Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/regardingthethousandandone.mp3

or read his comments below:

REGARDING THE THOUSAND AND ONE MUST-DO UNREWARDED KINDNESSES

I am walking gingerly, leaning into the gray wind of a gray day, dancing around gray asphalt cracks and humps to maintain balance long enough to enter the safety of the nearby store.

Everything seems like gray routine. The gray familiarity of this frequented trek is passing by so little noticed or noted that I could close my eyes and still find the door I seek.

Fluttering just behind and to the left of me is a gray figure navigating toward the  same destination. Her clothing is parachuting about her small frame, disrupting her course and causing her to exert extra effort to reach the entrance.

I automatically reach out to open the door, step aside to motion her through ahead of me, only just now paying attention to her face and the strands of hair crisscrossing her vision.

She hesitates to enter and I bow to indicate I’m waiting for her to precede me.

She glances at me for the first time, popping out of her strained inner thoughts long enough to raise her eyebrows,widen her eyes, and stare through me as if to say, “Why would you do something so nice for me? For someone like me? Of all people?”

I smile reassurance, she accepts my old-fashioned gentlemanly act just long enough to enter.

I follow her into the store, but she is already rushing across the aisles as if to avoid having to confirm a stranger’s kindness that must surely be misguided. As if to say, “You may change your mind and decide I’m not worthy of this act. I don’t want to face that possibility.”

The moment is a mere wisp. The gray routine of the gray day bears down upon us and we go our permanent separate ways toward indefinable destinies

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/uncleadronandthetithightemporary.mp3

or read his story below:

A special story from long ago, re-discovered within the pages of my Red Clay Diary:

UNCLE ADRON AND THE TIT-HIGH TEMPORARY

NO-TRAIN WATER-RESERVOIR RAILROAD RIDE

Uncle Adron is bouncing up and down, head nearly bopping the ceiling of his Model-A Ford automobile, each time he pops upward. He’s bouncing involuntarily about every second, so that you could set your watch by the sound of his bottom hitting the seat on the front driver’s side.

Uncle Adron is bouncing along because he’s driving one way across a railroad trestle in Lilita, Alabama. One way along a one-track traintrack, heading east.

The wheels of the Model-A don’t quite fit inside the parallel tracks, don’t quite fit onto the surfaces of the rails, and aren’t quite far enough apart to fit on the outer sides of the rails. So, the Model-A automobile is riding kind of side-saddle, the driver’s side wheels on the outer edge of the rails’ north side, the passenger-side wheels nudging the inner edge of the rails’ south side.

Below the trestle is water. No bridge. No road. No field. Just water. The water came from nowhere last night–at least, the water came from the sky in torrential rains and caused water to fill up the small valley under the train trestle. A lake appears where grazing grass lay yesterday, Saturday. A road had cut through that pasture on Saturday, the road that Adron and his three companions had travelled on westward early Saturday morning.

Right now, on Sunday, Adron is steering the Model-A to the east, trying to get home safely, hoping that the lumber mill behind him is closed on Sundays. It is the lumber company for which the railroad trestle exists, and trains usually go to and from the mill–when the mill is open for business.

At this moment, Adron is operating on his usual stock of blind faith and extra ounces of sheer gut and willpower. He’s hoping that the old tenant farmer who manages the hunting lodge nearby is right: “Nassuh, that sawmill don’t open on Sunday. Ain’t no train today!”

If the farmer is correct, Uncle Adron doesn’t have to worry about being hit by a train. All he has to worry about now is controlling the Model-A as it enters no-person’s land in the middle of the trestle, bumping over and intimately feeling each and every crosstie under the tracks. One moment of concentration broken could make those wheels slip beyond the trestle and the rails and the crossties.

Limping ahead of Uncle Adron, scouting to be sure there are no broken crossties or other surprises along the track, is Tommy Reed, my father. In the 1940′s, when Tommy and Adron are still young enough to have adventures such as this, Tommy is the cautious one, Adron the daring one.

Behind the Model-A, following like careful sheep, are Brandon McGee and Jack (Buddy) McGee, my uncles.

The four men have spent the weekend doing what they like best–travelling from Tuscaloosa past Epes, past Livingston, to go to the shack they call The Hunting Lodge in Lilita–a shack in the middle of nowhere (Lilita being almost nowhere, you see)–where they can have a few laughs, a few smokes, a chaw or two, without any visible signs of the heavy responsibilities they carry on their shoulders during the work week.

The Hunting Lodge is a place to listen to the silence, clean weapons, and talk without talking aloud, laugh now and then about the silliness of life and the predicaments they find themselves in now and then–and Now.

Earlier in the day, the four hunters weigh their possibilities, looking at that water below the trestle and wondering how deep it is, wondering whether they risk getting into even more trouble by trying to drive that Model-A Ford into and across the water. At last, help arrives. A large cow saunters to the edge of the lake that was on Friday its dinner buffet of mixed greens. The men stiffen and watch silently. If the cow walks across the water safely, they’ll take their chances in the Model-A. After another thoughtful pause–or thoughtless, as the case may be–the cow walks into the water and freezes.

“As soon as I seen that water go over the cow’s tits, I know’d it was too deep to drive across,” Uncle Adron tells me, a full fifty years later.

That’s when the four men–Tommy, Uncle Adron, Uncle Brandon and Uncle Buddy–put their heads together and come up with the Master Plan.

Now, here is Uncle Adron, bouncing up and down as the car lopes over the crossties one by one, looking down from the driver’s seat at nothing but a great expanse of uninvited and uninviting water, sticking his head out to see if he still has the feel of the car wheels hugging the train tracks.

And that’s the story.

Did Uncle Adron survive his adventure so that he could tell it to me fifty years later? I just told you that, didn’t I?

Did Uncle Buddy avoid having to jump into the lake to keep from being run over by a train, so that he could move to Harlingen, Texas, and raise a family and try to forget all the atrocities he’d seen as a paratrooper in World War II?

Did Uncle Brandon survive another day in order to work his father’s general store in Peterson, Alabama, for a few more decades, bringing laughter and fun to two generations of nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews?

Did Tommy Reed go back to being a carpenter on Monday morning, so that he could spend the next forty years raising kids and grandkids in Tuscaloosa?

Did I, the son of Tommy Reed, live long enough for Uncle Adron Herrin to finally tell me and my brother Tim the tale of the tit-high water reservoir and the one-way train trestle trip without a train in Lilita, Alabama

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/uncleadronandthe160acredrive.mp3

or read his tale below…

Red Clay Diary entry

Long, long ago, my brother Ronny and I drove deep into Cottondale, Alabama,

to do some time traveling:

UNCLE ADRON AND THE 160-ACRE BEAVER POND RIDE

My brother Ronny and I are just about ready to give up trying to find Uncle Adron’s 160-acre property in the middle of which sits the home we know he and Aunt Annabelle live in.

“I remember some of the road, so I know it’s around here somewhere,” says Ronny, who was last a visitor here some forty years ago.

Truth is, we are almost lost and not quite found in our search for the old homestead in Tuscaloosa County. Dirt roads and narrow-laned asphalt roads and orange washboard roads run this way and that, and the car I’m driving enters a different time and place and era every few minutes. Mobile homes perch on concrete blocks near century-old breezeway houses, and a little further along there’s a 1950’s ranch-style house with dirt bikes and pickup trucks in front–in back of which an old out-house and shambled barn still struggle to defy the gravity that is soon to pull them down. As we turn from blue road to red clay road, a shack with a satellite dish smugly hides its mysteries.

We finally give in to the 21st Century and whip out a cell phone to get Uncle Adron or somebody to tell us how to find the homestead.

And there it is–deep in the forest, there’s my cousin Harold and some of his brood, and sitting on the front porch in laconic meditation is Uncle Adron, who greets us as though we are dropping by for the second time this week.

There are no strangers in Uncle Adron’s world of family and kin.

As we talk and tour the old wooden house, we feel as if we’ve never left. In some ways, visiting Uncle Adron and Aunt Annabelle is like coming home after a rough day at work and finding out that work and everything else that occurs away from this place are fleeting and paper-thin.

Ronny knows which room he spent the night in 45 years ago, I know where Aunt Annabelle served up chicken and dumplings 50 years ago. We both know that this place in the depth of the countryside is as vivid and timeless as a cool drink of water from an old wooden bucket.

I step outside to clear my head of all these memories that are so sweet and compelling that at any moment they might bring with them a sadness that can’t be swept aside like a spiderweb.

Harold shows us the enormous prefab building where he runs his RFD business, and we look down the lane to see where grandkids live nearby.

“Can you show us around the property?” I ask Harold, certain that a nice brief hike in the woods would be therapeutic.

“You want to see the land?” Harold asks, as if he can’t quite believe that a city slicker would condescend to tour his front and back yards, the yards he sees every day.

“Sure, I’m serious,” I say.

Harold says, “OK,” and I start walking toward the trees.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Isn’t this the way?” I reply.

Harold starts getting into his large four-wheel vehicle. “You want a tour, don’t you?”

I have trouble believing that anybody would actually drive around their yard, rather than walk. Maybe it’s Harold’s bum leg. I get into the truck and yell for Ronny to join us.

Within seconds I understand why we’re trucking rather than walking. Uncle Adron’s property is enormous, and we’re about to see all of it.

Three country dogs appear out of nowhere and start running ahead of the vehicle, not behind it. They know the route, even though there is no visible road.

Harold takes us into deep brush, the car rocks side to side into and over century-old ruts. The limbs and leaves splat against the closed windows and we lose sight of the sun.

Looking behind us, I see no sign of where we’ve been. Ahead, only Harold and the dogs can tell where we’re going to wind up.

What if the truck goes dead? Will we survive out here in the compass-less land that nobody outside our family traverses?

We dive deep into small valleys, pop up into sunlight over brief hillocks, go through a scratchy meadow past natural-gas pumps, and wind up in the completely quiet forest near a beaver pond.

Harold turns off the motor and we roll down the windows.

To a city boy like me and a city boy like Ronny, there is silence. Our silence consists of hearing nothing we’re used to each day: airplanes, cars and trucks, horns, car alarms, shouted invectives, whirring air conditioners, boom boxes.

The silence of the forest takes over and overwhelms us. Insects communicating. Water lapping. Dry grass crunching under dog paws. Panting, wet dogs, frolicking in the pond.

The noisy silence of a million invisible insects going about their work-day, punching in, doing their shifts, living and protecting and procreating and dying in ways we cannot see.

“Sometimes, we come out here and just sit and watch the beavers and just be quiet,” Harold grins.

The dogs play in the water, swimming and snorting and acting like puppies.

And that’s where we remain for a long time, my brother Ronny and I…and that’s where we remain embedded in memory, long after we’ve made our respective treks back to Houston and Birmingham

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/thesloshingunnamedgoldfishdances.mp3

or read his story below:

THE SLOSHING UNNAMED GOLDFISH DANCES FOR ME AND ME ALONE

Something is sloshing around where things do not normally slosh around.

I am belted into the driver’s seat of an old car, an old car idling shakily in a line of traffic that is itself following rules of the road. We are all obediently waiting for a traffic light to morph from red to yellow to a third color destined to grant us permission to proceed.

As I said, something is wiggling around in my vision. At first I ascribe this to occasional hallucinogenic episodes caused by ocular migraines. But, no, migraine does not seem to be happening.

Then, I spot the source of sloshing.

The left lighted tail light of the car ahead is filled almost to the top with clear fluid. That fluid sloshes around in response to the car’s wobbling motor and the small jerky movements initiated by a fidgety brake foot.

The effect is that of a lava lamp operating at full speed. The only thing missing is goldfish.

I am momentarily mesmerized and entertained by this unexpected random act of art. I wish all tail lights nurtured goldfish and tiny turbulences such as this.

Suddenly the traffic light stops matching the color of the sloshing tail light and we lemmings are off and running toward vaguely manifested destinies.

My bookmobile knows by heart the route I travel so that my mind can wander off to spy upon the next installment of the upcoming thousand and one entertainments

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/letsliptherandomactsofthinking.mp3

or read his story below:

LET SLIP THE RANDOM ACTS OF THINKING

The vehicle before me on the open road sports a sign, “Fueled by Compressed Natural Gas.”

Aren’t we all?

The imagined title of a book destined never to hit the New York Times bestseller list, “Eat All You Want and Gain Unlimited  Weight.”

I don’t need to read it, I’ve lived it.

And one more: “When Good Things Happen to Bad People.” I hate when that happens.

So what’s the point of tossing these scrambled thoughts at you?

Well, this random act of thinking is meant to stimulate you, stimulate myself, into thinking outside The Dome, into revving up the imagination, into flushing out junk ideas in order to get way down into where all the good and great thoughts conceal themselves.

Phrases from books well read stay with me well beyond the pale. These phrases may mean something important if they remain floating about for an extended length of time.

Phrases like, “It reminded me of the irretrievable moment in childhood when we have not a care in the world.” That’s from author Jason Segal.

Here’s another, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” Juan Ramon Jimenez said that. It will swim about in my head until I absorb the metaphor and learn to apply it or live it.

Even graffiti can leave a lasting impression, “Soon we’ll all be older.”

You don’t  have to be talented or a genius or even skilled to think a great thought. Here’s one: “My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated, but not signed.” I could have said that, only Christopher Morley beat me to it.

What started all this? I am scheduled to conduct a writing workshop for high school students at Trinity School in Montgomery. I’ve learned over the years that, when speaking with an audience, I must first determine whether they are alive and energized, whether they are in the moment or just coasting. One way to do this is to toss them thoughts both common and great, then encourage them to throw in their own inspirations and ideas. Once they become part of the creative process, my job will be easy. If the audience has no ownership of the subject at hand, the session will be a dud.

When a voice within screams, “They’re alive! They’re alive!” I will be prepped and ready to lead, ready to guide them toward some kind of appreciation of the written word. Ready to let slip the random acts of thinking in which they wade. Ready to show them how to teach a writing workshop to me, the student.

Wish me luck. Better still, wish me success

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/jimmythreetakesonthegrinninggreencheesemoon.mp3

or read his tale below:

 JIMMY THREE TAKES ON THE GRINNING GREEN CHEESE MOON

Jimmy Three, all half-dozen years of him, stoops low in the grassy front yard of his family home. His head is close to the ground, his fingers busy sorting through a patch of clover.

He is searching for a four-leaf clover, the most elusive and sought-after treasure in this week’s world of Summer Kids.

Jimmy Three plops down on his fanny to relieve the strain from bent knees, takes a look around to see what he might have missed during his focused quest. Not much, apparently. The concrete sidewalk still leads from front steps to asphalt avenue. The nearby ant hill continues to teem with critters oblivious to small boys on front lawns.

Jimmy Three glances up at the sunned wispy blue sky and notices that part of the daytime moon is missing.

He dabs at his perspiring brow, realizing that he has never thought much about whether the moon might collide with the sun one day. He giggles and realizes that something like that could probably never happen.

Jimmy Three searches for four-leaf clover until red bugs and growing thirst distract him. He runs into the house, scratching legs and grabbing a jelly tumbler from the kitchen cabinet.

Slurping cool water is good, he decides. He holds the half-filled glass up to the window and briefly imagines he is a swimming ant afloat upon a clover leaf, enjoying the prismatic light that bends and dances therein.

After sundown, after a day of play and quest and chore and reality laced with fantasy, fantasy laced with reality, Jimmy Three returns to the lawn, this time the backyard lawn, to watch for fireflies, listen to insects, identify which distant barking dog belongs to which neighbor.

Lying on the wood and cloth folding lawn chair and examining the sky, he watches stars peek out one by one. Lone aircraft blink red and white far far above. Way off to the west, Jimmy Three sees the glow from downtown Tuscaloosa and listens to train whistles to the north and passing cars to the south and radio comedy shows from across the street.

But he doesn’t see the moon.

Hmm, guess the moon can’t be around every night, but I sure miss it, Jimmy Three thinks. Being a wistful tad, he closes his eyes and examines the moon in his mind, remembering the time he trained a playmate’s binoculars on the partial orb to see whether it really looked like green cheese. He laughed in awe at the pock marks, the cool white glow, the mysterious distance, the unattainable puzzle of it all.

Climbing into bed at bedtime, hugging a pillow, Jimmy Three continues to allow the surrounding yard and sky to flow through him. The two open windows of the bedroom invite night sounds, nearly deafening silences, to jostle his imagination and feed his enthusiasm for the awaiting sunrise.

And later, in deep sleep, Jimmy Three views the rising moon, the rising green cheese moon that gently grins at him and soothes his red bug skin

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/madewithrealingredients.mp3

or read his story below:

MADE WITH REAL INGREDIENTS

Most of my headlong rush toward maturity consists of getting used to the joy and terror of Juxtaposition.

You know, Juxtaposition—that creepy humanity thing that allows me to hold within my head every contradictory fact or factoid or false fact or fake factoid at the same moment. Thoughts and ideas that have nothing to do with each other pretend to reside side by side. What a neighborhood.

Things that don’t seem logical or plausible whirl about in an admixture most puzzling.

Take the smallest thing, for instance. A packaged food label boasts, “Made with Real Ingredients.”

How am I to interpret this? Shall I take it for granted that this slogan means the food is safe, harmless, wholesome and nutritious? That it is edible? Doesn’t sound scientifically vetted, does it?

Made with real ingredients. Shall I pick apart the existential meaninglessness of the blurb and show off my superior knowledge of semantics and context and literacy?

Made with real ingredients. Shall I research the phrase and try to understand it by determining what kinds of food containers harbor Unreal Ingredients?

Imagine a world where just one person creates phrases like Made with Real Ingredients. This person no doubt also created the disclaimer, “This Material Contains Adult Content.” This phrase essentially reminds us that said material contains content.

Don’t most things contain content? Does this mean that there is a greater Big Content in the Sky that encompasses all other Little Content?

Or, to simplify, is this just a stupidly meaningless idea that has not been examined or corrected by the boss of the phrase-creator…possibly a boss who is no more literate than the underling?

A more entertaining food label: Contains Adult Content Chock Full of Real Ingredients.

But then, what would Adult Content be like? Is this grown-up food that kids are not interested in eating? Are there other products containing Child Content?

I’ve lost my way here. I suppose you have, too.

Let’s take a break and raid the refrigerator in search of a snack containing adult childlike contents filled with ingredients of the real kind

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/tenfingerssplayedtwopalmsdown.mp3

or read on…

TEN FINGERS SPLAYED TWO PALMS DOWN JUST WEST AND SOUTH OF HERE

Without budging from this spot, without straying from this moment, I can visit anywhere I’ve ever been, any time I’ve ever lived.

That’s the beauty of being a writer, a diarist, a teller of tales, tales both true and actual.

I can bounce about inside the bubble of memory at will. I can recall and re-examine  what has been. I can look over my own shoulder and observe what is happening this instant.

Here I am this very instant standing among chatting stragglers after an evening meeting in the western part of the county. While other attendees discuss the lecture we’ve just heard, I quietly look down, finding that my hands are resting on a lectern, ten fingers splayed, palms facing downward.

What causes me to pay attention is the uneven texture of the lectern’s surface.

I bend to examine the grainy wood. There are hundreds of scrawlings left by previous touchers of the lectern. In merry disarray, the carvings are evidences of errant  visitors who just had to make their marks with knife, pen, pin or random pointed object. There are dates, symbols, initials, first names, secret notes, Morse codes for those who know the language, indications galore that someone no longer present was just passing through this hidden rehab facility and needed to find a way to tell a life’s story.

While my hands and fingers run over the wood, I am suddenly transported to a long ago time, a place south of here, where another lectern is experiencing the pressure of my touch. This time, I am feeling graffiti of a different kind—the stitched softness of a hand-made quilt that covers the lectern.

I am in the presence of the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, where I and the attending crowd are enamored of the quilts, the quilts filled with signs and symbols and documentations of lives once lived. Stories told in code and in secret from a time when not all voices were allowed to be heard.

Ten fingers splayed, two palms down, just south of here, feeling the electricity of lives lived differently from mine…another time, another place, where people just like me thrived and left their marks for later archaeologists to bring forth for re-examination.

It is a privilege to be the designated Noticer at any place, at any time, the teller of tales who desires to point out that which is so obvious it just might go unnoticed.

Whether I am west of here or south of here, I know that right before me my ten fingers and two palms are just waiting to learn something new, anxious to discover something that might give me new hope or at the very least a momentary peek beyond my own bubble

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/bookhoardingsaviorsofthebravenewworld.mp3

or

read his story below:

BOOKHOARDING SAVIORS OF THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

The bookshop door chimes its tune, indicating someone is enbooking or disenbooking.

I peer over the stacks and see the head of a customer who is coming into the store. I hear panting. I walk around the counter to see who’s who. There she is, a petite woman who is lugging a complete set of 1950′s Childcraft encyclopedias all by herself.

The orange-bound hardbacks are printed on heavy, glossy paper and weigh a lot. This is a set even I would have trouble carrying far.

“Yikes! Let me take those,” I sputter, just in time to see her avoid passing out. She is relieved and I am happy to transfer the set to a neutral surface.

“Well, I could have gone to your car and helped with these,” I say, smiling a greeting. But she does not need to hear this, since the deed is done and she wishes to say her piece.

“I just want you to have these. I’m donating them.”

I thank her profusely and note that the volumes are in excellent condition.

“I will make sure that the right person receives these,” I say. I plan to donate them because I already have several sets of these wonderful tomes.

The donor is pleased, thanks me, and disenbooks the building.

I pat the stack fondly, recalling the hundreds of fleeting childhood hours I spent reading and poring over their contents, time-traveling and universe-traversing and imagining things that can’t really be.

I spend some of my time these days attempting to explain why books like these must never be tossed and ground into recycling fodder.

When the donating woman hands over her treasure, she does not say, “Would you please throw these in the trash for me?” She does not say, “I don’t need this crap, could you take it off my hands?” She does not say, “Oh, you don’t want these—nobody reads anymore and they are just in the way.”

But other people say such things to me all the time.

On lucky days I get to rescue what they are discarding. I get to give things to the next person or entity who wants them.

I get to book things forward for the next in line, the cherishers of wonderful old evidences of our fragile civilization.

I  return to my nest behind the prospering stacks.

I await the chiming to come

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/hornswogglerswogglesanother.mp3

or read his swashbuckling story below:

Just another fond memory from the Red Clay Diary of an Alabama boy:

The Hornswoggler Swoggles Another Swashbuckler

I am sitting half-hidden in the tall grass of our back yard in 1952 Tuscaloosa, swatting at flies, clawing at red bugs on bare legs, tying tight a red bandanna to dam the rivulets of sweat pouring down my neck, day-dreaming about swashbucklers and hornswogglers.

I am quiet and vigilant, awaiting the appearance of brother Ronny.

I have a plan.

“Hey,” Ronny grins as he trots over to my nest, short pants, no shirt or shoes, perfectly attired for this hot summer day. Being a younger brother, Ronny is still willing to go along with just about anything his big brother comes up with.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s play like we’re Scaramouche and we’ll sword-fight to the death!”

We’ve just seen the Stewart Granger movie and assume for the moment that we, too, can learn to conquer evil with trusty swords in hand, given the chance.

“You be the bad guy and I’ll be Scaramouche!” I love saying the name—Scaramouche!

Of course, Ronny is almost always relegated to being the bad guy or the sidekick, and for now he doesn’t complain. When we play Tarzan, he’s Boy. When we play Lone Ranger, he’s Tonto. If it’s Roy Rogers, he’s Gabby Hayes.  If it’s Captain Marvel, he’s just Billy Batson.

Today, we can’t remember the name of the evil swordsman in Scaramouche, but that doesn’t much matter. Ronny knows he’ll have the honor of being defeated by Big Brother.

We find two semi-straight sticks of equal length and begin our idea of fierce swordsmanship. Knowing that our all-seeing all-knowing mother will know whether we’ve behaved, we are careful to knock sticks together without knocking heads or busting knuckles. We leap over the splintery hand-made saw horse, roll over a rusty oil drum, pole dance around the swing supports, wallow atop ant beds, all the while pretending to sword fight to the death.

After a while, the heat gets to us and we run to the kitchen for cold Pepsi and crumbly cookies.

Down all the years, I can’t help recalling all the wonderful fictitious sword fights I’ve witnessed on screen, in imagination most vivid. But the one sword fight to which all subsequent sword fights are compared is locked into memory.

Even  back then, we kids of summer know that there is something special about the Scaramouche fight. It is long and fierce. Very long. Very fierce. And daring, too. Between them, the dueling Mel Ferrer and Stewart Granger destroy an entire stage set, slash props, mangle a piano, leap over balconies, swing from velvet ropes…and all this with no musical background. Decades later, I learn to appreciate how dramatically loud silence can be. This sword fight is so ferocious that accentuating music is not needed in the least.

Nowadays, I get to check out my childhood impressions by re-viewing that marvelous battle. And sure enough, it still holds me in thrall.

I love many movie sword fights, including the one between Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone in The Court Jester and, of course, the great conflict between Inigo Montoya and Westley in The Princess Bride. In all of these battles, the viewer is simply lost in the passion of the moment. We really believe these people are fighting for their lives, or at least their honor!

But the best sword play in all memory is the one between Ronny and me. For at this one special moment, we really are Scaramouche and the Marquis de Maynes. We really are caught up in the most glorious of all battles—the one where imagination and hope win out over red bugs and itchy grass on a hot summer day in the long-ago, far-away land of pre-Buttercup Tuscaloosa

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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 A.D.