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http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/searsroebuckdoubledipped.mp3

or read his story below:

THE SEARS ROEBUCK DOUBLE DIPPED

CHOCOLATE COVERED PEANUT CLUSTER RUSH

Very busy day at the bookstore. Arrive home afterward. Grab snack and peruse newspapers. Avoid any article or media blast about disturbing news of the day, which pretty well encompasses any and all news. Succeed at this. Liz arrives home and we discuss her just-completed enjoyable presentation at the Alabama Writers’ Conclave. We decide to skip the Conclave dinner because she is tired and I am agoraphobic. A great match.

After dining and cleaning up, she slips off to her social media and I slip upstairs to don jammies and discard shoes. After staring glumly at part of a streamed melodrama I sneak downstairs to see what’s what in the refrigerator. What’s this? Half of a six-ounce bag of chocolate covered peanuts! I ascend the stairs and begin munching on this delicacy, a pale representation of what chocolate covered peanuts once were.

I’m teleported back to early-teenage time in Tuscaloosa, riding my second-hand thin-tired bicycle over curbs and along railroad tracks on the way home from the old Victorian home housing the public library. I head for Sears, Roebuck and Company down on 15th Street, park the unchained bike (who’s going to bother stealing it?) and head indoors for the Sears candy counter.

You don’t remember how the Sears candy counter is structured because you aren’t around when I am a teen. 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, “May I help you?” I try to contain my excitement and say in a steady if sometimes cracking 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 peanuts in a white paper bag. 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 the correct number 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 back from me.

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

I love going to Fife’s Cafeteria these day 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.

Back in the shop this week, I attempt 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 the small attentions I try to pay.

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

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

 © 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/onehundredfortycharacters.mp3

or read his story below:

140 CHARACTERS 100 DEGREES

Stepping into the morning, I hit an all-encompassing wall of 100-degree heat and humidity, SPLAT! just like Wile E. Coyote slamming into a brick wall. Wow!

I catch my breath and wade into the scorching mass like a ghost seeping through a closed door.

How will people behave on a day like this? I wonder. How will this affect their attitudes?

I soon know the answer during my amazing encounters with some 140 characters.

Won’t list all 140 encounters in this story, but will share a few with you.

CHARACTER 1

BEEP! The Roadrunner in the bubba jeep behind me taps his horn in the split second it takes the light to change and my foot to switch from brake to accelerator. My reaction is to remove foot from pedal and slow down a bit, a simple act of aggression exacerbated I suppose by the heat of the day…but eminently satisfying to me and doubly frustrating to the bubba jeep guy. He whizzes past and gets on with the journey, I resume my forward trek and smile a bit.

CHARACTER 2

I’m peering into a chest-high used-book bin at the thrift store to see what’s what, when a longsleeved arm curls around me from behind to grab a volume I’m examining. I turn to see who would do such a thing and just miss observing a different arm snatching a book from the other side of the bin. I sigh, count to eight and a half, and decide not to protest. These are just books and those are just locusts doing what they know how to do. I move on to a section of the store where nobody is hovering. My fun comes from silently–and alone–reading the titles and imagining the contents.

CHARACTER 3

The building I’m about to pass sports a long staircase upon which four orange-hard-hatted men wearing orange vests sit and chat next to four orange traffic cones. They don’t notice the heat of the morning because this is what they experience all day every hot day that occurs. They aren’t whiners like you and me. They are enjoying each other’s company.

CHARACTER 4

I’m at the car radio store standing by while a perspiring clerk lies on his side on the passenger seat of my vehicle, surgically probing for the top of a Flair marker that has leapt into the bowels of my cassette player and clogged the works. He’s a good sport and doesn’t mind the challenge. I’m proud of the player, ordered brand-new from Japan, where it is still manufactured. It gives me pleasure whenever I drive, because I can play all those wonderful old cassettes that have piled up over the years. EUREKA! he shouts as he displays the culprit he has just fished for and caught. He doesn’t want to charge me anything, but I feel it’s worth every cent of the twenty-dollar bill I slip him. He’s a good Samaritan.

CHARACTER 5

That hot evening, we are dining at our favorite Peruvian restaurant, being served by a brusque but efficient waiter who clicks into Polite as he brings the tab, making a little joke and hoping to engage us. We show our appreciation and actually do leave a nice tip.

CHARACTER 6

At the shop earlier in the heat of the day, I assist a customer whose face is remarkable–expressive dark eyes, soft lips, soft smile, pleasant and easy to deal with. As she prepares to leave, a shadow flickers over her countenance for just a second and some distant pain reveals itself. By the time I react, she is gone, like so many others whose sequestered lives remain out of reach. But I remember her face.

Back to the 100 degree day: These are just a few of the 140 characters with whom I engage or disengage. There are so many, so many. I appreciate them all, I wonder about them all. If you like, I’ll take a few at a time and describe them to you now and then. It’s important to record them somewhere, somehow, since daily life will distract them from ever getting around to writing it all down themselves.

Maybe you can help me archive all these lovely sad and happy people

© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/goodfathersabound.mp3

or read his story below:

GOOD FATHERS ABOUND

Today is Good Father’s Day. Tomorrow is Good Father’s Day. Every day is Good Father’s Day.

Good fathers come in many forms and packages.

Here’s my toast to:

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/dotherightthing.mp3

or read his story below:

DO THE RIGHT THING

Sometimes, I want to halt the traffic in my life and simply Do the Right Thing.

When I’ve had enough of the rambling, sometimes vicious, often hopeful, seldom unconfused thoughts and feelings that rain down upon me each and every day by way of directionless and fearful mass media, social media, over-the-back-fence palaverers, walk-by/drive-by criers and whisperers…I tend to shut down for a time.

Yep, I can only take so much of the ricocheting, emoting, subversive and uplifting chatternoise that has become our way of communicating with each other. Once in a while, I just want to sit quietly with a friend or two, unplug the devices that tell us how to act and purchase, close out the intrusive distractions, and simply have an unagenda’d conversation.

You know–I’d like to have what we used to call a dialogue, a brief period during which no-one talks over someone else’s talk. A moment when no-one shouts a dogma or bullies a subject flow or attempts to “win” a round.

My favorite times in life usually involve peaceful jiffies when I can learn a little more about you and who you are and who you wish to be and who you don’t want to be, a jiffy when you may actually ask me about my innermosts–and really listen up.

Sigh.

In reality, these moments seldom occur in my social life. The best times are still the times when Liz and I quietly share thoughts, feelings, experiences, laughter. I cherish these times above all others.

I suppose all I want in life is something to live up to, something to aspire toward, something that makes me want to get up in the morning…because it’s always possible that this morning will be slightly better than yesterday morning.

I take my inspiration from two works of art. If only I could make them my mantra, my template for getting through each tick tock of the day:

 “Do the right thing.”

–repeatedly spoken by “Da Mayor” (Ossie Davis) in Spike Lee’s film.

and

“Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

–written by Henry James

Hey, wouldn’t it be a nicer world if I could just spread the gospel of DO THE RIGHT THING and BE KIND?

Do you think we’d get along better if we could espouse this gentle gospel?

Oh, well, I do have peculiar thoughts now and then. Thought I’d share them with you

© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

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

or read his story below:

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

© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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• Listen to Jim’s podcast below:
• turnstiledawggs.mp3
• or read his story:

Turnstile DAWGGs form a Posse and Go After Me

“You never remember who I am, no matter how many times we meet,” an unsmiling woman says to me at a social gathering last night. She does not make eye contact. She wanders off. I still do not know who she is.

“Oh, I follow your blogs and love your writing,” another woman says after my speech to a writer’s group last Thursday. She doesn’t seem to mind whether I know her, she just wants to let me know that she knows me.

“No, I don’t read books!” a dismissive customer snaps at the shop last Friday. She makes it clear she’s just along for the ride with a group of booklovers who are having so much fun roving the aisles. She does not want to engage with me, and she makes clear her disapproval of my existence.

“Oh, my God, this is so enchanting,” a tourist exclaims as she enters the store. “I think I want to live here!” She likes me just the way I am.

And so on.

In unguarded moments of rumination, when I least expect it, I seem to be under scrutiny by all the individuals who have happened to me, who are happening to me, in these many decades past and present.

I’m on the run most of the time, trying to make sense and order out of the progression of washed and unwashed masses who people my daily life, attempting to sort out and understand each of these sometimes peculiar, often attractive, mostly unleashed folks who invade my memory and my daily moment to moment progress.

I’m not sure that I can stay ahead of the posse.

Sometimes I’m happy to be the center of attention. Other times I’d like to run and hide. In almost all instances, I am not quite sure what to say to the DAWGGs (Damned Angry Wailing Guys and Gals), so I just smile or pretend to be distracted.

Lying abed in the early morning, these disparate folk queue up on their side of a turnstile, and I attempt to examine them one by one–but you know how turnstiles work. Sometimes someone will leap over and go for me, sometimes someone will not know how to work the turnstile and will stall the entire line, sometimes people will calmly pass through and allow me to converse and learn more.

The best thing about memory-time is that I have some control over the posse. I can shut it down at will. But, once in a while, as I am dozing off, the posse will re-activate and all the DAWGGs will battle all the Lovelies for my soul

© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/obscurelocalauthor.mp3

or read his story below:

OBSCURE LOCAL AUTHOR TURNS OUT-OF-TOWN CELEBRITY

I will be addressing an annual writers’ gathering at the Huntsville Country Club Thursday night, and I can’t wait to hear what I’ll have to say.

Yep, it is an interesting phenomenon, this out-of-town expert thing. Here in Birmingham, I am your average obscure author, hardly known outside an erratic circle of acquaintances, readers and friends. But take me fifty miles out of town in any direction, and I suddenly become a small-time celebrity to unsuspecting audiences.

This is kind of nice, when I think about it. In the City, I can hide out behind the doors of Reed Books, plying my trade, engaging with customers, going home to my quiet life after hours, primarily unmolested, hopefully un-annoying to others.

But place me before an audience and I suddenly have license to pontificate on all kinds of ideas and subjects…and, unlike real day-to-life, I am actually listened to! People even take notes. Some folks approach me afterwards, asking my opinion and obtaining my autograph. And through it all, I always wonder, “What in the world makes me seem important to others for an hour? Why me?”

The wonderful thing about all this is that I truly enjoy my exchanges with audiences. For just a while, they become my students, I become their teacher or vizier. I learn from them, they take something of me with them, however fleeting.

So…what do I say to an unsuspecting audience?

Maybe I’ll explain my ideas on how a truly dedicated writer interacts with an inner voice. I might say something like, “A writer doesn’t say, ‘Oh, no, what terrible thing is about to happen?’ Instead, a writer doesn’t anticipate and instead says, ‘I wonder what will happen next?’ or ‘I wonder how that happened?’ or ‘I wonder what she is really like?’ or ‘I wonder what’s up?’ or ‘I wonder why I wonder?’ or ‘I wonder what it’s all about?’”

Pulling back from the subject at hand and allowing the story to tell itself is a grand experience. A story that is preordained is pretty much a leaden story. A tale that has the freedom to weave its own magic and simply dictate itself to the author is a tale as exciting as a roller coaster ride. Or at least a bumper car excursion.

So, unless something else occurs to me between now and Thursday night, perhaps this will be my approach to the audience of writers I will face.

Knowing my past behavior, though, something different may dictate itself to me on the drive to Huntsville and my own brain could surprise me by blurting out things I do not know that I know.

Can’t wait to hear what I have to say

© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

Twitter and Facebook

Listen to Jim’s podcast:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/everythinghasvalueexceptmoney.mp3

or read his story below:

Everything Has Value, Except Money

 My Red Clay Diary is safely hidden from harm within my Book of the Thousand and One Amazements, deep within a bank of red clay, covered over by kudzu.