?” knowing full well that kids will pay little attention to them—after all, kids are used to having toys around all year.

 It’s the kids abed within us who want so badly to have their toys back and around them just one more time

© 2020 A.D. by Jim Reed