Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast:  https://youtu.be/jmDqEj9vy14

or read his thoughts below: 

THE FEAST OF REMEMBRANCE ABOUT TO BEGIN

A plastic-gloved cook behind the deli counter teeters beneath the weight of a large shallow metal pan, deposits it into a form-fitting slot, peels away the Saran cover.

Through the glass that separates her from expectant customers, she can be seen wiping clean spillage surrounding the steaming marshmallow-speckled sweet potatoes. She reaches behind to retrieve a large serving spoon, places it nearby.

Let the feast almost begin!

The familiar fragrance beckons my taste buds, excites fond memories that extend backwards through decades piled upon decades.

Yams are mandatory at festive celebrations. Christmas. Thanksgiving. Family get-togethers. Reunions. Post-funeral gatherings. Birthdays. Fourth of July picnics.

In my times long adrift, I remember little things. Things that increase in size with each passing moment.

Sparklers in the hands of merrily lawn-dancing kids. Dumplings. Backyard barbeque. Spongy biscuits made from scratch. Laughing uncles and aunts and cousins and buddies and playmates and family. Fresh-picked-and-hot-buttered corn on the cob. Homemade ice cream with sliced peaches afloat. Tomatoes grown just a few feet away. Kosher pickles and crunchy carrot sticks.

Now the cook behind the deli counter, netted hair, white apron and all, is bringing forth another heated pan, this one brimming with crunchy fried chicken. Serving doesn’t begin for another ten minutes, so waiting becomes almost as intense as all those memories.

Deviled eggs. Babbling babies. Goofy kids filling cups with sweetened iced tea. Salt and pepper shakers awaiting vigorous shakes. Meat loaf soft and warm and beckoning. Paper straws and pacifiers and mushy peas in Gerber’s jars. Gravy. Red sauce. Catsup. Mustard. Hot peppers. Solemn blessings delivered by solemn patriarchs  prior to digging in.

One large pan of crusty corn bread completes the deli spread. And now we diners are about to queue up and prepare ourselves for overstuffing and remembering.

Remembering. Remember how nice remembering can be?

Fleeting remembrance being the most soul-enriching thing that can possibly happen during the next few minutes at this cafeteria

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

WEBSITE

Hear Jim’s 4-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/V5T7auhr5OQ

or read his transcript below:

THE TUSCALOOSA SEARS STORE DOUBLE-DIP CAPER

If I close my eyes for a moment or two, I find myself traveling back to days that are long gone but always right here, awaiting reanimation.

This time, I am back in long-ago Tuscaloosa, speeding toward the Sears Roebuck store on 15th Street.

My second-hand—maybe third-hand—wobbly-wheeled bicycle bounces over curbs and along railroad tracks on the way home from the old Victorian home housing the public library. I have exited Shangri-La, book in hand, and am now headed for nirvana.

I screech to a stop at Sears, park the unchained bike (who would bother stealing it?) and head indoors, hoping against hope that the candy counter is open for business.

You won’t remember how the Sears candy counter was structured if you aren’t as old as I. 

It is a free-standing island in the middle of the store, a blocked-off area surrounded on four sides by glass display cases filled with every dentist’s dream: tons of sweet confections.

The ritual is simple. I slowly encircle the rows of candy displays, gazing carefully at each and every item, imagining the taste and texture and heft of all these wonders, until I return to the spot where I began.

Then, invariably, I do the exact thing I’ve done a hundred times before. I approach the counter wherein the double-dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters beckon. 

I wait patiently for the candy counter clerk to notice me, never once removing my eyes from the peanuts, afraid someone will buy them up before I get my shot.

The clerk comes over, stares down at me over the scales, and asks pleasantly, “May I help you?”

I try to contain my excitement. I say in a steady if sometimes crackling voice, “Yes, I’d like some double dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters, please.”

“How much do you want?” she asks. I look at the per-ounce price and quickly count the change in my pockets.

“Uh, two dollars’ worth, please.”

The clerk opens her  side of the case to access the candy, fills an aluminum scoop with just under the correct amount ordered, and places the coated peanuts in a white paper bag atop a shiny scale.

Then, she does a most remarkable thing, a thing few clerks know how to do these days.

She weighs the bag, notes that it needs just a few more peanuts to rise to the two-dollar mark, scoops those up and bags them, folds the top of the sack, collects my money and hands over the goods.

The  other clerk, who is absent today, is the one no-one wants to deal with. She is the clerk who scoops up too many peanuts at once, bags them, then tilts the bag to empty its overloaded contents down to the two-dollar mark.

The first clerk makes me feel I’m getting something extra, the second clerk appears to be taking something away from me.

A life’s lesson I carry with me to this day.

I love going to the old Fife’s Cafeteria these days in downtown Birmingham for precisely the same reason I used to go to Sears. The servers in the line always add a little something to each serving, as if they’re slipping me an extra treat.

Blinking back to the present time, I am now in my bookstore, reminding myself to treat each customer as if there’s something extra in the book bag. I throw in a bookmark, give a modest discount, add a smile and a “hope you have a great day,” hoping that here and there, a customer will “get it” and appreciate these small attentions.

Even if the customer doesn’t notice, I do. I notice. And I go home feeling just a wee bit better about the world.

And, now and then, these days, I search the countryside in vain for some great double dipped chocolate covered peanut clusters served in a sparkling white paper bag

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

WEBSITE

Listen to JIm Reed’s Red Clay Diary blog:  https://youtu.be/cBsYLqoxmcc

or read his story below:           

WHAT TO WRITE WHEN YOU CAN’T WRITE     

 You can tell I just conducted a session for writers—professionals, wannabes, muses, students, learners. That is, you can tell by reading and pondering over a little message I delivered to them. Here is what I said in Orange Beach, Alabama on Sunday morning.

     Here’s something I wrote when I couldn’t think what to write.

     I just let my hand move with the pencil.

     Or maybe the pencil took over and moved my hand.

Sometimes I say things I don’t mean to say.

Sometimes I say things I do mean to say.

Sometimes I say things I do mean to say but don’t want

  you to know I meant to say.

Sometimes I say things I don’t mean to say and hope you

  know I don’t mean to say.

Sometimes I say things I do mean to say but hope you

  think I didn’t mean to say.

Sometimes I say things I do mean to say but hope you get

  the point of what I meant without being able to criticize

  me for that moment of seemingly unintentional honesty.

Sometimes I say things I do mean to say but hope you’ll

  think I didn’t mean to say so that you will get the point

  without my having to take any responsibility for what

  I’ve said.

Sometimes I say too much.

Sometimes I say too little.

Sometimes I wish I could say everything I want to say and

  have somebody not get bored.

Sometimes I wish I were cool enough to make bold and

  lasting statements without ever saying much of anything

  aloud.

The point is, writers gotta write. Even if they think there is nothing to write about. Not writing about not writing is itself something to write about.

If you are a writer or a ponderer or a reader or a muse or wonderer or a wanderer among words, try writing about nothing or something or something in between.

Good luck, comrade of words unspoken and words spoken. Let’s see what you come up with

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s podcast: https://youtu.be/RF2ZPW5PdoI

or read his words below. Or do both.

RISE OF THE ELECTRIC DREAM REARRANGER

“Be the last kid on your block to discover the wonders of television!”

The excited announcer on my small Bakelite radio receiver extols the endless joys of owning a television set. Only what he really says is, “Be the FIRST kid on your block to discover the wonders…”

To me, a 1950s kid accustomed to living among neighbors and playmates and closely-tied family, the arrival of a television set means the end of childhood. Almost the end of neighborhood. Certainly the end of playmates.

I find out about The Electric Dream Changer the first time I hop off the front porch and go yelling for the attention of my buddies—the kids I play with each summer day in this tiny world of Eastwood Avenue.

This one day, one of us is missing.

“Oh, Lenny, his folks got a new tv set,” Bubba tells me.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, when is he coming over?”

Bubba chews on a small piece of sugar cane and gazes down the street toward Lenny’s house. “He’s waiting for the show to come on. I don’t think he’ll be here for a while.”

“The show” is a black-and-white test pattern that stares back at the viewer, waiting to be replaced by Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody.

I reassess the playtime situation and wonder how gazing at a glass rectangle could be as much fun as playing Tarzan of the Apes in the back yard.

No more than a few days later, Bubba is gone, too, whisked away by another new television set.

Soon, I am playing by myself. Or playing with brother Ronny. Or, now and then, with any other tv-less kid on the block.

Sitting on the front porch after sundown, I await the usual passers-by, the neighbors and friends and relatives who visit and chat and gossip. Familiar faces now and then bearing gifts of pie or cookies or goodwill.

They stop coming as often. They are home, watching television.

I sigh and retreat into my small room and do what I always do when bereft of companions. I read. I write. I take notes. I ponder. I read some more.

It’s always comforting, being alone in my exciting land of books and imagination. But now I have to adjust to the fact that there will be no break-time for running amok outdoors. I rearrange my dreams to match my small reality. I become comfortable with myself.

But now and then I still miss those spontaneous play times, those instant yells and laughs, those boisterous and corny jokes. The ease with which we all share childhood.

Nowadays, as a writer, I get to remind myself and anyone paying attention, that there was once a time when face-to-face was so much fun.

When we just entertained one another.

When we didn’t delegate our so-precious time to faraway strangers

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary 4-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/wlKwWahQkyc

or read his story below:

QUESTIONS NEVER ASKED NEVER ANSWERED

I am lying in the backyard playground of childhood right now, facing the skies.

Fond memory takes me back.

Back to a moment in time when a rickety wood-and-canvas lawn chair is the only thing restraining me from falling to the twilight firefly-scattered grass.

As the western horizon of Tuscaloosa glows and dims, stars begin twinkling one by one by dozens. Planets renew their steady colors. Sounds of the neighborhood are so familiar I don’t hear them right now.

The dew glistens a bit under a rising moon behind me to the east. At this moment I am alone. Family members are scattered elsewhere, attending little league games, the scent of mustard and hot dogs beckoning. Attending movie theatres with friends.

My imagination has time to unleash itself during these caressing solo moments.  Now I am free to ponder all the imponderables of a fertile mind.

Questions, questions, tumbling about and prodding me to ask more than I can answer.

For instance:

When I am no longer earthbound, will my shadow know I’m gone? Shadows seem real because I can see them. I never take them for granted, for they are as much of the landscape as I. But no-one can tell me where shadows go, what they do when we are not looking, what they sense about me. Are they as real as me? If shadows are real, perhaps I am the ethereal being, subject to being birthed, living a life, going away someday.

Leaving the shadows to fend for themselves.

Pondering is so much fun. It makes me think outside my knowledge. It causes me to massage the universe on my own terms.

I shift in the lawn chair as a meteor flashes itself into joy, then disappears.

Another question:

When I am gone, will mirrors miss me? As long as I am around I can see my reverse self living a separate life in every mirror I pass. Is that reverse country the real country, am I just a reflection?

These are questions I never ask teachers or parents whose philosophies cannot absorb them. Sometimes these questions make me laugh, but I laugh only because they are serious and real. I enjoy them because they are unanswerable.

A high-flying airplane blinks from north to south, barely audible. Critters sing their songs. A lone puppy yaps twice, then resumes sleep.

The stars are out in full force now. Back in these days, before electricity forces nighttime away, there are so many stars above that I feel I can reach just a little higher than usual and touch them.

Right now, floating above earth on canvas, floating beneath the untouchable heavens, I can think my thoughts, write my notes, squirrel them away for future reference.

Right now, I am building an index to my life. And later, as late as the 21st century, I can dig the notes out, arrange them at will, and share them with you, whoever you are, wherever you are.

And, sharing these memories and dreams and reflections, I can ponder whether you are real or whether I just made you up in order to imagine that there are other dreamers like me, cruising the galaxy with nothing holding them back, at least for this precious moment

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s audio podcast: https://youtu.be/hrHYlBAf1JA

or read his story below…

PULLEY BONE WISHES, DRUMSTICK COMPETITIONS

Oh boy, I hope I hope I hope I get to get the only thing worth getting today.

I’m sitting here at the tiny dining table in the tiny dining room adjacent via swinging door to the tiny kitchen at my childhood home on Eastwood Avenue at the fulcrum of the tiny town of 1940′s Tuscaloosa.

My younger brother Ronny and older sister Barbara and handsome father Tommy and beautiful mother Frances are about to dine together this Sunday-after-church afternoon.

The fragrance of fresh-fried crunchy-breaded chicken blends with all the other fragrances of the hour. Steaming mashed potatoes. Hot corn bread. Carrot sticks. Gravy. Catsup for newly-shelled black-eyed peas. Salt and pepper for boosted flavor. Hot pepper for Dad. And maybe, just maybe, sweeter-than-sweet lemon meringue pie made from scratch.

This magical and flavorful event pales  in comparison to my lust for one big drumstick. Just one.

It’s more than desire. More than mouth-watering anticipation. More than hunger. We are always well-fed, no matter how scant the income, no matter how high the food prices. My parents find a way to shield us kids from the realities of scraping by. The drumstick will make everything feel right, feel secure.

Mother is always the last to sit down, for she is captain of the ship. She backs into the dining room from the kitchen, pushing the door behind her just enough to slip through, carrying a steaming platter of chicken.

I’m at the ready, hoping to get first dibs on a drumstick.

Everything is negotiable. Should Sister Barbara decide she wants first choice, she will get first choice. The privilege of being eldest child. Should my father be of a mind to have a drumstick, so it shall be. Should Mother want a drumstick—wait, Mother never gets the drumstick because she waits till everyone has chosen, then meekly selects from what’s left. Being youngest voter, Ronny takes whatever he’s served, at least till he becomes older and more assertive.

Today, Dad serves himself a thigh. Barbara grabs a drumstick. And, miracle of miracles, I get one, too! Life is good. Life would be even better if chickens came with five legs.

The feast is talkative and noisy and filled with laughter and signifying.

But one more ritual must be observed. One more punctuation mark must be applied to this happy mythology.

Who get’s the pulley bone?

Lunch-before-dessert will not be complete until two of us get to make wishes, then tug apart the pulley bone. Today, it’s Barbara and yours truly.

She holds one half of the slippery arch, I hold the other. We close our eyes and make our silent wishes. We pull hard. The pulley bone cracks.

One of us has a wish fulfilled

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s podcast:  https://youtu.be/adU4x_8LBNM

or read his thoughts below…

QUICK! BEFORE IT ROLLS UNDER SOMETHING!

Small Wisdoms Hidden Comforts Unexpected Joys

That is the working title of my upcoming book, in which I jot down errant ideas that, if not transcribed, will simply tumble out, fall to the floor, then roll under something. I am herewith quoting myself and no-one else!

Here’s a page from the book:

“It has been many years since I first occurred.”

“I think, therefore I might be.”

“Temptation is always so…tempting.”

“My enemy cannot take this moment from me. It’s the one thing my enemy cannot take. For the moment is already gone, too late to steal.”

“If precocious is a word, why isn’t postcocious a word?”

“If you keep an open mind won’t your thoughts tumble out?”

“Climb every molehill.”

“The purpose of all my writing is to pose the question, ‘Is this just me?’”

“There is no future like the present.”

“One day I will write a book about things not meant for what they will become.”

“I plan to die happy. Except for the dying part.”

“I like to brag about not being a braggart.”

“Write down your thoughts and feelings and inspirations. They just might mean something to your reader. Refrain from making judgments about what you write. You the writer are not competent to determine what is important and what is unimportant, so get out of the way of what you write and allow others to absorb or critique. You are merely taking dictation from your innards. Let it out. Let it happen!”

“Filling time is about all we do, whether or not we actually do anything.”

“Time is ephemeral but strangely real–no other unit of measure makes as much sense.”

“One task of the writer is to record all the disappearing reference points.”

“As I have traversed all these years, with myself as traveling companion, having never deserted Me, isn’t it about time I made friends with Me?”

“How many years will it take for you to become the person you always were?”

“I can’t get very far without my body.”

“What it is possible for me to become is beneath my hopes.”

“I seem to rely upon other people to make me feel bad. Why can’t I just feel bad on my own?”

“I believe in special moments and the disconnected interstices that come between them.”

“The flash of inspiration is the only truth, the only beauty, worth recording.”

“To pay appropriate homage to life it is important to thank Goodness whenever possible. Thank Goodness!”

” If my mind wanders, it can’t get far because it is tethered to the body within which I reside.”

“Would that I had been born fully grown, fully mature. Bid misspent time return!”

“An actual physical object is worthy of preservation because it is there to remind us of what happened when, what happened where, and what when and where felt like in the palm of a hand.”

“Wisdom imparted by the wind would be called a wind advisory.”

“Innocent bystanders. Where is the proof they are innocent?”

“My greatest hope is that Science will find Cheese Curls to be a sure path to a healthy life.”

“What is it I know that I have yet to learn?”

“If you speak the unspeakable, it isn’t.”

“I am the last Me standing.”

“Filling time is anything we do or do not do.”

“If you build it, there is no telling whether anybody will come.”

“Sooner or later is way too early.”

“Her shallowness ran deep.”

“I’m so skeptical I’m skeptical about my skepticism.”

“If you’ve never been bad, how will you know when you’re being good?”

“Why do people only have flights of fancy? Can’t one occasionally enjoy a seavoyage of fancy or a hike of fancy?”

“Acceptance is the only real test of a civilized world.”

“The curse of youth is that they think they have time.”

“Of all the Duddies I know, I am the Fuddiest.”

“Our fellow travelers are watching us, so we must set inspiring standards of behavior. If we fail to do this, what good are we?”

“Living a kindly life is difficult. Difficult is the only way anything good ever gets done.”

“I cannot keep my hands off books or my mind off the beauty of words and stories.”

“Don’t deny the enemy’s existence, just show the Universe that the enemy does not matter, has no effect, exerts zero control…over your innate ability to chuckle.”

“The present does not have much heft, since it is either immediately in the past or immediately about to happen.”

As I note, this is an excerpt from my next book. No telling how many thoughts have tumbled out and fled while I wasn’t paying attention

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 4-minute podcast:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbI3e3I5hZY

or read his words below:

NEXT IN LINE THROUGH GRITTED TEETH, PLEASE

The long gray line inches forward. Inch by inch, of course.

For a moment I am at the far end of the line, but I soon shed that status when other people queue up behind me. We are all temporary victims, er, postal patrons, waiting our turn at posting packages to far away climes.

Since we are in a long gray line we slowly become grayish and glum in order to match the gray and glum clerks whose mood is…gray and glum.

Just another day in postal service paradise. Just two clerks to service the long gray line.

Every few minutes, without looking up from the gray and glum counter, a clerk will shout out NEXT IN LINE! The uninitiated patrons do not first respond, since all they hear is the voice of someone saying something like NEXT’NLINE! No way to tell what this means the first time you hear it.

Eventually, a more experienced patron will nudge the nextinline person and say, “That means you.” As if startling oneself from a deep sleep, the nextinline looks around, sees a clerk with no customer, and makes the assumption that it’s time to go get postalized.

Once more, the line inches forward, then pauses.

The clerk mumbles something so muttery and rote that it’s barely understandable, SORRYFORTHEWAIT. It’s a mandated statement with no meaning, so it does not stand on its own as a sincere apology.

No matter, the patron is relieved at getting on with the transaction and escaping this gray place, the sooner the better.

Just as the line gets longer, one of the two clerks slaps down a CLOSED sign and disappears into the cavern behind her. The remaining clerk just keeps on keeping on, trying to be efficient, even polite at times, to diminish the line.

Once in a while the gray clerk brightens up when someone she knows arrives. They chat merrily. I am relieved that there is humanity acting itself out. I am not amused that this means the line will stop until the clerk is good and ready to reboot.

There are some ways I can help myself get through these moments. I can go postal and get all wrought up over much of nothing. Or I can enjoy the experience, talk and signify with my temporary nearby gray line neighbors. I can amuse myself by gazing at the posters designed to make me happy at being at the mercy of the system. I can watch the interaction between one glum and gray employee whose job is to tote boxes half her size from the outside, swing them up onto the counter, wipe sweat from her brow, then exit into the cavern to join her fellow worker.

Eventually, the second clerk reappears and yells NEXT IN LINE!

Life is back to normal.

As the gray line progresses, a flashback occurs. Way back when, when I visit London, the railway and tube clerks all exhibit the same behavior as these postal clerks. Through gritted teeth, they are required to constantly apologize for the lateness of the trains or the inconvenience of the people-processing.

WE APOLOGIZE! is repeated every minute or so, always through gritted teeth, always with some kind of repressed rage. Kind of scary. Just like right here, right now, at the big ol’ gray post office.

I finally get lucky and am faced with the only clerk who voluntarily smiles and converses while taking care of my packages. This is a blessing and I am appreciating it. We even share quips and jokes!

Then, as suddenly as it appears, her smile disappears after the transaction and she braces for the next patron after me. She also braces for the glum disapproval of the other clerk, who is thinking, What’s this good mood stuff all about? Something must be wrong with her. No good deed will remain unpunished.

I escape the gray line, rush to the gray parking lot and drive away, relieved and chuckling.

That wasn’t so bad, was it? I say to myself

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast:  https://youtu.be/QQBzh8ecwT8

or read below:

ONE MORE STRING OF PEARLS WEST OF EDEN

The incredible shrinking customer returns to the bookshop this morning.

Leaning forward as she rapidly walks straight ahead, she looks neither right nor left. Speaks not.

As she walks, she lists slightly to one side, steering her frail body toward a favorite category, vintage children’s books.

Maud is her name.

Maud has been entering the shop off and on for years, avidly searching for just the right titles to fill her evening, to fill her bookcase.

She seems to be diminishing in size, so that she is perhaps just under five feet tall these days.

Quickly, she brings two Lucy Maud Montgomery books to the counter and gruffly asks, “How much?”

As usual, I check the prices and report them, at which point she seems disapproving but accepting. Just how she manages to reject and accept simultaneously is a mystery.

She slings her backpack to the floor, digs into a bulging and tattered wallet, issues forth the required cash.

“Would you like a bag?” I ask, since the answer changes with each transaction.

“No,” she says, this day re-packaging her billfold and slipping the volumes into the darkened depths of the pack.

I say something innocuous about what a good writer Lucy Maud was, just to add a cheery period/paragraph to the morning.

She smiles and barks, “Yeah, it’s an easy read.”

I think to myself, I’m an easy Reed, too—–since I process customer interchanges, both boisterous and brisk, with the everlasting intention of leaving myself feeling better.

I hope to get a grin or two out of each book client. When this works, I am happy with my day and my Self. When it fails, I try to determine how things could have gone better.

Maud the incredible shrinking woman slings her backpack aft and teeters forward and sideways toward the door and her next encounter with street life.

I grab a sticky note and jot down a few words about Maud. In my mind, this moment is a wonderful translucent pearl that I stuff into my pocketful of pearls for later examination.

Each time I sit down to record these pearls, I retrieve additional wads of notes, arrange them chronologically, and eventually string them together into something I can report to you, my invisible reader.

I remind myself that I live and work just a few miles west of Eden, Alabama. I always give a Nod to the small town as I pass, a castaway eastbound to find books and pearls and people.

The books and pearls remain constants in my life, but as time passes the incredible shrinking people always seem to grow larger 

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed